United Nations Global Compact: Literature review and theory-based research agenda (original) (raw)

2018, Journal of Cleaner Production

Abstract

United Nation Golbal Compact (UNGC) is one of the most important corporate social responsibility initiatives, aimed at aligning companies'strategies and operations with universal principles on human rights, labour, environment and anti-corruption. After approximately 15 years of research on UNGC, we provide a systematic liteature review on this topic. The review addresses key issues related to the UNGC, including the motivations for adopting the standard, the main critiques of the initiative, and its impacts on performance. Papers are coded following a deductive-inductive approach, and classified by variables such as year of publication, publication outlet, research focus, methodology. Building on literature findings, we identify various research gaps. Some research hypotheses are linked to prominent theoretical frameworks, such as transaction cost economics, stakeholder theory, and signals theory, proposing a theory-based research agenda.

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