The United Nations Global Compact: Retrospect and Prospect
Business & Society, Vol.52(1), pp. 6-30.
36 Pages Posted: 15 Jul 2013 Last revised: 16 Jul 2013
Date Written: July 14, 2013
Abstract
This article reviews the inter-disciplinary literature on the UN Global Compact. The review identifies three research perspectives, which scholars have used to study the UN Global Compact so far: a historical perspective discussing the Global Compact in the context of UN-business relations, an operational perspective discussing the composition and impact of its participants, as well as a governance perspective discussing the constraints and opportunities of the initiative as an institutionalized arena for addressing global governance gaps. The authors contrast these three perspectives and identify key empirical as well as conceptual scholarly contributions. The remainder of this article contains focused summaries of the articles selected for this Special Issue. All articles are introduced and evaluated against the background of the three research perspectives.
Keywords: United Nations Global Compact, UN-business relations, global governance, public-private partnerships, globalization, transnational civil society
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