Modern slavery and the Global Reporting Initiative – A bridge too far?

Abstract

As the Global Reporting Initiative currently provides the most widely used set of voluntary sustainability reporting standards, the question arises as to the extent to which the Initiative's multi‐stakeholder governance is helping towards ending modern slavery in line with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 8. Stakeholder theory and examination of the Initiative's sustainability standards are used, to examine the issue. Evidence from the Initiative's set of universal, topic and sector standards reveals that, while forced and child labour are identified as granular material topics for sustainability reporting, the broader concept of modern slavery has not been recognised as a required material theme for disclosure. One recent exception is voluntary publication of three new sector standards, where the modern slavery term appears to be introduced as a symbolic rather than a substantive notion. Main contributions from the research relate to, first, providing a critique of the multi‐stakeholder foundations for governance as used by the Initiative; second, examination of the results of the Initiative's standard setting process in terms of its standards and their incorporation of modern slavery, from a multi‐stakeholder governance perspective with the hope of improving governance in the future.

Taming wicked problems through international business policy: recommendations for addressing modern slavery

“…root causes, motivations) they should be engaged (Noordegraaf et al , 2019). This requires strategizing, which makes strategy an integral part of wicked problem thinking (Camillus, 2008), especially in terms of managing various stakeholders (Burritt and Christ, 2023).…”

“…The issues associated with failures in multilateral global governance can be mirrored by similar governance failures in self-regulation, self-monitoring and disclosures at the market and/or industry level (Schaper and Pollach, 2023). Far from stakeholder-centric normative approaches to stakeholder management (Burritt and Christ, 2023), various types of self-regulation, self-monitoring and disclosures are motivated by instrumental stakeholder management philosophies and grounded in establishing legitimacy among stakeholders as a form of “image currency” for firms in an increasingly narrative type of economy (Schaper and Pollach, 2023).…”

“…Of particular relevance to modern slavery at the organizational level of the double helix is the fact that while most firms, especially MNEs, have shifted from shareholder wealth maximization to stakeholder management (Crilly, 2011), the adoption of stakeholder management practices is still prone to cherry-picking (Peters, 2017) aligning with specific business causes (Sinkovics et al , 2021). Burritt and Christ (2023) point to the predominance of descriptive and/or instrumental stakeholder management approaches over normative stakeholder management approaches. While the descriptive approach focuses on reporting and narrative, the instrumental stakeholder management approach shows that active engagement with various stakeholders is in the best interest of the firm and means to achieving organizational goals.…”

“…Storytelling helps humanize work across the value chain and build agency for the actors involved. This is opposite to treating workers as “human capital.” Storytelling can help shift an organization’s stakeholder management philosophy from an instrumental logic focusing on the organization’s goals to a stakeholder-centric normative stakeholder philosophy (Burritt and Christ, 2023).…”

Challenges in Developing Annual and Sustainability Reports: Is Data Management Matter?

“…Those without robust reporting mechanisms find it difficult to implement GRI guidelines effectively. Furthermore, preparing detailed sustainability reports is time-consuming and costly, which can deter companies from engaging in such reporting (Burritt & Christ, 2023;Moggi, 2023).…”