Human Rights, Multinational Enterprises, and Legitimacy

Abstract

This paper attempts to explain why, in similar contexts, multinational enterprises (MNEs) respond differently to human rights questions, and why external audiences appear to tolerate these differences. Our explanation focuses on the perceived legitimacy of MNE human rights actions. This approach recognizes that organizations are actors that make legitimacy assessments, rather than mere legitimacy objects. We conceptualize organizational human rights attitudes and reasons for action, and we show how the two interact. We relate the norms that are used in legitimacy judgments, and the way that they are interpreted in different contexts, to different MNE human rights attitudes. Our analysis yields new predictions of the factors that might lead MNEs to adopt active, passive, or non-engagement human rights attitudes.