The European regulation of corporate social responsibility: The role of beneficiaries' intermediaries

Intended beneficiaries have an undeniable relevance to regulation. However, current research has focused mainly on the two-party relationship between rulemaking and rule-taking. We attempt to fill this gap by exploring the formal and informal roles that beneficiaries’ intermediaries played in co-creating European Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) rules and associated practices between 2000 and 2017. By linking recent conceptualizations of regulatory intermediaries with the literature on critical political CSR, we offer a more dynamic and contextualized understanding of the roles of beneficiaries’ intermediaries. Specifically, we identify six micro-dynamics through which they influenced the regulatory process. Notably, our findings highlight how the convergence of interests between three groups of beneficiaries’ intermediaries – the Non-governmental organization–Investor–Union nexus – had a key role in reshaping CSR rules. We conclude that, in the European context, stronger and better-coordinated beneficiaries’ intermediaries are crucial in order to achieve more effective corporate conduct regulation.