Local Grounding of Transnational Private Governance Authority: Translation, Contestation, Legitimation and Communities of Practice

ABSTRACT

Scholars emphasise the constitutive ambiguity of transnational private standards and the importance of global-local interactions in their implementation. Yet how this ambiguity and these interactions shape the legitimation of transnational private governance, especially in the norm formation phase, remain open questions. The conceptual metaphor of ‘grounding’ offers a promising perspective on these questions. This article conceptualises the grounding of transnational private governance in terms of practices of translation by which transnational standard-setting is grounded in receptive local contexts; practices of contestation by which it runs aground on local resistance; and communities of practice that shape the normative grounds for legitimate standard-setting authority. An illustrative example of local Colombian reactions to the development of the global social responsibility guide ISO 26000 suggests that a basic principle of private standardisation, that standards are developed through a consensus process in which all concerned interests are effectively represented, is not as important to the legitimation of standards as many suppose, and that membership in two overlapping communities of practice—standardisation and corporate social responsibility—explains why actors legitimise standard-setters that do not fulfill a legitimacy criterion they purport to consider crucial.

KEYWORDS:

• Transnational private governance
• grounding
• translation
• contestation
• communities of practice
• norm formation
• legitimation
• standardisation
• ISO 26000
• Colombia

1. Introduction

Much research into the implementation and impacts of transnational private governance standards examines global-local interactions, but few published works investigate global-local interactions in the norm formation phase of transnational private governance. This article addresses this gap. It focuses on legitimation politics (Fransen 2012), in particular how local actors translate transnational standard-setters’ legitimacy claims into terms that make sense locally or contest these claims as unsuited to local circumstances.

The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) is a leading source of transnational private standards. Its standards pervade contemporary life and are essential to ‘the constitution and reproduction of economic and class relationships’ (Salter 1993, p. 107). Standards have a ‘bright’ and a ‘dark’ side. On the bright side, governments, businesses and consumers rely on them to ensure consistent and trustworthy products, services and processes. According to ISO (2020a), standards enhance production efficiency, reduce product failures, protect consumers and workers, reduce environmental impacts and advance sustainable development.

But standards also have a dark side: ‘what is benignly standard for one person at one time may be a barrier, or even a life-threatening occurrence, for another’ (Star and Lampland 2009, p. 7). ISO’s standardisation of shipping containers, for example, facilitated global trade and brought affordable goods to consumers in developed countries. But it also accelerated a transformation of the shipping industry that cost countless dockworkers their livelihoods (Levinson 2006; Tavernor 2007). Standards often instantiate the power of market-oriented global governance (Wood 2005; Loconto and Busch 2010, p. 509), but occasionally present ‘opportunities for those struggling for progressive change’ (Graz 2019, p. 53), raising hopes that they might be used ‘to produce a more just and caring world’ (Busch 2011, p. 309). The primary goal of this article is to shed additional light on exactly how this ambiguity shapes transnational private governance.

The metaphor of ‘grounding' proposed by Graz (2021) in the introduction to this special section opens a promising avenue toward answering this question. In Part 2, I build upon Graz’s conceptualisation of grounding to propose a framework for investigating global-local legitimation politics in the standard-setting phase of transnational private governance. This framework encompasses practices of translation by which transnational standard-setting becomes grounded in local contexts; practices of contestation by which transnational standard-setting runs aground on local resistance; and communities of practice that shape the normative grounds for legitimate standard-setting authority.

In Part 3 I explore an illustrative example of how actors in Colombia responded to the development of ISO 26000 (ISO 2010), which was happening at the same time that the Instituto Colombiano de Normas Técnicas y Certificación (ICONTEC), Colombia’s ISO member body, was developing its own domestic SR standard (ICONTEC 2008). This example raises a subsidiary question: How do actors legitimize a standard-setter that fails to meet a legitimacy criterion they purport to consider crucial? My research suggests that an article of faith in the standardisation community—that standards must be developed through a consensus process in which all concerned interests are effectively represented—may not be as important to the legitimation of private voluntary standards as is widely supposed.

2. ‘Grounding’ transnational private governance

2.1 Practices of translation and contestation

The metaphor of ‘grounding’ captures the ambivalence that characterises standards and standardisation. On one hand, grounding can signify setting something on a firm foundation, like an individual who is stable, centred, authentic, in harmony with and supported by her surroundings. On the other hand, grounding can signify being halted by an impediment, like aircraft that are grounded by mechanical failure or government order, or ships that run aground on shoals.

A focus on practices offers a promising lens through which to analyze this dual ‘grounding.’ Practices are ‘socially meaningful patterns of action, which, in being performed more or less competently, simultaneously embody, act out, and possibly reify background knowledge and discourse in and on the material world’ (Adler and Pouliot 2011, p. 4). Practice instantiates discourse, expresses and shapes beliefs and ideas, and is mediated by material artifacts (ibid, pp. 6–7). This analytical lens transcends the agent/structure and discourse/material dichotomies that limit other analytical approaches (ibid, pp. 14–18). Graz's (2021) focus on practices of translation and contestation also captures the conflicting senses of ‘grounding’ described above and thus offers a framework to investigate how the ambivalence that characterises standards and standardisation shapes transnational private governance in general and legitimation politics in particular.

Grounding in the first sense can be analyzed in terms of practices of translation through which transnational standards and standard-setters are embedded in local contexts. Literal translation from the transnational working language—usually English (Djelic and Quack 2010b, pp. 387–88)—to the local language is an obvious example. It involves varying degrees of interpretive room, technical language skills and contestable value judgments. The need for translation can inhibit local legitimation of transnational standards when those who lack fluency in English or technical jargon feel marginalised in setting or implementing transnational standards (Tamm Hallström and Boström 2010, pp. 152). Conversely, actors with the requisite language skills can facilitate the grounding of transnational standards by adopting translations that respect local idioms and values. Such actors often participate in the transnational standard-setting activity, making them influential intermediaries in the politics of grounding transnational private governance.

Participation in standard-setting by joining committees, attending face-to-face meetings, following correspondence, exchanging documents, commenting on drafts, voting, and reporting to constituencies constitutes another practice of translation. Others include implementing transnational standards; reporting such implementation; consulting, auditing or certifying implementing organisations; developing local standards that adapt or emulate transnational ones; and engaging in local debate or advocacy on issues addressed by transnational standard-setters.

Grounding in the second sense can be studied in terms of practices of contestation through which transnational standards run aground on local resistance. Practices of contestation can include boycotting or denouncing transnational standards or standard-setters, developing local standards or programmes that deviate from or reject transnational ones, and engaging in debate or advocacy on issues addressed by transnational standard-setters. Participation in standard-setting can also be a practice of contestation, for example by obstructing negotiations or opposing particular decisions. Thus practices of translation can double as practices of contestation, and contestation can take the form of ‘non-practices’ (Adler and Pouliot 2011, p. 25) such as abstention from standard-setting or implementation.

These practices involve performances that are learned and can be more or less competent (ibid, pp. 4–7). Some of them require specialised skills and language—not just English but the specialised jargon of standardisation, management systems and corporate social responsibility (CSR). Furthermore, practices express and shape beliefs, for example that a transnational standard-setter’s way of seeing and acting fits (or does not fit) with local ways or that observance of its standards can (or cannot) help solve local problems. These practices are also mediated via the material artifacts of standardisation, such as meeting facilities, computer hardware and software, documents, and means of transport to and from meetings—all of which shape interaction and effective participation.

Analysis of practices of translation and contestation is useful for characterising how ambivalence toward standardisation is manifested, but it does not explain fully how this ambivalence shapes transnational legitimation politics. To explore this question I extend Graz's (2021) conceptualisation of ‘Grounding 2’ in three ways: by relating it to a theory of legitimation (Part 2.2), by adding a third dimension of ‘grounding,’ namely conflict over the grounds for standard-setting authority (Part 2.3), and by suggesting that conflict—and convergence—over the grounds for authority occurs within and between communities of practice (Part 2.4).

2.2 Legitimation politics

Legitimacy is ‘a generalised perception or assumption that the actions of an entity are desirable, proper, or appropriate within some socially constructed system of norms, values, beliefs, and definitions’ (Suchman 1995, p. 574). Would-be governors, often facing multiple and conflicting demands, seek to secure legitimacy by creating and managing audience perceptions (Bernstein and Cashore 2007, p. 351). Audiences respond with actions that tend to legitimize or delegitimize the governors. When audiences confer legitimacy, they allow themselves to be enrolled into the roles assigned to them in a governance network (Black 2008, p. 148). The multiplicity of audiences and legitimation demands means that legitimacy is shifting, variable and constantly renegotiated (Tamm Hallström and Boström 2010, p. 160).

Governors have authority when relevant audiences perceive them as appropriately engaged in governance and their rules and decisions as worthy of respect (Wood et al. 2019, p. 3). Authority and legitimacy are two sides of a coin: we can ‘think of authority as something primarily claimed in support of power by its holders, and legitimacy as something primarily conferred on power by those subject to it or who observe it’ (Cotterrell 2016, p. 263, emphasis in original). To study legitimation is to study how governors assert authority, how audiences accept or contest such assertions, and how legitimacy is thereby conferred or withdrawn.

Practices of translation contribute to transnational private governance’s legitimation, while practices of contestation contribute to its delegitimation. Both shape and are shaped by actors’ assessments of legitimacy. Standard-setters enact their legitimacy claims by initiating standard-setting, inviting participants and structuring standardisation process. Audiences enact their legitimacy assessments by participating in or abstaining from standard-setting activities, or engaging in a range of other practices of translation or contestation. I do not, therefore, distinguish sharply between processes of legitimation and assessments of legitimacy.

In Part 3 I explore the example of reactions of audiences in Colombia to ISO’s development of ISO 26000. Some background to that example will help clarify how legitimation politics relate to the grounding of transnational private governance. The modern CSR movement’s central goal is to construct corporations’ societal legitimacy (Kane 2013, p. 285). A subsidiary goal is to establish the legitimacy of the actors that articulate CSR standards. ISO and its national member bodies (NMBs) claim to be such actors. ISO deployed multi-level strategies to establish its authority as a global SR standard-setter (Tamm Hallström and Boström 2010; Wood 2019). It sought to secure the support of other global SR standard-setting organisations and to enrol industry, consultants, labour, consumers, governments, and non-governmental organisations (NGOs). It also sought to secure legitimacy in the places from where ISO 26000s drafters would be drawn and where the standard would be implemented.

In short, local legitimation and delegitimation of standard-setting authority are integral features of the grounding of the politics of transnational private governance. As Graz observes, a focus on grounding ‘sheds light on the viscous interactions likely to limit the ways in which transnational private governance is designed, implemented and ultimately viewed as legitimate' (Graz 2021: page to be determined). Legitimation is also integral to a practice lens, as Adler and Pouliot (2011, p. 27) note: ‘the politics of practice can be grasped in the ways in which agents struggle to endow certain practices with political validity and legitimacy.’

2.3 Grounded authority

My second extension of Graz's conceptualisation is to add a third dimension of ‘grounding,’ inspired by Shiri Pasternak’s account of ‘grounded authority’ in a First Nation’s interactions with the Canadian state. ‘Grounded authority’ has three dimensions. The first two correspond to the dimensions discussed above. In a positive sense, a First Nation’s authority is grounded in its long-term presence on and relationship with the land. In a negative sense, this authority runs aground on a ‘thickening heap’ of state laws and institutions (Pasternak 2017, p. 18). Pasternak emphasizes that both of these ‘groundings’ ultimately involve a deeper conflict over ‘the grounds of authority upon which we rely to make sense of our relationship to the world’ (ibid, xxvi, emphasis added). This is a conflict over whose norms ‘will apply … and on what grounds. The conflict is over the authority to have authority’ (ibid, p. 2, emphasis in original).

Pursuit of ‘the authority to have authority’ is integral to all governance (Wood 2005). A standard or standard-setter is ‘grounded’ in this third sense if it has solid normative justification for its authority. These normative justifications constitute both the grounds asserted by governors for their authority and the criteria applied by audiences to judge their legitimacy. These grounds are variable and context-dependent. Some (eg. democratic accountability) can be in tension with others (eg. technical expertise), leading governors to straddle a normative fence (Djelic and Quack 2010b, p. 406).

Practices of translation and contestation fundamentally involve conflict over these grounds for authority. One cannot understand how transnational standard-setters become grounded in local environments via practices of translation, or how they run aground upon local opposition via practices of contestation, without understanding local conflict over the grounds for standard-setting authority.

2.4 Communities of practice

My final extension of Graz's framework is to suggest that such conflict—and, I argue, convergence—occurs within and between communities of practice. Practices of translation and contestation are structured and enacted by communities of practice. A community of practice comprises a knowledge domain that structures action and constitutes like-mindedness and a sense of shared enterprise; a group of people who, through mutual engagement, create a social fabric of learning; and a shared practice that enacts and shapes collective knowledge and is supported by communal resources such as routines and discourse (Adler and Pouliot 2011, p. 18; Wenger, McDermott, and Snyder 2002, pp. 28–29). Communities of practice combine agency and structure: they ‘are intersubjective social structures that constitute the normative and epistemic ground for action, but they also are agents, made up of real people, who … affect political, economic, and social events’ (Adler and Pouliot 2011, pp. 18–19).

The grounds for governance authority are shaped, expressed and enacted as part of the knowledge domains built by communities of practice. Initiation into a community of practice includes acculturation into these shared normative justifications and orientations (Djelic and Quack 2010b, pp. 388–89). Communities of practice pursue agendas, ideologies and interests by mobilising resources and strategies. They ‘are likely to serve particular interests while marginalising other actors and agendas’ (ibid, p. 383). Thus, some advance the worldviews and interests of business, others those of victims of corporate human rights abuses. But communities are not homogeneous. Members come and go, and their degree of involvement in and commitment to the joint enterprise varies (ibid, p. 380). The voluntary, self-selecting character of many communities facilitates like-mindedness, but communities are nonetheless likely to exhibit internal heterogeneity and can even be ‘rife with conflict and power struggles’ (ibid, p. 383; see also Bartley and Smith 2010, p. 351). Such conflict can usually be ‘kept within bounds through various forms of socialisation mechanisms, through the development and stabilisation of common practices, goals, or norms’ (Djelic and Quack 2010a, p. 27). Such socialisation in turn promotes convergence around shared grounds for authority.

Conflict also occurs between communities of practice. Some communities share members, as people participate in multiple communities operating at different scales or in different sectors or issue-areas. Communities can also share beliefs and discourses, including those related to normative grounds for authority. Some communities are closely intertwined, such as global and national standardisation communities. Others are connected loosely or not at all. Some, such as those of auditors and certifiers, link disparate communities of practice (Bartley and Smith 2010). Inter-community conflict can erupt over the grounds for governance authority, for example where communities’ spheres of practice overlap but their membership and knowledge domains differ significantly. Conversely, conflict seems less likely where community memberships overlap and knowledge domains are aligned.

Global-local interaction is an important but under-studied aspect of this conflict. Djelic and Quack emphasize the importance of global-local interactions for the study of transnational communities. Their focus is on identity formation (Djelic and Quack 2010b, p. 378–79) rather than local (de)legitimation of transnational standard-setters, but they identify various reasons why local communities might be receptive to transnational communities’ overtures, and they recognise that transnational communities are ‘powerful mechanisms of ‘adaptation’ and ‘translation’ … and also of appropriation and recombination’ (ibid, p. 393). This resonates with my focus on practices of translation, but they do not develop the point further.

In short, practices of translation and contestation are performed within communities of practice; the normative grounds for authority that underlie these practices are in turn shaped and enacted by communities of practice; conflict over such grounds occurs both within and between communities of practice; intra-community conflict can be moderated by socialisation mechanisms while inter-community conflict can be moderated to some extent by overlapping membership or aligned knowledge domains; and the global-local dynamics of such conflict deserve attention. To understand how the ambivalence of standards and standardisation shapes transnational private governance, one should examine localised conflict within and between communities of practice over the grounds for governance authority.

3. Illustration: grounding the politics of ISO 26000 in Colombia

3.1. Setting the scene

To illustrate this conceptual framework, I investigate local responses of actors in Colombia to ISO’s development of ISO 26000 and ICONTEC’s development of its own national SR guide. I do not claim that ISO 26000, Colombia or the two together are typical or atypical. My goal is simply to provide an illustration of the grounding of the politics of transnational private governance in a specific context. This illustration is based on interviews of 33 individuals at 24 Colombian organisations (see Appendix) and review of ISO and ICONTEC committee records and respondent organisations’ publications. I conducted the interviews in 2008, when the development of ISO 26000 was in full swing and the ICONTEC SR guide was almost finished. The respondent organisations were active on issues of social responsibility and reflected a cross-section of Colombian public, private and civil society sectors.

Public sector respondents were national government agencies responsible for development, environmental protection, job training and social services (#1-4),¹ an association of subnational environmental authorities (#5) and a state-owned enterprise (#6). Private sector respondents were trade associations representing almost all economic sectors (#7-10), two organisations promoting socially responsible business (#11, 12), two private non-profit enterprises known as cajas de compensación (#14, 15), and ICONTEC (#13). Civil society respondents were national environmental, human rights, Indigenous, consumer and labour organisations (#16-21) and three academics (#22-24). Interviews explored respondents’ SR-related activities, familiarity and involvement with ISO and ICONTEC and views on the desirability and effects of SR standards, the importance of multi-stakeholder participation in SR standard-setting, the achievement of such participation in ISO and ICONTEC, and the legitimacy of ISO and ICONTEC to develop SR standards.

Many respondents made sense of global standard-setters’ authority claims by relating them to Colombian circumstances, either grounding them in the receptive soil of local realities (translation) or, in a few instances, running them aground upon the shoals of local resistance (contestation). Running through these practices of translation and contestation was normative discourse about the grounds for standard-setting authority. One theme common to virtually all respondents was that a consensus-based process in which all concerned interests participate effectively is crucial for the legitimacy of SR standard-setting. Only one third were confident that ISO or ICONTEC SR standard-setting met this expectation. Yet almost all believed that ISO, ICONTEC or both had the legitimacy to develop SR standards. This example thus raises a subsidiary question: how were SR standard-setters legitimised despite their failure to meet most respondents’ expectations for a legitimate standard-setting process?

The illustration proceeds in three steps. First, I examine local practices of translation by which ISO SR standardisation was grounded in the local context (Part 3.2). Second, I consider practices of contestation that risked causing ISO and its national member body to run aground upon local resistance (Part 3.3). Third, I show how conflict between and within communities of practice over the grounds for SR standard-setting authority helps to make sense of local actors’ legitimation—albeit qualified—of ISO and ICONTEC in the face of an acknowledged legitimacy deficit (Part 3.4).

3.2. Practices of translation: grounding transnational standard-setting in local environments

Colombian actors engaged in various practices of translation, including literal translation from English to Spanish. Respondents reported that a lack of English fluency was a barrier to effective participation in both the ISO and ICONTEC SR committees. Individuals fluent in English and ISO jargon played key roles in translating ISO proceedings into terms that made sense to other Colombian actors. Much of this translation was done in the WGSR’s Spanish Translation Task Force (STTF), which translated ISO 26000 drafts and other WGSR documents into Spanish. These translations facilitated local grounding by making information about ISO 26000 accessible to Colombian audiences and by resolving differences not only of regional usage but of normative judgment that could affect the standard’s local attractiveness.²

Participation in ICONTEC and/or ISO SR committees was another practice by which transnational standard-setting authority was translated locally. Individuals from 13 of 24 respondent organisations participated in the ICONTEC SR committee—some marginally, others in leadership positions. This involved typical committee practices: attending face-to-face meetings, observing meeting protocols, following correspondence, exchanging information, commenting on drafts, voting, reporting to constituencies and engaging in a range of informal interactions. The ICONTEC SR committee had its main seat in Medellín and chapters in Bogotá and Cali. This three-city structure was unprecedented (#13). One respondent (#15) reported that ‘representatives of Bogotá had an idea about social responsibility, those from Cali had a different idea and same with Medellín. It was difficult to reach agreement at the beginning.’ But this tri-city structure ultimately facilitated grounding of ICONTEC’s SR authority by enhancing regional participation and encouraging accommodation of regional peculiarities.

Interviewees from five respondent organisations participated directly in the WGSR as Colombian experts. Each ISO NMB nominated up to six experts in six stakeholder categories.³ Participation in the WGSR involved the same sorts of committee practices as the ICONTEC SR committee, except that meetings occurred in a variety of international locations, there were hundreds of participants from around the world and the proceedings were in English. The Colombian experts received input from and reported back to the ICONTEC SR Committee.

Respondents also engaged in other practices of translation. Half of the respondent organisations participated in other ISO or ICONTEC standardisation committees; some participated in international social or environmental standard-setting outside the ISO system; and almost all were active in developing voluntary SR standards and programmes for Colombian businesses, covering a wide range of sectors and issues. More than a third implemented various ISO or ICONTEC standards in their own operations; a handful implemented other international social or environmental standards; and several were certified pursuant to ICONTEC, ISO or other standards. Some publicised their implementation of standards in sustainability reports. Several provided consulting, auditing or certification services in Colombia or abroad in relation to quality, social, environmental or SR standards. Several conducted and published research on Colombian SR practices; and all engaged in public discourse on SR in Colombia and the potential of voluntary standards to advance it.

These practices contributed to local grounding of ISO and ICONTEC as SR standard-setters in two ways. first, by emulating or adapting transnational SR standards; and second, by assimilating them to a prevalent Colombian SR mentality. Most respondents engaged in local emulation and adaptation of transnational SR standards. Interviewees identified more than 160 SR initiatives as relevant to their work. Many of these were duplicative and uncoordinated; some were competitive (see also Gutiérrez and Lobo 2007, p. 50). But almost all respondents saw ISO 26000 as a ‘standard of standards’ (#14) that would complement these other initiatives.

This perception of complementarity was based on a mix of admiration for foreign things and faith in the adaptability of transnational standards to local circumstances. Almost all respondents were active in developing domestic SR standards and programmes, and most of these emulated or adapted global ones. Some interviews exhibited a predilection for foreign standards ranging from pragmatic satisficing (#8, 12, 14, 15, 16) to missionary zeal (#11),⁴ consistent with xenocentric Colombian consumer preferences (Ueltschy 1998; Rojas-Méndez and Chapa 2020).

Adaptation of transnational standards to Colombia’s circumstances as a developing country with widespread poverty, social exclusion, armed conflict, corruption and a huge small-business sector was important for many respondents. Several respondents believed ISO 26000 could offer such flexibility thanks to its breadth and familiar management system approach. Many were cautiously optimistic that a transnational SR standard like ISO 26000 could contribute to competitiveness, innovation, anti-corruption, poverty alleviation, environmental protection, human rights and decent work in Colombia.

ICONTEC was an influential intermediary in grounding transnational standards locally. As Colombia’s ISO member it appointed Colombia’s six WGSR experts, participated actively in the WGSR (including providing the secretariat for one task group, participating in the STTF and supplying at least one of Colombia’s six experts from within its own staff), convened the national SR committee, and was responsible for adopting—and adapting—international standards domestically. As an ICONTEC interviewee said,

We take the standards provided by ISO or anybody and look at our conditions here in Colombia to see if they could be the base for our standards or not. … Some of their standards are not applicable, so we do not adopt them; we adapt them. (#13)

ICONTEC provided Colombia a degree of local agency—‘the opportunity to influence the process and what the standard will be rather than having the standards imposed on us’ (#8).

The second way that practices of translation contributed to local grounding was by assimilating transnational SR standards to a prevalent Colombian SR mentality. ISO’s voluntary, market-oriented approach to standardisation resonated with a voluntaristic, paternalistic model of SR that prevailed in Colombia. Colombian business was highly organised, politically powerful and widely viewed as a central, legitimate actor in the achievement of transcendent public goals, while the state was relatively weak and society was receptive to Catholic social thought (Livingstone 2003; Palacios 2006; Grégoire and Monzón 2017). The result was a paradoxical role for business. Many businesses exacerbated conflict, corruption and displacement (Livingstone 2003, pp. 84–98), but the private sector also had a long history of delivering social services, most notably via non-profit private enterprises known as cajas de compensación familiar.

The first caja was established in 1954 by ANDI, the peak industry association, to pay family allowances to workers. At ANDI’s urging, cajas became obligatory for all employers in 1957 (Restrepo Moreno 1963). By 2008, funded by a 4% payroll tax, cajas provided family allowances, child welfare, unemployment and disability benefits, pensions, occupational health and safety programmes, healthcare, education, housing, credit, subsidised shopping and recreation (#7, 14, 15). Cajas were key players in Colombian SR, offering SR education, influencing SR-related public policies and leading by example (#14). Cajas initiated the development of ICONTEC’s SR guide, chaired the ICONTEC SR committee and supplied one Colombian WGSR expert.

Almost all respondents endorsed an approach to SR centred around voluntary corporate action. Private and public sector respondents were almost unanimous that SR should be voluntary. Some civil society interviewees (#18, 20, 21) thought minimum requirements should be mandatory. Some interviewees offered nuanced views of the voluntary/mandatory dichotomy. An academic interviewee opined that at a basic level SR is obligatory, while beyond this minimum, SR is formally voluntary but does not afford unlimited freedom of choice:

it is very important that the decision is taken freely. However, the room for decision is not as wide as is supposed, it is a limited field with a lot of determining parameters, but it is a range of freedom in which we can grow as companies or organizations (#23).

Some private and public sector respondents said that SR refers only to voluntary action beyond legal compliance. Others felt that SR includes legal compliance, reflecting a view that was increasingly common in Colombia (#22) and ultimately prevailed in ISO 26000.⁵ Many respondents articulated an image of Colombia as a society of excessive law, inadequate enforcement, rampant illegality and a corrupt government. A few felt SR legislation would be futile or illegitimate (#9, 16, 23). Others hoped tentatively that voluntary standards might promote legal compliance (#3, 10, 17, 18). An academic interviewee offered a nuanced view in which the question was not whether to legislate or not, but how to raise the SR bar through a mix of legislated and voluntary standards (#22).

But the dominant view was that more law was not a solution. Public sector respondents claimed that SR ‘is not really a state function, it is an extra’ (#1) that should be driven by business (#2). Even a human rights NGO acknowledged, ‘We cannot leave everything in the state’s hands’ (#18). Respondents were almost unanimous that voluntary standards of the type developed by ISO and ICONTEC were part of the solution: ‘social responsibility standards are important because they can help individuals and organisations to develop more responsible behaviour’ (#16).

Around this time, a mentality that equated SR with corporate philanthropy was giving way in Colombia to the idea that SR must be integrated thoroughly into an organisation’s core activities (#22). In their SR publications, programmes, committee participation and interviews, numerous respondents embraced this change and felt that ISO and ICONTEC SR standards would reinforce it (#9, 12, 14, 22-24).

Most respondents thus translated ISO’s SR authority into local terms by assimilating it, to varying degrees, to a voluntaristic, paternalistic SR mentality that prevailed in Colombia. But transnational SR standards and standard-setters were not entirely unopposed; they also encountered some local contestation.

3.3. Practices of contestation: transnational standard-setters navigate local shoals

The striking thing about contestation of ISO and ICONTEC’s SR authority in Colombia was how little there was. At the international level, labour, industry, environmental and human rights groups actively opposed the development of ISO 26000 (Tamm Hallström and Boström 2010, pp. 30–36; Wood 2016). Their practices of contestation included boycott, public denunciation, support for rival schemes, and obstructionism in the WGSR. In Colombia, resistance was muted.

Colombian consumer, labour and civil society groups met the development of ISO 26000 and the ICONTEC SR guide mostly with silence. Several ICONTEC SR committee members said that such groups refused invitations to participate, but the labour, consumer and human rights respondents I interviewed (#18-21) said they were never invited. One academic interviewee (#23) speculated that unions did not participate because they were used to denouncing corporations and ISO and ICONTEC standards were not instruments for denunciation. Certainly, the non-participating civil society respondents expressed some concerns about ISO or ICONTEC, but none publicly denounced them. Two (#17, 18) developed or administered SR programmes but did not consider them rivals to ISO.

Contestation was also muted in Colombian industry and government. Whereas Northern multinational business and some governments obstructed ISO 26000 inside and outside the WGSR, Colombian industry and government were supportive (#23). So were academics. Colombian universities and academics, including the three academic respondents (#22-24), played key roles in SR research, training, advising, standards development and certification. Leading Colombian SR academics were influential in the ICONTEC SR committee and WGSR delegation. Academic respondents brought nuance to debates but ultimately tended to reinforce ISO and ICONTEC’s authority rather than magnify dissent.

Overall, Colombian practices of contestation amounted to mild friction. Several respondents doubted ISO or ICONTEC standards could help with the armed conflict or post-conflict reconstruction (#6, 8, 9, 17, 19), but more were cautiously optimistic that they could (#3, 10-12, 14, 15, 18, 23). Others doubted that ISO could accommodate local realities related to education, human rights, informality and illegality (#7, 9, 10, 17). Some resisted ISO’s effort to standardise the substance of SR as opposed to SR processes and practices (#6, 8, 15, 16, 22), but others supported it (#9, 11, 18, 23).

This contestation did not preclude local legitimation of transnational standard-setters. The Indigenous peoples’ organisation (#19) was the sole exception. It rejected voluntary SR entirely:

standards are used to deceive people in the most vulnerable communities … In our country not even mandatory provisions are being complied with. Voluntary standards pose more difficulties. Compliance is left up to the goodwill of the corporations or the individuals … Voluntary standards can be used as a shield, a means to avoid claims against them under the pretense that they are complying so as to ensure that enforcement action is not taken (#19).

This respondent, unlike others, emphasized corporations’ role in violent conflict, saying that companies in Colombia unleash ‘a wave of violence … in order to weaken the people and force them off their land’ (#19). The respondent concluded: ‘We do not believe in [ISO and ICONTEC] standards … we have not used them or appealed to those standards. Due to our experience, we no longer trust what they say because they usually respond to political and economic interests’ (ibid.).

In short, local practices of translation provided fertile soil in which to ground ISO’s SR authority, while practices of contestation did not, on the whole, cause it to run aground on local shoals. To understand this outcome, it is useful to consider how communities of practice shaped legitimation politics.

3.4. Communities of practice: legitimation despite a legitimacy deficit

These practices of translation and contestation were enacted by communities of practice, each with its own shared beliefs about the grounds for SR standard-setting authority. Intra – and inter-community convergence and conflict over the grounds for SR standard-setting authority shaped translation and contestation. Virtually all respondents converged on one such ground: an effective multi-stakeholder standard-setting process. Less than a third of respondents believed that such a process was achieved in the ISO or ICONTEC SR committees, but all except one nevertheless believed ISO or ICONTEC had legitimate authority to pronounce SR standards. This raises a secondary research question: how were SR standard-setters legitimised despite their failure to meet expectations for legitimate authority? An answer can be found in communities of practice. All the respondents that accepted ISO or ICONTEC’s authority were members of one or both of two overlapping communities of practice: a standardisation community of practice and a CSR community of practice. The sole dissenting respondent belonged to neither.

Respondents were nearly unanimous that SR standards should be developed through a multi-stakeholder consensus process in which all concerned interests participate effectively. A large majority considered this ‘the key to legitimacy’ (#22). A few emphasized that ISO and ICONTEC’s legitimacy depended entirely on their ability to convene the people with the relevant knowledge and interests (#15, 22–24). But less than one third were confident that the ISO or ICONTEC SR committees met this expectation (all were from the private and public sectors; I will call them the ‘faithful’). Half believed they did not (60% of these ‘doubters’ were from civil society, 40% private sector), and 20% were equivocal (these ‘agnostics’ included one private sector respondent and all three academic respondents). There was wide agreement that industry was well represented in both committees, labour and consumers were underrepresented in ISO and effectively absent from the ICONTEC committee, and NGOs, small business and government were underrepresented to varying degrees in both. Several respondents also reported that the ICONTEC committee ‘had many members but very little involvement’ (#8).

These concerns did not prevent all but one respondent—the Indigenous people’s organisation (#19)—from concluding that, all things considered, ISO, ICONTEC or both had legitimate authority to articulate SR standards. All respondents that reached this conclusion were members of the standardisation or CSR community of practice, or both.

3.4.1. The standardization community of practice

Standardisation is a community of communities at multiple levels and in multiple sectors and issue areas. Colombia’s standardisation community of practice revolves around ICONTEC and is nested within regional and global communities of practice organised around ISO. These communities also intersect to some degree with specialised environmental and social standard-setting communities, including fair trade, organic, sustainable forestry and human rights certification schemes. The standardisation community of practice exhibits heterogeneous and conflicting interests (eg standards users versus consultants/auditors), goals (eg production efficiency versus environmental protection) and perceptions (eg all relevant interests do or do not participate effectively). But all members are socialised into a knowledge domain that structures action and constitutes a sense of joint enterprise.

Part of this knowledge domain is a shared conception of the grounds for the standardisation community’s authority (Wood 2016; Yates and Murphy 2019). ISO and its national member bodies claim to develop only standards for which there is a demonstrated market demand, grounding their authority in responsiveness to the needs of business. They also claim that their standards are developed by subject-matter experts, grounding their authority in a norm of technical expertise. They claim further that their standards are developed by representatives of all interested and affected parties, invoking a norm of multi-stakeholder decision-making (ISO 2020b). They also claim that their standards are developed by consensus (ISO 2004, p. 8). Moreover, they claim authority on the basis that their standards are effective at achieving collective goals ranging from facilitating global trade to protecting workers and the environment (ISO 2020a). They also invoke other grounds, including recognition (by states and international organisations), feasibility (for standards users), rigour (reflecting best practice), transparency (of work plans and key documents), experience (tens of thousands of standards in print) and market uptake (used by millions of organisations) (ISO 2020c, 2020d, 2020b). Respondents invoked most of these grounds in their practices and interviews.

Almost 80% of respondents were members of the Colombian standardisation community of practice. Alongside members of the ISO or ICONTEC SR committees (54% of respondents), this community included people who participated in other ICONTEC or ISO standard-setting committees, implemented ICONTEC or ISO standards, or performed education, consulting, auditing or certification services in relation to such standards. Only five respondents were outside the standardisation community of practice: a business think tank (#12), a human rights NGO (#18), an Indigenous organisation (#19), a consumer group (#20) and a labour union federation (#21).

The respondents who were members of the Colombian standardisation community of practice performed roles ranging from sporadic to continual, peripheral to central and novice to master. The involvement of some was limited to occasional membership on one committee or advising companies about one standard. Others were veterans of numerous standardisation committees or had implemented, audited, certified or otherwise worked with multiple ISO or ICONTEC standards.

Perceptions of whether the SR committees were adequately participatory varied with extent of involvement in the standardisation community. All of the ‘faithful’ (respondents who concluded that the ISO and/or ICONTEC SR committees substantially fulfilled the norm of effective multi-stakeholder consensus) had far greater involvement than any of the ‘doubters.’ They were more thoroughly socialised into the community of practice and more personally invested in its shared enterprise and its SR agenda.

Membership in the standardisation community of practice also helps explain how most ‘doubters’ could consider ISO or ICONTEC SR standardisation legitimate despite its failure to fulfill a criterion they identified as key to legitimacy—an effective multi-stakeholder, consensus-based process. Respondents who were members of this community of practice exhibited two strategies to reconcile their commitment to robust multi-stakeholder participation with their legitimation of initiatives that might not fulfill this commitment: pragmatic resignation to imperfect participation and appeal to alternative grounds for authority.

First, most ‘doubters’ qualified their participation expectations, endorsing a ‘best efforts’ standard. One ‘doubter’ commented: ‘You could ask more [participants] to come to the table, but given the scope and from a practical perspective, I think it is sufficiently objective the way it is’ (#16). Several respondents—including some ‘doubters’ (#8, 10, 15, 16)—shifted responsibility for under-representation onto under-represented groups. If consumers, unions and to a lesser extent NGOs did not participate it was not because they were not invited but because they refused to come.⁶

An academic interviewee deeply involved in the ISO and ICONTEC SR committees opined that the process approximated a Habermasian model of reasoned deliberation, but that failure to secure participation of unions and consumers threatened its legitimacy and that ‘in this regard the norm of stakeholder participation does not work’ (#23). This respondent ultimately relied on the efforts made to secure participation and the opportunities for public comment to conclude that ‘the process is legitimate up to the point that the process can reach … Within this level of participation I think this is a legitimate model, or it aspires to be legitimate.’ Another academic who participated briefly in the ICONTEC SR committee commented, ‘if we were wiser we would change the process … [but] we don’t have experience with a different process so you might as well use a bad tool that you already know will take you there’ (#22).

Second, several respondents—mostly ‘faithful’ or ‘agnostic’ but including a couple of ‘doubters’—invoked grounds for authority other than participatory decision-making to support their characterisation of ISO or ICONTEC as legitimate SR standard-setters. The multiplicity of grounds for authority prevalent in the standardisation community helped compensate for flawed participation. Several respondents suggested that ISO and ICONTEC’s market dominance, widespread recognition and uptake, and familiarity to business managers enhanced their authority to develop SR standards, regardless of who participated (#3, 12, 13, 14, 15, 17, 22). A few suggested that the content and/or effective implementation of SR standards would be more important for their legitimacy than who developed them (#4, 16, 22). An academic respondent said that a multistakeholder consensus process is ‘totally important, but legitimacy is more a function of implementation than of participation in standards development. No companies ask who participated in standards development’ (#24). A few respondents emphasized that ISO and ICONTEC serve the needs of business, for example ‘we adopt [the standards] industry needs’ (#13).

3.4.2. The CSR community of practice

The preceding discussion helps to explain why members of the standardisation community of practice might have legitimised ISO or ICONTEC SR standard-setting despite these processes' marginalization of important stakeholders. But what about respondents who were outside this community of practice? The business think tank (#12), human rights (#18), Indigenous (#19), consumer (#20) and union (#21) respondents were not members of the standardisation community of practice. Yet all but the Indigenous organisation joined the others in recognising ICONTEC and/or ISO as legitimate SR standard-setters.

All these respondents were members of a second community of practice devoted to CSR. Like the standardisation community, this is a community of communities existing at multiple geographic scales and in different economic sectors. Its practices range from articulation of general theories and principles of CSR to detailed implementation and verification of CSR practices. It is characterised by internal heterogeneity and disagreement over such issues as who has the authority to define a business’s social responsibilities and whether CSR is limited to voluntary action beyond legal compliance or includes compliance with law. But it is united by a shared perception of business as a potentially positive force and a commitment to the principle that voluntary corporate action has a constructive role to play in advancing SR. Moreover, its membership and knowledge domain overlap significantly with those of the standardisation community of practice, limiting the likelihood of conflict between these two communities.

All respondents except the lone dissenter were members of the CSR community of practice. The business think tank (#12) and human rights NGO (#18) were leading the development of a voluntary CSR programme for Colombian businesses. To be sure, the consumer (#20) and labour (#21) respondents were near the margins of the community. They were wary of business but endorsed voluntary CSR initiatives provided their respective constituencies were adequately consulted. It is also worth noting that the three academic respondents (#22-24) were key figures in the Colombian CSR community of practice, which might help explain their endorsement of ISO and ICONTEC as SR standard-setters despite their acknowledgement of these organisations’ failings.

By contrast, the Indigenous respondent (#19) rejected voluntary standards and CSR altogether. It viewed business as a threat to be resisted and held accountable. It joined with other Indigenous groups in supporting Peoples’ Tribunals and binding international laws to hold companies and states accountable for abuses of Indigenous peoples’ rights. It had more in common with transnational Indigenous peoples’, anti-globalization and anti-capitalist movements than with either the CSR or standardisation communities.

4. Conclusion

In this article I have attempted to show how a ‘practice’ lens can shed light on global-local interactions in the norm formation phase of transnational private governance. Taking Graz's (2021) conceptualisation of ‘grounding’ as my starting point, I proposed an analytical framework in which (1) practices of translation allow transnational standard-setters to become grounded in receptive local realities, (2) practices of contestation threaten to make transnational standard-setters run aground on local resistance, and (3) the effects of these practices upon the legitimation or delegitimation of transnational private governance can be assessed by studying conflict and convergence within and between communities of practice regarding the normative grounds for authority.

The example of Colombian reactions to ISO SR standard-setting illustrated the application of this analytical perspective. Actors in Colombia translated ISO’s assertion of transnational SR standard-setting authority into terms that made sense to them in light of their own experiences and priorities. On one hand, they helped ISO to become grounded locally by engaging in literal translation from English to Spanish, participating in ISO and ICONTEC standardisation processes, and engaging in a range of other development, implementation, consulting, verification and promotion practices related to SR and voluntary standards. These practices contributed to local grounding of ISO and ICONTEC by emulating or adapting transnational standards and by assimilating them to a prevalent voluntaristic, paternalistic SR mentality. Local actors also engaged in practices of contestation, but resistance to transnational private governance authority was remarkably muted even amongst actors who might be expected to exhibit it, including environmental, human rights, consumer and labour groups, as well as academics.

These practices of translation and contestation manifested convergence and conflict over the normative grounds for SR standard-setting authority. Virtually all respondents embraced one ground as key to legitimate SR standard-setting authority: an effective multi-stakeholder standard-setting process. Less than one-third believed, however, that such a process was achieved in the ISO or ICONTEC SR committees. And yet, all but one concluded that ISO or ICONTEC had legitimate authority to pronounce SR standards. The sole dissenter was an Indigenous organisation, which rejected ISO, ICONTEC and voluntary SR standards outright. This near-unanimous legitimation despite failure to meet a key legitimacy criterion was explained by membership in two overlapping communities of practice: standardisation and CSR.

On one hand, this illustrative example suggests that the legitimacy of transnational private governance does not need deep local roots. Many local actors appear willing to legitimize organisations as standard-setters despite their failure to achieve standard-setting processes in which all concerned interests—especially workers, consumers and civil society—participated effectively. Market penetration, familiarity, pragmatic resignation and adaptability to local circumstances may compensate for a lack of open, inclusive standard-setting processes. Inclusive, multi-stakeholder processes may not be as important to the legitimacy of standard-setters as is commonly thought (eg. Tamm Hallström and Boström 2010, pp. 142–44). Investing substantial additional resources in improving openness and inclusiveness of standards development might not generate substantial legitimacy gains and could risk alienating standard-setters’ core constituencies. This echoes Dietz and Grabs' argument in this special section that no matter what strategy standard-setting organisations choose, ‘their success will be stymied during competitive mainstreaming’ (Dietz and Grabs 2021).

On the other hand, the legitimacy that standard-setting organisations harvest from this thin soil may be limited to members of a limited community of practice. As the dissenting voice of the Indigenous organisation showed in my illustration, it might not be conferred by actors that work and identify most closely with those harmed by the problems at which transnational private governance is aimed, and view the communities of practice engaged in such governance as a problem rather than a solution. Granted, in many societies, such actors occupy politically and economically marginal positions. But in the long run, it will be difficult to achieve a sustainable resolution of the problems addressed by transnational private governance without the support or acquiescence of such actors. This illustration could thus reinforce skepticism about the prospects for transnational private governance and the system of voluntary standardisation to contribute meaningfully to enhancing corporate accountability and social performance.

Acknowledgements

I wish to thank Martha Castro, Adriana Alonso, Daniel Trillos and the late Fabio Tobón of ICONTEC for their cooperation; Universidad del Rosario for hosting me as a visiting scholar in Bogotá; the interviewees for their generosity; Jean-Christophe Graz, Nicole Helmerich and the other organizers and participants in the Lausanne conference of the ECPR Standing Group on Regulatory Governance for feedback on earlier versions, and the anonymous reviewers for their excellent suggestions. I extend special thanks to Ramon Madriñan and Mauricio Beltrán for their steadfast friendship and hospitality, and Rusby Chaparro for her indispensable help as my translator and interview organizer in Colombia.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Additional information

Funding

The research for this article was funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.

Notes on contributors

Stepan Wood

Stepan Wood is Professor, Canada Research Chair in Law, Society and Sustainability and Director of the Centre for Law and the Environment at the Allard School of Law, University of British Columbia. His research focuses on corporate social responsibility, sustainability, globalization, transnational governance, voluntary standards, climate change and environmental law. He leads the interdisciplinary Transnational Business Governance Interactions (TBGI) research network, which examines competition, cooperation, coordination, and conflict in transnational business governance. His most recent book (co-edited with Kenneth W Abbott and others) is Transnational Business Governance Interactions: Advancing Marginalized Actors and Enhancing Regulatory Quality (Elgar 2019).

Notes

1 Numbers in parentheses refer to respondent organizations. See Appendix for details.

2 Translations involving such value judgments included concerned (afectado [‘affected’] or preocupado [‘worried’]); engagement (involucramiento [‘involvement’] or compromiso [‘agreement,’ ‘engagement’]); be accountable (rendir cuentas [‘give account’] or asumir la responsabilidad [‘take responsibility’]), (respect for) rule of law (respeto a la ley [‘respect for law’], principio de legalidad [‘principle of legality’] or Estado de derecho [literally, State of law, which the STTF considered broader than ‘rule of law’]); and significant (proposals ranged from pertinente [‘relevant’] to esencial [‘essential’]).

3 The stakeholder categories were consumers, government, industry, labour, NGO and SSRO (service, support, research and others).

4 Eg ‘we work like a religion. They make decisions and documents in Geneva and we spread the doctrine in our own country’ (#11, referring to the World Business Council for Sustainable Development).

5 ‘[C]ompliance with law is a fundamental duty of any organization and an essential part of their social responsibility’ (ISO 2010, clause 1).

6 This tendency to blame under-represented groups for their under-representation shaded into disparagement in some cases. Several respondents (almost all in the ‘faithful’ group) claimed that many Colombian consumer groups and NGOs were unrepresentative, corrupt, socially irresponsible or ignorant, or that Colombian unions were extortionists (#3, 5, 7, 8, 11, 22).

Appendix. List of Interviews

Table

#	Organisation	# of interviewees	Sector	Scope of operation	Location	Date
1	Government body responsible for environmental protection	2	Public	National	Bogotá	17 June 2008
2	Government body responsible for social services	1	Public	National	Bogotá	18 June 2008
3	Government body responsible for development and international aid	1	Public	Multinational	Bogotá	1 July 2008
4	Government body responsible for job training	1	Public	Multinational	Bogotá	27 June 2008
5	Association of subnational environmental authorities	3	Public	National	Bogotá	27 June 2008
6	State-owned enterprise	2	Public	Multinational	Bogotá	16 June 2008
7	Association of large industrial companies	1	Private	National	Bogotá	17 June 2008
8	Association of chambers of commerce	1	Private	National	Bogotá	13 June 2008
9	Association of small & medium-sized enterprises	1	Private	National	Bogotá	11 June 2008
10	Agricultural sector trade association	1	Private	National	Bogotá	11 June 2008
11	Sustainable business council	2	Private	National	Bogotá	9 June 2008
12	Business-funded think tank	1	Private	National	Bogotá	18 June 2008
13	National standards body (ICONTEC)	5	Private	Multinational	Bogotá & Medellín	9 and 19 June 2008
14	Caja de compensación	1	Private	Subnational	Medellín	19 June 2008
15	Caja de compensación	1	Private	Subnational	Bogotá	27 June 2008
16	Environmental NGO	1	Civil society	National	Bogotá	10 June 2008
17	Environmental NGO	1	Civil society	National	Bogotá	24 June 2008
18	Human rights NGO	1	Civil society	National	Bogotá	16 June 2008
19	Indigenous peoples’ NGO	2	Civil society	National	Bogotá	18 June 2008
20	Consumer NGO	2	Civil society	National	Bogotá	25 June 2008
21	Labour union federation	1	Civil society	National	Bogotá	26 June 2008
22	Academic researcher	1	Civil society	N/A	Bogotá	11 June 2008
23	Academic researcher	1	Civil society	N/A	Bogotá	16 June 2008
24	Academic researcher	1	Civil society	N/A	Medellín	20 June 2008