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The authors expect major shifts in thinking about the transnational regulation of accounting and how it will develop. This is a time for ideas as well as action. The global accounting profession must take a leading role in developing and presenting the case for the transnational regulation of accounting, in identifying new regulations, new ways of regulating, and new compacts between regulators and other stakeholders, and in framing the debate on the transnational regulation of accounting into the future. The academic community must bring intellectual rigor to thinking on the issues. The purpose of this paper is to put the case that there is a new research agenda to be formed by taking a view that combines existing work on the transnational regulation of accounting with a contemporaneous understanding of the forces for regulatory and professional change, and insight into the roles that various actors have assumed historically and will likely play going forward, so as to develop workable and sustainable models for the transnational regulation of accounting into the future.

This paper presents a view on why the transnational regulation of accounting is increasingly becoming more important and more relevant. The paper identifies several possible work streams and research questions, and also comments on the papers appearing in this AAAJ special issue.

The authors find that the transnational regulation of accounting is becoming more important and relevant and identify drivers of this. The authors also suggest that self-regulation comes from professionalization, that systems of professional self-regulation (or co-regulation) at the national level have been transformed into the systems of global self-regulation. Also there is a growing level of scholarly engagement with transnational regimes of accounting regulation and the emerging portrayal of such regimes as arenas characterized by multiple actors, agendas, and strategies of influence.

Promotes a greater awareness and understanding of the importance of the transnational regulation of accounting, showcases recent work that demonstrates the breadth and depth of what is being done and of what needs to be done in the transnational regulation of accounting, identifies some of the key issues and imperatives for the transnational regulation of accounting.

The need for food safety and food quality standards is acknowledged by public regulators, private actors, and the society. The purpose of this paper is to identify the types of actors in the multilevel transnational food chain regulatory governance and how their interlinking affects regulatory outcomes over time.

Food chain regulatory standards emerge within a complex process beyond the state. Based on interdisciplinary theoretical perspectives, namely regulatory governance and political economy, this paper provides a integrative framework of analysis by identifying the types of actors and their interactions in the food chain regulatory governance.

Food chain regulatory standards setting have been mainly studied either from the public regulator or the firm self-regulating point of view. This paper demonstrates how the political and economics dynamics of the interactions among public and private actors operate within the transnational food standards setting process. The study identifies the groups of interdependent actors (public and private) that interact within the transnational food chain regulatory process and develop public-private regulations, self-regulations, and co-regulations over time. In this process, the actors’ different power, operational and regulatory capacity, experience, resources affect the regulatory outcome with socio-economic and governance implications.

The paper does not examine in detail how these interactions operate empirically on specific regulations.

The paper offers an integrative thorough understanding of the food chain regulatory standard setting process, relevant for academics, policy makers, the industry, and society.

The paper constitutes new research by identifying the actors and interactions in the integrative regulatory governance of the food chain standards.

The purposes of this paper are to organize historical, solved questions and recent, unsolved questions in a coherent, progressive way; explore the key question to be answered under this systematic framework; and reflect on an alternative analytical perspective to the current “problem-solving-oriented” approach. Transnational bribery regulation, with the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) Anti-Bribery Convention as the central governing legal instrument, is on the top agenda of international governance. However, its complex nature makes theoretical viewpoints on this topic rather fragmented. This fragmentation is used to help understand the wisdom of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) approach in the early years. However, as the FCPA approach was internationalized and evolves to its current phase, in which individual inquiries become path-dependent and interdependent, the fragmentation causes more confusion than makes contribution.

Sections 2 and 3 retrospect the historical trajectory of academic research on the global regulation of transnational bribery, systemizes relevant theoretical insights and illustrates how people’s understandings of the wisdom of the FCPA approach in early years affect their evaluations of the effect of the OECD Anti-Bribery Convention in the contemporary era. Given that, at present, the most popular viewpoint is that the Convention is “ineffective”, Section 4 systemizes the diverse causal attributions of the “problem” in current academic literature, sorts out the roots causes and points out the key question for the next step forward under the version of the “problem-solving-oriented” analysis. Section 5 has a reflection on the inherent limitation of a “problem-solving-oriented” approach for our understanding of the effects of the Convention.

Under the version of a “problem-solving-oriented” approach, the key question to be solved is how to establish a mechanism to cope with the surreptitious nature of transnational bribery and the self-sacrificed nature of the FCPA-style approach simultaneously. The popular “problem-solving-oriented” approach has an inherent limitation to create new knowledge on the multilateral anti-bribery collaboration. A reality-based, historical analytical perspective is a good alternative to it.

The paper presents a personal, original organization of the conventional theoretical insights to the operation of the global anti-bribery collaboration and the underlying logics of these viewpoints. The paper also presents the author’s personal analysis of the “technical omission” and “inherent limitation” of a problem-solving-oriented approach to analyze the performance of the global anti-bribery collaboration, and the power of a historical analytical perspective as an alternative.

This introduction unpacks the key question that informs the articles in this special issue. How does a social sphere inform regulation and, more specifically, how can the regulatory capacity of a social sphere be harnessed, as an alternative or significant complementary force to state regulation and reliance on the self-regulatory capacity of markets? This question is salient and topical also in light of the search for new regulatory strategies and perspectives in the aftermath of the 2007 financial and subsequent EU sovereign debt crises, which have led to a major realignment of economy and society in a number of countries.

This introduction argues that economic sociology is a crucial reference point for understanding more about the social practices that constitute business behavior. It enables to explore the scope and significance of often interlinked social and legal norms for regulating various transnational risks that economic activity can give rise to. The introduction therefore locates the quest for understanding more about the regulatory capacity of a social sphere in debates that draw on Karl Polanyi’s analysis of the embedding, disembedding, and re-embedding of economic activity into social norms. The introduction highlights one of the key themes developed in this special issue, the idea of society within economy which questions an assumed conceptual distinction between economy and society.

This introduction concludes by specifying how the accounts of risk regulation developed in this special issue chart a path that is different from recent explorations of the role of a social sphere in regulation, which were conducted under the banner of “the sociological citizen,” “regulatory sociability,” and “collaborative governance.”

The last four decades have seen the rise of the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) as the core locus of transnational accounting regulation. Initial steps of associational cooperation were superseded by establishing a standard setting organization that heavily draws on consultation procedures. The purpose of this paper is to focus on recent changes in governance and accountability of IASB in the aftermath of the financial crisis. Emphasis is given to the organizational configuration, the ambivalence of consultation procedures and reactions to mounting criticism after the crisis. The paper proposes that IASB is the heart of a new transnational regulatory constellation in accounting.

The material and analysis presented in the paper derives from an extensive review of official reports, consultation documents and related responses and a range of additional information available on IASB's web page.

The paper analyzes how IASB uses legitimation strategies to defend its position as a transnational standard setter. From analysis of recent changes, the paper reveals a growing reliance on – and domination through – consultation procedures. The paper also shows the IASB’S swift action to counter substantial criticism emerging with the financial crisis.

By highlighting developments surrounding IASB, its governance structure and the emphasis on consultation, the paper establishes the importance for public policy of further study and debate the operation of IASB. It could also contribute to re-politicize accounting regulation at the transnational level.

IASB is an integral player in global financial governance processes and is only recently receiving substantial academic accounting research. This paper seeks to provide an introduction and critical account of the organization's development.

The purpose of this paper is to report on research on the strategies of inequality at the workplace level of multinational corporations within the context characterized by the weakening of traditional bargaining and representation structures. Through which specific strategies multinational corporations foster inequality across different workplaces across borders and how do trade unions in Europe respond to it?

This paper is a conceptual one and it is based on existing qualitative comparative research developed by the author.

The regulatory regime of organized and governed labor markets and employment relationships is undermined by the employment relationships becoming increasingly unstable in most industrialized countries in Europe. The breakdown in the collective structures for employment regulation, particularly collective bargaining, has led to growing insecurity and inequality among working people. At the workplace level of multinationals inequality is fostered by strategies of flexibilization and benchmarking which force trade unions to negotiate concessions regarding the working conditions of different workers. Trade unions are seeking effective responses to increasing labor market instability and inequality. The paper argues that the transnational regulation of employment relationships through the European Framework Agreements (EFAs) can serve the purpose of constraining benchmarking, while containing workplace inequality.

This paper offers an in-depth view that the EFAs can constrain the multinationals’ strategies of benchmarking and workplace inequality. This is because EFAs can potentially spread across countries the positive gains of local negotiations where unions are able to negotiate on employment protection to other local subsidiaries where unions may struggle to do so.

This contribution conceptualizes the politicization of MNCs from outside – the processes by which MNCs become confronted with demands for regulation and engage in political contestation with other non-state actors. It compares two global industries, athletic footwear and toys, to show that the dynamics of politicization follow different trajectories, which are only partially to explain with structural differences across industry fields. If politicization leads to increasing political functioning of business or to a depoliticization of criticism depends to a great extend on the agency of business and their capacity to strategically counter mobilization, but also on the difficulties for activist to construct continuing collective action across a diverse range of cultural-institutional settings.

Capital, through its practices and narratives of global competition, is able to play unions in different locations off against one another through the construction and exploitation of difference. Trade unions and their activists have responded through formal institutional responses and with new forms of network‐based cooperation which is, at best, limited to action supported by the interests of union actors involved at a given juncture. This article seeks to argue that these forms of organizational responses are in themselves insufficient to allow unions to overcome the prisoner's dilemma inherent in their operating at a lower geographic level than capital.

The paper brings together ideas and insights from various interventions made by the authors and is a based on a review of a large part of the literature.

To regain control over labour markets would require either more systematic and structured union organizations of a transnational scope or a more concerted attempt at new forms of networking and the construction of a convincing radical counter‐narrative to that of global capitalist competition. The paper also argues that on close inspection the internationalization of capital itself exhibits significant Achilles Heels and may actually facilitate these new labour developments.

The paper argues that trade unions need to build their international coordinating strategies through a range of democratic and participative approaches. It also claims that transnational corporations are much more exposed by globalization than many commentators admit, trade unions and worker activists can and do exploit these gaps.

The power of transnational corporations fails to create consistent regimes of regulation and social progress. These in turn create a series of evasive strategies that do not contribute to consistent international dialogue.

The article asserts that the network structure of transnational labour unionism is in itself an ineffective response to capitalist globalization and the narrative of global competition.

The purpose of this paper is to examine European Union (EU) industrial relations in their development over time. It describes and analyzes their main constituent parts, which are deployed along four interlinked institutional dimensions: tripartite concertation; cross-industry social dialogue; sectoral social dialogue; and employee representation and negotiation at the transnational company level. The focus lies strictly on the emerging EU layer of industrial relations, which is common to the different Member States and not on comparative European industrial relations.

The paper is conceptual in nature. It considers the differences and mutually interdependent legal and political processes, policies and institutions between EU industrial relations and national industrial relations.

The findings substantiate that EU industrial relations constitute an incomplete but perfectly traceable transnational reality distinct from industrial relations in the Member States. EU industrial relations are not to supersede but to supplement national industrial relations. Neither the EU institutional framework nor the European social partners have the mandate, legitimation or desire to perform a more ambitious role.

More empirically oriented research would further support the findings in the paper.

The paper presents a conceptual review based on a comprehensive and critical reading of the literature on EU industrial relations. It also puts labor strategies at the forefront of the analysis in corporate relocation.

This article looks at corporate social responsibility (CSR) as a discursive social practice that attempts to interrogate the global market economy and its neoliberal underpinnings and that reflects as well as frames and shapes domestic and global politics and institutions. Drawing upon Karl Polanyi’s notions of reciprocity and redistribution while also emphasizing the normative content of the concept, the article inquires into the position that the CSR discourse occupies in addressing the corporate transnational risks derived from social tensions and conflicts and more generally, in answering social expectations for justice. The Polanyian perspective highlights the CSR discursive quest for a missing conceptual consistency and implicitly, for a constructive “critical” core. From this perspective, the article shows CSR to reside within controversial conceptual boundaries; a discursive social practice that engages with the social aspiration of embedding market economy in society while it is also in need of reclaiming its critical core and its potential for social change.