Company Responses to Human Rights Reports: An Empirical Analysis

How do companies respond to their critics? Are there significant differences in responsiveness between industrial sectors, between the countries in which companies are based, and between the companies themselves? Do responses reflect the belief that companies have a responsibility to respect human rights? Do companies that participate in the UN Global Compact react more responsibly than those that do not? This article attempts to answer these questions by examining company responses to civil society reports contained in the company response database of the Business & Human Rights Resource Centre. The analysis covers responses to 1877 requests made by the Resource Centre from 2005-2014.