Multinational enterprises are aware of their responsibility to protect human rights now more than ever, but severe human rights violations, including physical integrity abuses (e.g., death, torture, disappearances), continue unabated. To explore this puzzle, we engage theoretically with the means-ends decoupling literature to examine if and when oil and gas firms’ policies and practices prevent severe human rights abuse. Using an original dataset, we identify two pathways to mitigate means-ends decoupling: (a) while human rights policies alone do not reduce human rights abuses, firms with a high-quality human rights policy over the long-term reduce severe human rights abuses; (b) firms that combine preparedness—which we define as a firm’s capabilities, practices, and engagement—with a long-term human rights policy also reduce the likelihood of human rights abuses. Preparedness, we argue, can lead to reinforcement dynamics between long-term policy efforts and additional capabilities that provide a more holistic understanding of firm behavior.

跨国企业现在比以往任何时候都更清楚他们保护人权的责任，但严重侵犯人权的行为，包括侵犯人身安全（例如，死亡、酷刑、失踪），仍有增无减。为了探索这个难题，我们从理论上使用手段与目的脱钩的文献，以研究石油和天然气公司的政策和实践是否以及何时防止严重侵犯人权。使用原始数据集，我们确定了两种缓解手段与目的脱钩的途径：(a) 虽然仅靠人权政策并不能减少侵犯人权的行为，但拥有长期高质量人权政策的公司可以减少严重的侵犯人权行为; (b) 结合准备的公司——我们将其定义为公司的能力、实践、和参与——长期的人权政策也减少了侵犯人权的可能性。我们认为，准备工作可以在长期政策努力和提供对公司行为更全面理解的额外能力之间产生强化动态。