Corporate Governance as Social Responsibility: A Research Agenda

In the post-Enron years, corporate governance has shifted from its focus on agency conflicts to address issues of ethics, accountability, transparency, and disclosure. Moreover, Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) has increasingly focused on corporate governance as a vehicle for incorporating social and environmental concerns into the business decision-making process, benefiting not only financial investors but also employees, consumers, and communities. Currently, corporate governance is being linked more and more with business practices and public policies that are stakeholder-friendly. This article examines these developments and their impact on the formulation of a hybridized body of business legal norms by proceeding in three stages: First, the article explores the recent transformations in the regulation of corporate governance and corporate social responsibility and the shifts these two fields have experienced after Enron. Second, it reads these transformations as a convergence that encompasses both corporate self-regulation and the efforts by various social groups to make it more effective ('meta-regulation'). Third, the article discusses the prospects and challenges of this convergence by outlining a series of conceptual and methodological inquiries as well as policy ramifications to be pursued by scholars and practitioners in the field of law and corporate conduct.