Equity and Regulation

This chapter considers the role of equity and regulation in corporate social responsibility (CSR). In particular, the chapter addresses the question of how regulation can ensure that CSR practices reflect and promote stakeholder equity as underlined by the social contract theory and the stakeholder model which have had a major influence on the conception of CSR. In demonstrating that equity is a fundamental goal of CSR due to those theoretical models, the chapter shows that regulation is not antithetical to CSR despite the prevalence of the voluntarist and neoliberal orientations in practice and scholarly definitions. It highlights certain circumstances that may trigger the need for addressing stakeholder equity issues in the conception and practice of CSR which a regulatory framework needs to take into consideration. These include corporate power and influence, corporate governance, clash between economic and social goals and matters of intergenerational equity, institutions voids, contextualism, and operations of multinational enterprises. The chapter shows that neoliberal orientations that promote individualism and self-regulation are unsuitable for stakeholder equity. Drawing on the institutional and stakeholder theoretic models, the chapter further identifies opportunities for integrating and promoting stakeholder equity while providing regulatory arrangements for CSR.