TY - JOUR
T1 - Human Rights in the Oil and Gas Industry
T2 - When Are Policies and Practices Enough to Prevent Abuse?
AU - Olsen, Tricia
AU - Rehbein, Kathleen
AU - Snelson-Powell, Annie
AU - Westermann-Behaylo, Michelle
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© The Author(s) 2021.
PY - 2022/7
Y1 - 2022/7
N2 - Multinational enterprises are aware of their responsibility to protect human rights now more than ever, but severe human rights violations, including physical integrity abuses (e.g., death, torture, disappearances), continue unabated. To explore this puzzle, we engage theoretically with the means-ends decoupling literature to examine if and when oil and gas firms’ policies and practices prevent severe human rights abuse. Using an original dataset, we identify two pathways to mitigate means-ends decoupling: (a) while human rights policies alone do not reduce human rights abuses, firms with a high-quality human rights policy over the long-term reduce severe human rights abuses; (b) firms that combine preparedness—which we define as a firm’s capabilities, practices, and engagement—with a long-term human rights policy also reduce the likelihood of human rights abuses. Preparedness, we argue, can lead to reinforcement dynamics between long-term policy efforts and additional capabilities that provide a more holistic understanding of firm behavior.
AB - Multinational enterprises are aware of their responsibility to protect human rights now more than ever, but severe human rights violations, including physical integrity abuses (e.g., death, torture, disappearances), continue unabated. To explore this puzzle, we engage theoretically with the means-ends decoupling literature to examine if and when oil and gas firms’ policies and practices prevent severe human rights abuse. Using an original dataset, we identify two pathways to mitigate means-ends decoupling: (a) while human rights policies alone do not reduce human rights abuses, firms with a high-quality human rights policy over the long-term reduce severe human rights abuses; (b) firms that combine preparedness—which we define as a firm’s capabilities, practices, and engagement—with a long-term human rights policy also reduce the likelihood of human rights abuses. Preparedness, we argue, can lead to reinforcement dynamics between long-term policy efforts and additional capabilities that provide a more holistic understanding of firm behavior.
KW - business and human rights
KW - corporate social irresponsibility
KW - extractive industry
KW - means-ends decoupling
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85110322393&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=85110322393&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1177/00076503211017435
DO - 10.1177/00076503211017435
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85110322393
SN - 0007-6503
VL - 61
SP - 1512
EP - 1557
JO - Business and Society
JF - Business and Society
IS - 6
ER -