How private meta-governance helps standard-setting partnerships deliver

Abstract

Purpose This paper aims to analyze the relevance of private meta-governance for multi-stakeholder partnerships. The authors assume that meta-governance, defined as higher level rules that shall guide partnerships’ governance activities, could build on and institutionalize lessons learned about partnerships’ success conditions and, in doing so, may render partnerships’ work more effective in the future. Design/methodology/approach The research paper investigates a case of non-state meta-governance in the standard-setting arena. It explores how actors assess the interaction of the meta-governance efforts of the International Social and Environmental Accreditation and Labelling (ISEAL) Alliance (mainly in the form of their three Codes of Good Practice) and the Alliance for Water Stewardship’s efforts when setting and implementing their International Water Stewardship Standard. For this, a combination of research methods is applied: a literature review for deriving propositions on success conditions; document analysis, participatory observation and semi-structured interviews for gathering empirical evidence on the interaction between meta-governance and the partnership’s work. Findings Respondents praise the benefits of ISEAL’s enabling meta-governance measures to strengthen their standard, structures and processes, as well as from ensuring activities, as these also improve their internal governance system while simultaneously providing credibility. In this context, they confirm the relevance of three success factors mentioned in the literature on voluntary standards: an inclusive process, a locally adapted design of the standard and institutionalized compliance management. Practical implications Instead of reinventing the wheel with every new multi-stakeholder partnership, meta-governance frameworks should be used to enable partnership staff and members, policymakers and stakeholders to learn from experience. Originality/value The authors’ analysis generates unique insights into perceptions of partnerships’ staff and stakeholders regarding lessons learned and private meta-governance. The present study on these actors’ perspectives provides a starting-point for further research on how meta-governance could help institutionalize success factors to scale-up and improve the impact of standard-setting partnerships.

Multi-stakeholder partnerships: a catalyst to achieve sustainable development goals

“…Engagement with community organizations and indigenous people’s issues is paramount to a successful partnership. Thus, community organizations can use their influence and local knowledge to work with governments, businesses, NGOs and academic institutions by providing an avenue for dialogue and encourage other stakeholders to work together to achieve local specificity (Mundle et al , 2017).…”

“…Existing scholarship in stakeholder-institutional perspectives mostly identifies a wide range of stakeholder orientations and their influences on partnerships to either traditionally share or compromise existing practices for implementation process (de Bakker et al , 2019) and thereby neglects how this process can involve co-creation of new knowledge and mutual learning activities to address complex SDGs problems (Mundle et al , 2017; Peterson, 2013). Accordingly, we extend and enrich this strand of literature on MSPs for SDGs phenomenon (e.g.…”

Metagovernance on Disaster: Learning from Lampung Tsunami in Indonesia

“…From the lens of theory on metagovernance, this type falls in the category of multistakeholders meta-governance. According scholars on metagovernance, success of metagovernance partnership is based on an inclusive process, locally adapted design of common standard, and institutionalized compliance management [12]. Data show that factor for the success was an inclusive process in which through in-situ informal emergency meeting all agree to share duties and functions for the sake of the victims of tsunami disaster.…”

“…It means, institutions are mostly directed by their own rules and regulations when entering the partnership and do not surender their basic principles or rules in doing so. Moreover, a scheme of metagovernance could be succeed due to three factors: an inclusive process, a locally adapted design of the standard, and institutionalized compliance management [12].…”

Meta‐Governance of Partnerships for Sustainable Development: Actors' Perspectives from Kenya

“…In this article, we focus on the national‐level and local‐level meta‐governance (for international or private forms of meta‐governance see Beisheim and Simon forthcoming; Mundle et al . forthcoming).…”