Corporate Social Responsibility due diligence among European companies: The results of an interventionist research project with accountability and political implications

For decades, companies found in international protocols and standards an alternative source of normative guidance to operatively implement sustainability policies at an organisational level. The ever-increasing adoption of these multi-faceted policies and guidelines co-occurs with a more proactive and voluntaristic attitude towards CSR implementation by companies. Born as a kind of soft corporate law to reinforce a regulatory answer to sustainability issues, today, CSR due diligence is becoming a central pillar of the transition of the economic system towards a great level of sustainable development. The paper presents the results of an interventionist research carried out by researchers in collaboration with the European Parliament, aimed at developing a normative resolution on the prominent role of CSR due diligence and its accountability. Through the exploration of the different state-of-the-art of European companies on CSR due diligence, findings suggest that there is considerable room for improvement in CSR due diligence that can be reached through a normative intervention. In addition, the paper contributes to the development of the literature on interventionist research carried out by business scholars, focusing on academia-industry-institutions relations.