Remaking capitalism: the strength of weak legislation in mobilizing B corporation certification
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Authors
Lucas, DS
Grimes, MG
Gehman, J
Publication Date
2022-06Journal Title
Academy of Management Journal
ISSN
0001-4273
Publisher
Academy of Management
Type
Article
This Version
AM
Metadata
Show full item recordCitation
Lucas, D., Grimes, M., & Gehman, J. (2022). Remaking capitalism: the strength of weak legislation in mobilizing B corporation certification. Academy of Management Journal https://doi.org/10.5465/amj.2020.1688
Abstract
Myriad cross-sector initiatives seek to remake capitalism into a more just, sustainable, and inclusive system. But how do these distributed efforts—which often vary in strength—interact? We contribute by attending to the interaction between weak and strong governance reforms. Drawing on longstanding research on organizational values and the sociology of law, we theorize how the enactment of weak and broad sustainability legislation is likely to increase pressure on values-driven businesses to pursue both values authentication and material authentication by way of strong third-party certification. We test our conceptual model by examining the effects of the frequently criticized benefit corporation legislation passed in 36 U.S. jurisdictions on the related B Corporation certification. We find that both new certifications and recertifications increase in states with such legislation, and that these effects are amplified or attenuated depending on corporate sustainability norms in the region. Taken together, our findings contribute to the intensifying societal conversation regarding the prospects for remaking capitalism by illustrating how even weak legislation can contribute to systems change not only by encouraging incremental sustainability reforms within a field, but also by triggering an authentication imperative that mobilizes values-driven businesses to pursue rigorous certifications.
Sponsorship
JG acknowledges financial support from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.
Identifiers
External DOI: https://doi.org/10.5465/amj.2020.1688
This record's URL: https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/handle/1810/333824
Rights
Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International
Licence URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
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