Input and Output Legitimacy of Multi-Stakeholder Initiatives

Business Ethics Quarterly, Forthcoming

Posted: 27 Feb 2016

See all articles by Sébastien Mena

Sébastien Mena

City University London - The Business School

Guido Palazzo

University of Lausanne

Date Written: July 1, 2012

Abstract

In a globalizing world, governments are not always able or willing to regulate the social and environmental externalities of global business activities. Multi-stakeholder initiatives (MSI), defined as global institutions involving mainly corporations and civil society organizations, are one type of regulatory mechanism that tries to fill this gap by issuing soft law regulation. This conceptual paper examines the conditions of a legitimate transfer of regulatory power from traditional democratic nation-state processes to private regulatory schemes, such as MSIs. Democratic legitimacy is typically concerned with input legitimacy (rule credibility, or the extent to which the regulations are perceived as justified) and output legitimacy (rule effectiveness, or the extent to which the rules effectively solve the issues). In this study, we identify MSI input legitimacy criteria (inclusion, procedural fairness, consensual orientation, and transparency) and those of MSI output legitimacy (rule coverage, efficacy, and enforcement), and discuss their implications for MSI democratic legitimacy.

Keywords: multi-stakeholder initiative, soft law, legitimacy, corporate social responsibility, deliberative democracy

Suggested Citation

Mena, Sébastien and Palazzo, Guido, Input and Output Legitimacy of Multi-Stakeholder Initiatives (July 1, 2012). Business Ethics Quarterly, Forthcoming, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2738472

Sébastien Mena (Contact Author)

City University London - The Business School ( email )

106 Bunhill Row
London, EC1Y 8TZ
United Kingdom

Guido Palazzo

University of Lausanne ( email )

Quartier Chambronne
Lausanne, Vaud CH-1015
Switzerland

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