A small but growing line of research has focused on whether voluntary corporate efforts to address social problems alter public support for regulation. These studies focus on public opinion because of the strength of its influence on public policy. Yet existing research on the topic has produced contradictory results. One study found that voluntary efforts undertaken by 100% of an industry can crowd out support for stringent regulations such as a complete ban on neonic insecticides. Another found that individual firm commitments can lead to a moderate increase in support for government regulation, particularly among conservatives.

In a new paper, we build on these prior studies to develop a more comprehensive conceptual framework for why voluntary efforts might sometimes crowd in and other times crowd out support for government regulation. We hypothesize that voluntary efforts could affect public support by changing perceptions of (1) the firm’s credibility, (2) the need for government regulation, (3) the feasibility of government regulation, and/or (4) the scope or seriousness of the underlying problem. Because these factors can move in opposing directions, we posit that, overall, voluntary efforts are unlikely to have a large influence on support for regulation, and that any influence will be heavily context-dependent.

To test our theory, we ran two preregistered, randomized controlled vignette studies with over 2,800 participants designed to be representative of the U.S. population. We used examples of actual company efforts to see how they affect support for the types of regulations currently being debated today.

Read more at Harvard Law School Forum on Corporate Governance