Thevirtuouscircle.co.uk

September 07
the inside track #12
Corporate Social Responsibility – a cultural perspective
As regular readers of anything incorporating any form of combination of the words “corporate,
social, responsibility, and sustainability” we read alerts from around the world highlighting what
national cultures perceive as CSR challenges or breakthroughs.
At the beginning of the summer, an article appeared in The Perhaps the message from both Talent and his accusers is that Huffington Post (or HuffPo), an online news US website described CSR is seen through the eyes of the culture in which it is being as the US’s most popular “analysis and opinion website”. It is seen as left of centre (although how that translates into UK political jargon is probably closer to centre-right).
Whilst the survey suggests responsible US company practice is all about how well it treats its employees, the same result would be The article was written by Jim Talent, Republican Senator for unlikely in an EU survey, where employee legislation is more Missouri until 2006, and currently active in Romney’s Presidential rigorous. Instead, it is likely that an EU company’s responsibility campaigns. Entitled “Beyond the Bottom Line: Redefining would be judged on environmental practices. Corporate Social Responsibility”, one of his conclusions was that This will differ in the developing world. Here environmental whilst “business success is still about making money … it can’t initiatives are seen to be promoted by the West to establish trade only be about that” – hardly world shattering, you might suggest. barriers against local companies. In these countries, judging by the CSR alerts we read, the primary factors will be a combination He referred to a survey conducted by Fleishmann-Hillard and the of approaches towards human rights, corrupt practices and care National Consumers League.This found a majority of Americans for indigenous peoples and their communities.
believe the most important thing a company can do to be viewed as socially responsible is to "treat their employees well." It also Along with Talent’s article came news of political approaches found Americans who evaluate a company's CSR commitment to CSR that represent this opposite end of the spectrum. modify their views depending on whether they are considering In the Philippines, the Government’s Board of Investment is their own position as employees, investors, customers, or voters. requiring all companies registered under its 2007 Investment Priorities Plan (with six year tax holiday incentives) to implement Remarkably, the survey found Americans are united in their view CSR programmes. Its objective is to ensure incentives benefit of corporate performance, and regardless of political affiliation, In a similar, but perhaps harsher action, the Indonesian • Corporate priorities are out of alignment with Americans' priorities. Government has passed a new corporations’ legislation that will • U.S. corporations do not act responsibly. make CSR programmes legally mandatory – with a special focus on companies engaged in the exploitation of natural resources. Probably few of these findings (or even Senator Talent’s views) will In both sets of legislation, sanctions are planned for non compliant be particularly surprising if read from a UK perspective, but for the article and the survey, they represented new ground in USA. As relevant was the range of online responses that Talent’s article Today, more than ever, in evaluating CSR programmes, account provoked, which ranged from supportive to outright abuse (often has to be taken of both the culture and the politics of regions in accusing Talent of relinquishing his Republican heritage). TVC comment overleaf >
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September 07
the virtuous circle
comment: #12
Whether Senator Talent’s views will take hold in the USA is probably not the question that mostcompanies need to consider when developing CSR strategies and programmes.
More important is how flexible are their CSR programmes and The first is to provide a group-wide umbrella for CSR related policies.
policies, and do they take account of differing cultures and politics These represent the group’s view of minimum acceptable levels of in their CSR strategies? This is relevant both for companies that responsible action but enables subsidiaries to move beyond this if have international operations and those that sell to international market conditions or country legislation require.
The second is to have identical measurement for common business It is vital that companies avoid a “western civilisation” basis for their issues. An example is health and safety accident rate measurement - CSR strategy or attempt to implement uniformly across all often challenging with differing legislative standards. A solution is to define internal measures against which subsidiaries report to corporate management. This enables internal benchmarking and An example of problems caused by such a business approach is performance improvement programmes to be driven forward.
that of Coca Cola in India some years ago. Their stance on the percentage of local ownership led to accusations of Coca- The third is to recognise various parts of the world will be at differing colonisation – consequently, preference was given to its competitors.
levels of CSR attainment. An approach is to compare these different Understanding cultures across different regions, such as in the sub- levels – we often use traffic lights. These link to umbrella policy continent, is also a challenge for CSR practitioners. Successful standards. With these in place, the management challenge is to global CSR implementation is almost impossible to achieve if a assist less advanced subsidiaries to move to higher levels of “western civilisation” approach is adopted as the basis for CSR.
attainment over time. As they progress along their own path, this gives the group CSR team the opportunity to review global umbrella These differences apply beyond developing countries. Our recent policies and if necessary to enhance standards as overall company study for a client across Europe showed different attitudes towards environmental programmes in its subsidiaries. They ranged from legislatively driven approaches in Central and Eastern Europe to a The well-worn phrase “one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom more evangelical approach in the UK. Did the outputs vary across fighter” is as relevant to perceptions about CSR as to political Europe? No, this was not the case. Legislation in the more developments. A good CSR strategy respects cultural differences traditionally centrally controlled economies tended to be more across all operations, rather than trying to demonstrate a seamless demanding than that in the UK. A single minded approach to environmental initiatives could lead to confusion (and even disregard) if applied uniformly across all subsidiaries.
Diversity is similar. Guidance we produced for one client took into account both differing legislation, such as prohibiting the collection of diversity information in France, and differing cultural attitudes towards diversity, such as in Italy, where politically incorrect language can arise when discussing issues relating to disability.
If you would like an objective and impartial view on
These examples demonstrate the challenges and pitfalls of a “one addressing cultural issues in your CSR strategy,
contact Tony Hoskins -
size fits all” approach. Our experiences suggest that a better tactic [email protected]
consists of several separate but interlinked activities.
or Ian Redington -
[email protected]
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Source: http://www.thevirtuouscircle.co.uk/INSIDE%20TRACK%20NEWSLETTERS/newsletter_No.12/TVC%20NEWSLETTER%20-%20No.12.pdf