King and Lenox (2000)
King, Andrew, and Michael Lenox. "Industry Self-Regulation Without Sanctions: The Chemical Industry's Responsible Care Program." Academy of Management Journal, August 2000.
From the authors’ abstract: “Industry self-regulation--the voluntary association of firms to control their collective action--has been proposed as a complement to government regulation. Proponents argue that the establishment of such structures may institutionalize environmental improvement, and critics suggest that without explicit sanctions, such structures will fall victim to opportunistic behavior. In a study of the Chemical Manufacturers Association's Responsible Care Program, we investigate the predictions of these two contradictory perspectives. Our findings…suggest that effective industry self-regulation is difficult to maintain without explicit sanctions.”