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Transnational Corporations

Power, Influence and Responsibility

University of Sheffield, UK s.macleod{at}sheffield.ac.uk

Douglas Lewis

University of Sheffield, UK

In terms of the New World Order, the largest Transnational Corporations (TNCs) are central players. They influence the policies of governments worldwide; they help to order the agenda of the World Trade Organization. They influence the destinies of individual economies in the developing world, they have a crucial impact on the eco-system, they set wage-levels, which can cause the first world to bend to their demands, and so on. Any constitutional architect who does not attempt to set a framework of accountability and global citizenship for the TNCs would demean their craft. How do we orchestrate the healthy influence of TNCs in terms of economic growth and opportunity with the necessity of their conforming to the underlying values of the world community? Can we legislate for corporate responsibility and if so, how? If not, what alternatives are available? This article will explore the values and mechanisms for ensuring that the corporate world is in tune with the expectations of cosmopolitan democracy. How much can be done by national governments, how much can be done by regional groupings such as the EU, how much can be done by bodies such as the OECD, what is the influence of global trade unions, can codes of practice be influential and if so, who are the most promising prime movers? Can procurement policies be directed to achieve corporate responsibility and how influential is civil society in the form of NGOs, for example? More and more detailed information is becoming available on the influential activities of TNCs but as yet there appears to be no game plan for where they fit in to canons of global responsibility. This article explores some possibilities.

Key Words: corporate social responsibility • globalization • international organization • regulation • transnational corporation

Global Social Policy, Vol. 4, No. 1, 77-98 (2004)
DOI: 10.1177/1468018104040986


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