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Institutional economists have always been critical of the way in which unregulated markets operate. The basic argument is that the institutions of the market that are supposed to control the activities of business have become inadequate to the task because of the development of large-scale production techniques, methods of corporate finance, and salesmanship. Institutionalists do not use the terminology of market failure, and neither do they use the competitive model as a standard, as a way of judging departures from an ideal, but in the many references to the need for new methods for the social control of business it is clear that, in their view, market activity frequently fails to serve the social interest, and that such failures are widespread, in fact endemic to the system of business. This article discusses this literature with particular attention to the work of Thorstein Veblen, Walton Hamilton, J. M. Clark, and K. William Kapp. It is seen that the main lines of the institutionalist critique of markets have been remarkably consistent over time and clearly allow for much room for government intervention, particularly in the form of administrative departments or agencies. Although often optimistic about such administrative solutions, institutionalists have not been unaware of the issues of the "capture" of regulatory agencies and the growing penetration of government by business interests.

The links of management culture and corporate social responsibility in this part are verified and substantiated by statistical calculations. The connections were verified according to such categories as the culture of managerial staff, the culture of organisation of the management processes, the management culture of working conditions, the culture of documentation system, the behaviour of a socially responsible organisation and the behaviour of a socially responsible employee. The results of the research showed the different strength of the relationships of the management culture and corporate social responsibility, which may be significant when organising the changes in the management culture, oriented to the implementation of corporate social responsibility.

Extended producer responsibility (EPR) as a holistic approach to product stewardship has been increasingly incorporated into environmental policy agenda in the last two decades. One major expectation of EPR is to prevent environmental problems at source by providing appropriate incentives for product eco-design changes. However, available studies empirically examining the actual influence of EPR on eco-design are limited. This research therefore aims to fill the research gap by evaluating the effectiveness of existing EPR programmes in driving eco-design changes from the perspective of China's electrical and electronic (EE) industry, and shed some light on the prospects of EPR development in China. Based on the analytical framework developed from reconstructed intervention theory, three intensive empirical studies have been carried out. The first study examines the perception and responses of 50 China's EE manufacturers regarding the EU EPR programmes (i.e. the WEEE and RoHS Directives). The second study investigates the responses of 36 China's EE manufacturers to the Chinese EPR programmes (i.e. China WEEE and China RoHS legislation) and identifies possible factors that exert causal impact on the occurrence of eco-design. In order to gain a deeper insight into the practical manifestations of effective EPR implementation in the private sector, three company case studies have been conducted in the third stage of the research, serving as an important supplement to the first two studies. The three studies show that EPR programmes in a stringent regulatory approach focusing on products' environmental properties such as substance bans can exert strong influence on design changes. However, mandated recycling legislation seems to have little driving effect for companies to change product design. The research points to the weakness of collective producer responsibility that is currently adopted in many EU Member States for WEEE implementation in achieving continuous eco-design improvements. It highlights the significance of realising the principle of individual producer responsibility in EPR programmes for achieving this goal. Based on an attributability assessment, the research further shows that there are a number of factors that influence the adoption of eco-design in China, and the link between legislative EPR programmes and eco-design is complex and evolving. Not only may the EPR programmes have different existing, anticipating and potential effect on the incorporation of eco-design, but they may have very different driving influence on environmental laggards and leaders. In this regard, this research suggests that there is no one-stop solution for EPR in China. A mixed mechanism that integrates various policy instruments such as administrative, economic and informative instruments, in conjunction with cooperation and infrastructure facilities, would be the most effective means to implement EPR in the context of China, thereby achieving the goal of sustainable production and consumption. ; published_or_final_version ; Kadoorie Institute ; Doctoral ; Doctor of Philosophy

This is the first study that presents a full picture of the field by using a combination of two methodologies, bibliometric and social network analysis (SNA). Thus, this work maps the knowledge of previous research and suggest new avenues for future research for the relationship between board characteristics and corporate social responsibility (CSR) and CSR disclosure (CSRD). We analysed 242 articles published on Web of Science database (WoS) journals for the period 1992–2019. The results show that board characteristics have a significant impact on CSR literature in terms of citations and high-quality journals. Moreover, the trend of the papers published in the field is increasing in the last five years. Our work clusters the literature according to keywords and draws the primary authors' networks. This study also draws potential future avenues for research in the field in terms of research gaps (governance mechanisms, variables, countries, etc.). Furthermore, our results suggest some potential areas of interest for future political reforms of board of directors' guidelines.