ABSTRACT
The formation of United Nations Global Compact along with Global Reporting Initiative framework–based reporting represents a key landmark in Western efforts to regulate businesses for responsibility. Voluntarism defined American business-society relations. As early as 1962, developing countries became important sites of multinational activity, especially in the natural resource extraction industry. In the absence of any government oversight over TNCs and the virtual stalemate that had been reached in international negotiations on the issue of a government or a multilateral agency led voluntary code of conduct, research findings of the UN Centre for Transnational Corporations, provided a strong impetus for private action to promote responsible business practices. The nation building sentiment was very much in evidence and anchored in their participation in employment generation and institution building. The optimistic participatory attitude of business in the nation's future in early 1950s soon gave way to much discontent and dissatisfaction.
