Co-determination: A driving force for corporate social responsibility in German companies?

Robert Scholz and Sigurt Vitols

Discussion Papers, Research Group Globalization, Work, and Production from WZB Berlin Social Science Center

Abstract: This discussion paper examines the relationship between co-determination and corporate social responsibility (CSR) in German companies, thereby addressing two distinct literatures. On the one hand, most quantitative studies of co-determination focus on its economic impact, with relatively little attention paid to other kinds of outcomes. On the other hand, few studies on CSR have looked at the role of worker representatives. Using a new measure of co-determination strength, the Mitbestimmungsindex (MB-ix), it is demonstrated that co-determination strength is positively related to the presence of "substantive" CSR policies, such as the adoption of targets for reducing pollution, but is unrelated to "symbolic" CSR policies, such as membership in UN Global Compact. The paper therefore sheds new light on the role of co-determination and provides a more differentiated view of the spread of what has been termed "explicit" CSR in Germany, one of the most prominent of the "coordinated market economies".

Keywords: co-determination; worker participation; corporate social responsibility; sustainability; Unternehmensmitbestimmung; Arbeitnehmerbeteiligung; soziale Unternehmensverantwortung; Nachhaltigkeit (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: G34 J53 M14 P18 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cfn
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/190804/1/1043362150.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:zbw:wzbgwp:spiii2018304

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Discussion Papers, Research Group Globalization, Work, and Production from WZB Berlin Social Science Center Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics ().