Organizing Transnational Accountability

Edited by Magnus Boström, Professorship in Sociology, Örebro University, Sweden and Christina Garsten, Professor of Social Anthropology, Department of Social Anthropology and Stockholm Centre for Organizational Research (SCORE), Stockholm University, Sweden

• Contents:ForewordMichael Power1. Organizing for AccountabilityMagnus Boström and Christina Garsten2. The United Nations – Soft and Hard: Regulating Social Accountability for Global BusinessChristina Garsten3. ISO Expands its Business into Social Responsibility Kristina Tamm Hallström4. Organizing Accountability in Transnational Standards Organizations: The Forest Stewardship Council as a Good Governance ModelLars H. Gulbrandsen5. From Accounts to Accountability: Corporate Self-presentations in Response to Public CriticismBoris Holzer6. Watchdogs Beyond Control? The Accountability of Accounting Standards OrganizationsDieter Kerwer7. Boundaries of Responsible Buying: Accountability for What and to Whom?Karin Svedberg Nilsson8. Rituals of Legitimation: Organizing Accountability in EU Employment PolicyRenita Thedvall 9. The Political Logics of Accountability: From ‘Doing the Right Thing’ to ‘Doing the Thing Right’Jessica Lindvert10. Agenda Setting for Accountability: The Swedish Code of Corporate GovernanceSusan Marton11. Making it all Publicly Available: Four Challenges to Environmental DisclosureSander W.K. van den Burg and Arthur P.J. Mol12. Accountability, Public Involvement and (Ir)reversibilityLinda Soneryd and Rolf Lidskog13. The Antinomy of AccountabilityLuigi Pellizzoni14. The Treadmill of AccountabilityMagnus Boström and Christina GarstenAfterwords: Organizing Transnational AccountabilityJohn W. MeyerIndex

'In the expanding academic literature on accountability, there remains significant ambiguity about the scope and content of this concept. Bostrom and Garsten have performed an invaluable service to scholars by providing a fresh focus on how accountability is actually organized in practice. Their intelligently edited collection pulls together a range of disciplinary perspectives on the new organizational settings and instruments engaged with accountability norms. This volume is an excellent contribution both to organizational theory and wider research on transnational governance.'