Parker, Christine; Lehmann Nielsen, Vibeke --- "Introduction" [2011] ELECD 931; in Parker, Christine; Nielsen, Lehmann Vibeke (eds), "Explaining Compliance" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2011)

Book Title: Explaining Compliance

Editor(s): Parker, Christine; Nielsen, Lehmann Vibeke

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781848448858

Section: Chapter 1

Section Title: Introduction

Author(s): Parker, Christine; Lehmann Nielsen, Vibeke

Number of pages: 34

Extract:

1. Introduction
Christine Parker and Vibeke Lehmann Nielsen*

INTRODUCTION: FROM REGULATION TO
COMPLIANCE

The research collected in this book is concerned with a weighty social
issue: the way that businesses respond to the multitude of efforts made to
influence or `regulate' their behaviour for the social and economic good.
The activities of business ­ whether big or small ­ pervade most aspects
of people's lives, the goods and services they consume, their employment
and leisure, their experience of the natural environment and their access to
the most basic necessities of life. Even in China and formerly Communist
East Europe, business organizations (albeit often fully or partially owned
by the state) are growing, and along with them there is increasing concern
with regulating business in these countries.
At local, national, and increasingly global levels, governments and civil
society seek to use regulation to promote social and economic goods.1
`Social regulation' is expected to help avert environmental catastrophe,
prevent accidents and ill health in mines, factories, transport and food
production systems, secure the delivery of a range of essential services
(power, water, housing, communication) in an equitable way, achieve
justice and social inclusion for the disadvantaged and keep people's assets
and livelihoods safe from financial crisis. `Economic regulation' is used
extensively to curb monopoly, promote competition, and to set standards
for prices and quality in industries where competition is thought to have
failed. The focus of this volume is largely on social regulation.
Despite popular belief that regulation was abandoned when ...