Board-level codetermination: A driving force for corporate social responsibility in German companies?

Robert Scholz and Sigurt Vitols

EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, 2019, vol. 25, issue 3, 233-246

Abstract: We examine the relationship between board-level codetermination and corporate social responsibility in German companies, engaging with two distinct literatures. Most quantitative studies of codetermination focus on its economic impact, with little attention to other outcomes. Studies of corporate social responsibility rarely consider the role of worker representatives. Our new measure of the strength of codetermination, the Mitbestimmungsindex (MB-ix), shows a positive relationship with ‘substantive’ policies such as the adoption of targets for reducing pollution, but not with ‘symbolic’ policies, such as membership of the UN Global Compact. We therefore shed new light on the role of codetermination and provide a more differentiated view of the spread of what has been termed ‘explicit’ corporate social responsibility in Germany.

Keywords: codetermination; corporate social responsibility; sustainability; worker participation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (18)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:zbw:espost:214273

DOI: 10.1177/0959680119830566

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