Jurisgenerative role of auditors in transnational labor governance

Due diligence and corporate disclosure initiatives effectively expand the role of professional service firms as regulatory intermediaries in the governance of conditions of production in global supply chains. In this paper, we examine the rise of the “Big Four” audit firms in the market for services connected to transnational labor governance. Through a qualitative case study of audit firms in modern slavery governance, we argue that the Big Four's political repertoire for transnational labor governance expands beyond the roles that are typically linked to their services, and promotes an agenda that touches on key debates on what constitutes proper transnational labor governance. Big audit firms engage in a variety of informal and covert influencing practices and are shown to promote an agenda of incrementalist soft‐law labor governance, opposing concrete performance targets, binding public regulation and an independent watchdog role for civil society.

“…; Blair et al . ; Green ; Bouteligier ; Dingwerth & Eichinger ; Knox‐Hayes & Levy ; Paiement ) and to explore the significance of service firms for environmental and labor governance.…”

Section: Audit Firms As Regulatory Intermediariesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Big audit firms as regulatory intermediaries in transnational labor governance

Fransen

LeBaron

2018

“…Yet interpretive intermediation (official but unformalized) also runs a greater risk of being captured through formalization with the development of an informational advantage (Fransen & Lebaron ). Formal intermediation, although possibly allowing greater control by the regulator, may not fit all contexts, and may even be counterproductive under specific circumstances (Paiement ). In this sense, our model complements the one offered by Kourula et al (), which also provides a pragmatic, role‐oriented portrayal of different intermediations and their potentialities for regulation.…”

Section: Implications and Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Exploring the formal and informal roles of regulatory intermediaries in transnational multistakeholder regulation

Brès

Mena

Salles‐Djelic

2019

Research on regulation and regulatory processes has traditionally focused on two prominent roles: rulemaking and rule‐taking. Recently, the mediating role of third party actors, regulatory intermediaries, has started to be explored – notably in a dedicated special issue of the ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science. The present special issue extends this line of research by elaborating the distinction between formal and informal modes of regulatory intermediation, in the specific context of transnational multistakeholder regulation. In this introduction, we identify two key dimensions of intermediation (in)formalism: officialization and formalization. This allows us to develop a typology of intermediation in multistakeholder regulatory processes: formal, interpretive, alternative, and emergent. Leveraging examples from the papers in this special issue, we discuss how these four types of intermediation coexist and evolve over time. Finally, we elaborate on the implications of our typology for regulatory processes and outcomes.

“…), and further attesting to the intrinsically dynamic aspects of intermediary work (Bothello & Mehrpouya ; Ména et al . ; Paiement ), the material affordances provided by FracFocus were particularly timely, occurring a few months after Wyoming became the first state to mandate disclosure. This was at the very beginning of the fracking boom (Meko & Karklis ) and at the height of public debate following field configuring events (Hardy & Maguire ), such as the attempted enactment of the “FRAC Act” in 2009, the release of Gasland in 2010 (Cahoy et al .…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Consequently, a key focus of research in the R–I–T–B framework has been to examine whose interests are served by governance structures involving intermediaries – those of the regulators (Paiement ), targets (Maggetti et al . ), or intended beneficiaries (Monciardini & Conaldi ), or even the interests of the intermediaries themselves (Auld & Renckens ; Galland ; Kruck ).…”

Section: Theoretical Backgroundmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…While subject to alternative interpretations, in each of these examples an authoritative actor (R) devised a formalized set of directives (I) that was meant to modify industry practices and performance (T) for the benefit of the public at large (B). In prior research, scholars have interpreted intermediaries as either self‐interested entities driven by institutional pressures (van der Heijden ) or collectives of human actors operating in a conflicted environment (Pegram ; Paiement ). We complement these theoretical advances by exploring the mechanisms through which the material affordances of information disclosure influence regulators, targets, and beneficiaries.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Opaque transparency: How material affordances shape intermediary work

Avidan

Etzion

Gehman

2018

How do the material aspects of intermediary work affect regulators, targets, and beneficiaries? To shed light on this question, we studied an information intermediary in the form of a website and the organizations who founded it. Specifically, we analyzed FracFocus, a self‐regulatory initiative with strong industry ties, charged with disclosing data pertaining to the chemicals used in oil and gas wells completed using hydraulic fracturing technology (fracking) in the United States and Canada. We found that between 2010 and mid‐2017, the vast majority of legislation in states and provinces where fracking actively occurred was updated to mandate or encourage disclosure via FracFocus, meaning that it had a considerable effect on the trajectory of official regulation on fracking disclosure. We also found that FracFocus disclosed important data but did so in a manner that limited accessibility and reduced the comprehensibility of environmental and public health risks to beneficiaries. Our analysis suggests that the public's experience of such a device is one of opaque transparency, in which the line between official and non‐official regulation is blurred. We traced these outcomes to the material affordances created by FracFocus.