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This special issue of the Journal of Corporate Citizenship honours
the voice of the Changemaker, Wayfinder, Edgewalker, and
Intellectual Shaman in particular. It is contended that we can all
become Shamans, Wayfinders, and Edgewalkers, if we open up to the
possibility that our work, whatever it is, is part of the healing
process. With contributions from North America, Europe, Africa and
Australasia, this issue addresses the ideas of corporate
citizenship from perspectives entirely removed from the mainstream.
The return to business-as-usual after the economic earthquake that
rocked financial markets, wrecked banks and brought to light the
grotesque distortions of casino capitalism on people and planet
must be resisted. A new form of capitalism is both necessary and
possible as some forward-thinking political, business and civil
society leaders have now recognised. This book is about the myriad
problems that we face and the systemic changes that are necessary
for all enterprises in whatever sector and however constituted to
operate within sustainable limits, to lower their ecological
footprint, to enhance social equity, and to develop a sense of
futurity. Waddock and McIntosh argue that enterprise, innovation
and creativity, like conversation, caring and sharing, are part of
what it means to be human. They argue that we need to redefine our
relationship with commerce to reconcile our relationship with the
Earth. The authors see the seeds of economic change in new and
fundamentally different forms - in entrepreneurship, networks,
governance, transparency and accountability - already being planted
and beginning to grow. To nurture these developments, they believe
that we need to learn to "see" in new ways to begin to recognise
their worth and to create a sufficiently broad, coherent and
integrated social movement for change that can overcome the
momentum of the current system. Incremental change - CSR, for
example - will not be enough. Deep change is needed in the
purposing, goals and practice of business enterprise. Deep change
is needed in the ways that we, as humans, relate to nature and
natural systems under severe stress from resource overuse and
depletion, a quadrupled population during the 20th century, and
human impact on climate. And deep change is needed in the ways in
which we relate to each other, use our time and build our
communities. This book documents some of the changes that are
already in progress and provides optimism that a sustainable
enterprise economy geared to innovation, creativity,
problem-solving, entrepreneurialism and enthusiasm for life can
produce wealth, preserve the natural environment and nurture social
capital.
Almost every manager today knows that satisfying customers by
meeting their quality demands is a critical component of business
success. Quality management is a given in modern companies - a
competitive imperative. Yet it was not always so. Back when the
quality movement was getting started, few managers really
understood either the importance of quality to customers or how to
manage for quality. Much the same could be said today about
managing responsibility. Why and how should responsibility be
managed? What is responsibility management? Total Responsibility
Management answers these questions while at the same time providing
a systemic framework for managing a company's responsibilities to
stakeholders and the natural environment that can be applied in a
wide range of contexts. This framework uses managerial familiarity
with quality management to illustrate the drivers for
responsibility management. Companies know that product or service
quality affects their customer relationships and the trust
customers have in the company's products and services. So, too, a
company's management of its responsibilities to other
constituencies affects its relationships with those other
stakeholders and the natural environment. But why bother? The
answer is quite simple. Never has it been easier for employees,
reporters, activists, investors, community members, the media and
other critical observers to find fault with companies and their
subsidiaries. A problem identified, even in a remote region or
within a remote supplier, can instantaneously be transmitted around
the world at the click of a mouse. Ask footwear, toy, clothing and
other highly visible branded companies what their recent experience
with corporate critics has been and they will tell you about the
need to manage their stakeholder responsibilities (human rights,
labour relations, environmental, integrity-related) or face
significant consequences in the limelight of public opinion.
Managers will discover that whether they do it consciously or not,
they are already managing responsibility, just as companies were
already managing quality when the quality movement hit. This manual
makes the process of managing responsibilities to and relationships
with stakeholders and nature explicit. Making the process explicit
is important because too few of today's decisions-makers yet
understand how they are managing stakeholder responsibilities as
well as they understand how to manage quality. Managing
responsibilities goes well beyond traditional 'do good' or
discretionary activities associated with philanthropy and
volunteerism, which are frequently termed 'corporate social
responsibility'. In its broadest sense, responsibility management
means taking corporate citizenship seriously as a core part of the
way the company develops and implements its business model. The
specifics of responsibility management are unique to each company,
its industry, its products and its stakeholders, yet, as this
manual illustrates, a general approach to managing responsibility
is feasible - indeed, is increasingly necessary. Based on work
undertaken by Boston College and the International Labour Office,
Total Responsibility Management is the first CSR manual. Its
original case studies add value to a range of tools and exercises
that will make it required reading for all managers in need of a
practical guide to managing responsibility and to students and
researchers looking for an overarching framework to contextualise
the changing responsibilities of global business.
Management and the Sustainability Paradox is about how humans
became disconnected from their ecological environment throughout
evolutionary history. Begining with the premise that people have
competing innate, natural drives linked to survival. Survival can
be thought of in the context of long-term genetic propagation of a
species, but at the same time, it involves overcoming of immediate
adversities. Due to a diverse set of survival challenges facing our
ancestors, natural selection often favored short-term solutions,
which by consequence, muted the motivations associated with
longer-range sustainability values. Managerial decisions and
choices mostly adopt a moral calculus of costs versus benefits.
Managers invoke economic and corporate growth to justify virtually
any action. It is this moral calculus underlying corporate behavior
that needs critical examination and reformation. At the heart of it
lie deep moral questions that we examine in this book, with the
goal of proposing ethical solutions to the paradox. Management and
the Sustainability Paradox examines the issue that there appears to
be an inherent paradox between what some businesses view as "a need
for progress" and " a concern for sustainability". In business, we
often see a collision between ideas of progress and sustainability
which shapes corporate actions, and managerial decisions. Typical
corporate views of progress involve the creation of wealth, jobs,
innovative products, and social philanthropic projects. On the
basis of these "progressive" actions they justify their inequitable
distribution of surpluses by paying low wages and exploiting
ecological resources. It is not difficult to see the antagonistic
interplay between technological and social innovation with our
values for social and environmental well-being and a dualism that
needs to be overcome. This book is intended for a broad appeal to
an academic and policy maker audience in the sustainability and
management fields. The book will be of vital reading for managers
seeking to reconnect our human chain with the natural environment
in the cause of sustainable business.
"Building the Responsible Enterprise" provides students and
practitioners with a practical, yet academically rooted,
introduction to the state-of-the-art in sustainability and
corporate social responsibility.
The book consists of four parts, highlighting different aspects of
corporate responsibility. Part I discusses the context in which
corporate responsibility occurs. Part II looks at three critical
issues: the development of vision at the individual and
organizational levels, the integration of values into the
responsible enterprise, and the ways that these building blocks
create added value for a firm. Part III highlights the actual
management practices that enable enterprises to achieve excellence,
focusing on the roles that stakeholder relationships play in
improving performance. The book concludes with a conversation about
responsible management in the global village, examining the
emerging infrastructure in which enterprise finds itself today.
Throughout the text, cases exemplify key concepts and highlight
companies that are guiding us into tomorrow's business environment.
Our world is fraught with problems that demand attention: climate
change, terrorism, poverty, and injustice to name only a few.
Healing the World takes the fundamental teachings of
shamansaEURO"the healer of communitiesaEURO"and applies them to the
problems of today, using terms and concepts that anybody, from
business leaders to activists, can relate to and understand. It
helps people identify their own gifts and find the pathways forward
to using those gifts in the world, no matter what their occupation,
civic activity, or interests.
It is not often that we have the opportunity to hear from the early
pioneers of a social movement about how it grew and evolved, but
that is exactly what this book sets out to do. The Difference
Makers tells the stories of 23 entrepreneurs who have been
instrumental in developing corporate responsibility; offers an
analysis of how CSR has emerged as a key business issue, why it has
evolved so quickly, and the visions of its thought leaders. The
book examines 23 of the key players who have been instrumental in
developing the corporate responsibility movement. They include John
Ruggie and the Global Compact, Allen White and the Global Reporting
Initiative, John Elkington and SustainAbility, Simon Zadek and
AccountAbility, Alice Tepper Marlin and Social Accountability
International, Bob Dunn and Business for Social Responsibility, and
Joan Bavaria and Ceres - along with many others. The Difference
Makers is a history and detailed analysis of how corporate
responsibility has emerged as a key political, social, and business
issue, why it has evolved so quickly, and what the visions of its
thought leaders are for the future. It is essential reading for
academics, business people and all those interested in the future
of the corporation.
The UN Global Compact complements other corporate citizenship
initiatives by promoting dialogue on the relationship between
business and society. At the same time it is the only truly global
corporate citizenship initiative. It is not an auditable standard;
indeed, it is not a standard or a code in the way that these are
normally viewed. It is a set of principles through which business
and the United Nations can work in partnership for global social
development. For some businesses it is a simplified codification of
their existing policies and management practices, but for many
engagement represents a challenge and an opportunity to raise their
game by aligning profitability with the common good. As the only
genuinely global corporate citizenship initiative, the Global
Compact draws its moral authority from the UN Secretary-General and
its moral and political legitimacy from the UN as the only global
political body. It can be viewed as a series of nested networks
involving the Secretary-General's Office, the ILO, UNEP, UNHCHR,
UNDP and UNIDO, business, NGOs and labour. It can variously be
described as an international learning network, as a social network
of people and organizations engaged in a global conversation, as a
global public policy network, and as a multi-stakeholder dialogue.
It is all of these things, but more than anything its greatest
success has been in providing a convening platform for a growing
global conversation about social development among a variety of
actors. However the Global Compact is viewed, it is time to reflect
on the first tentative steps of an initiative born in the aftermath
of the Cold War, in the "triumph of global economic liberalism" and
mass demonstrations against "globalisation". In its first few
years, the world has experienced 9/11 and the Iraq War, not
forgetting the forty or so civil wars that are ongoing at this
time. Whatever is written about the UN Global Compact or its
success will be tentative. But there can be some serious reflection
on its aims and origins; some telling of stories of engagement; and
discussion on how this initiative has quickly become an important
reference point in the dialogue on global and corporate governance.
Our world is fraught with problems that demand attention: climate
change, terrorism, poverty, and injustice to name only a few.
Healing the World takes the fundamental teachings of
shamansaEURO"the healer of communitiesaEURO"and applies them to the
problems of today, using terms and concepts that anybody, from
business leaders to activists, can relate to and understand. It
helps people identify their own gifts and find the pathways forward
to using those gifts in the world, no matter what their occupation,
civic activity, or interests.
Large Systems Change (LSC) is a field of study and action that is
characterized by its focus on transformational pathways towards a
participative, flourishing future through inter- and
trans-disciplinary approaches that value engagement with
practitioners and those aspiring for such futures. Its emergence
holds great promise for addressing critical issues. Advancing its
development requires aggressiveness to cross the many disciplinary,
institutional and other boundaries and build the necessary scale of
effort; however, humbleness is also required to recognize that
although we have substantial knowledge and methodologies for
approaching LSC, we are still at early stages of their development.
The papers in this Special Issue of The Journal of Corporate
Citizenship focus on the question of how to scale to the field of
LSC. We can see the contributors and editors reflect on this at the
three levels: broadening by increasing the numbers of people and
organizations identified with it; going up and out with a more
receptive environment arising with failures of traditional
management approaches; and deepening of knowledge and methods for
supporting LSC. This Special Issue will be essential reading for
those researching in this emerging field, and practitioners looking
for the latest thinking on how LSC may be a solution to global
challenges.
This book is the companion to "Unfolding Stakeholder Thinking:
Theory, Responsibility and Engagement", which examined many
emerging theoretical and normative issues and was released to
acclaim in October 2002. "Unfolding Stakeholder Thinking 2"
collects a series of essays by leading researchers worldwide to
focus on the practice of stakeholder engagement in terms of
relationship management, communication, reporting and performance.
As stakeholder relationships and business in society have become
increasingly central to the unfolding of stakeholder thinking,
important new topics have begun to take centre stage in both the
worlds of practice and academia. The first part of the book makes
clear that simply engaging with stakeholders is insufficient to
build successful stakeholder strategies. Companies, considered as
the focal entity in a relationship, also need to actively
communicate with stakeholders and manage their relationships.
Dialogue is essential but can only be useful if companies listen to
the messages that stakeholders are sending them. It is also
essential to understand the role of power and influence in
stakeholder engagement strategies especially if partnerships or
collaborations emerge from the relationships that are engendered.
The book examines a wide range of corporate-NGO collaborations to
determine what makes them effective - and what makes them fail.
Conflict management in stakeholder alliances is also discussed. The
second part of the book addresses the critically important element
of emerging schemes for the assessment, measurement and reporting
of business in society and relationships involving stakeholders. A
variety of current approaches to stakeholder assessment and
reporting are discussed here including social auditing and
sustainability reporting. The evolution of stakeholder thinking has
led to a new view of the firm as an organism embedded in a complex
web of relationships with other organisms. The role of management
becomes immensely more challenging, when stakeholders are no longer
seen as simply the objects of managerial action but rather as
subjects with their own objectives and purposes. This book captures
the complexity of managing relationships with stakeholders and will
provide both practitioners and researchers with a wealth of
information on the benefits and consequences of this practice.
This book - the first of a two-volume series - argues that, today,
stakeholder thinking has evolved into the study of interactive,
mutually engaged and responsive relationships that establish the
very context of doing modern business, and create the groundwork
for transparency and accountability. This book makes it clear that
in today's societies successful companies are those that recognize
that they have responsibilities to a range of stakeholders that go
beyond mere compliance with the law or meeting the fiduciary
responsibility inherent in maximizing returns to shareholders. If
in the past the focus was on enhancing shareholder value, now it is
on engaging stakeholders for long-term value creation. The process
of engagement creates a dynamic context of interaction, mutual
respect, dialogue and change - not a one-sided "management" of
stakeholders. Indeed, the authors believe the very term
"stakeholder management" to be outdated and corporate-centric.
Companies can manage their relationships with stakeholders, but
frequently cannot actually manage the stakeholders themselves,
because, as the activist and collaborative initiatives described in
this volume suggest, company-stakeholder relationships are not
one-way streets and different institutions bring different agendas,
goals and priorities to the engagement. There are clear
implications to the way in which stakeholder thinking is unfolding
today. If in the past corporate "social" responsibility was simply
seen as profitability plus compliance plus philanthropy, now
responsible corporate citizenship - or corporate responsibility -
means companies being more aware of and understanding the societies
in which they operate. Corporate responsibility means recognising
that day-to-day operating practices affect stakeholders and that it
is in those impacts where responsibility lies, not merely in
efforts to "do good". Companies are now faced with a wide array of
challenges that mean that senior executives and managers need to be
able to deal with issues including greater accountability, human
rights abuses, sustainability strategies, corporate governance
codes, workplace ethics, stakeholder consultation and management.
Stakeholder thinking needs to capture these new realities. The
global reach of multinational corporations has served to highlight
the need for the (re)integration of business into society,
relationships into stakeholder relations, and ethics into
managerial practice. The rise in power of global activism involving
NGOs, and global business involving multinational corporations,
makes it even more critical today for companies to consider the
power and interests of corporate stakeholders when developing
strategic plans. The interactivity and mutuality of relationships
described in this book make it clear that firms and stakeholders
share the power and responsibility to influence both the profit
potential of the firm and how the benefits of the firm's success
impact on society. This important volume brings together leading
academic thought on stakeholder thinking for the first time.
Unfolding Stakeholder Thinking will be indispensable to corporate
managers, NGOs and academics seeking greater understanding of the
dynamics of stakeholder thinking in a world of rapidly changing
responsibilities.A companion volume, Unfolding Stakeholder Thinking
2, focusing on practical issues such as relationship management,
communication, reporting, and performance, is also available.
Management and the Sustainability Paradox is about how humans
became disconnected from their ecological environment throughout
evolutionary history. Begining with the premise that people have
competing innate, natural drives linked to survival. Survival can
be thought of in the context of long-term genetic propagation of a
species, but at the same time, it involves overcoming of immediate
adversities. Due to a diverse set of survival challenges facing our
ancestors, natural selection often favored short-term solutions,
which by consequence, muted the motivations associated with
longer-range sustainability values. Managerial decisions and
choices mostly adopt a moral calculus of costs versus benefits.
Managers invoke economic and corporate growth to justify virtually
any action. It is this moral calculus underlying corporate behavior
that needs critical examination and reformation. At the heart of it
lie deep moral questions that we examine in this book, with the
goal of proposing ethical solutions to the paradox. Management and
the Sustainability Paradox examines the issue that there appears to
be an inherent paradox between what some businesses view as "a need
for progress" and " a concern for sustainability". In business, we
often see a collision between ideas of progress and sustainability
which shapes corporate actions, and managerial decisions. Typical
corporate views of progress involve the creation of wealth, jobs,
innovative products, and social philanthropic projects. On the
basis of these "progressive" actions they justify their inequitable
distribution of surpluses by paying low wages and exploiting
ecological resources. It is not difficult to see the antagonistic
interplay between technological and social innovation with our
values for social and environmental well-being and a dualism that
needs to be overcome. This book is intended for a broad appeal to
an academic and policy maker audience in the sustainability and
management fields. The book will be of vital reading for managers
seeking to reconnect our human chain with the natural environment
in the cause of sustainable business.
Building the Responsible Enterprise provides students and
practitioners with a practical, yet academically rooted,
introduction to the state-of-the-art in sustainability and
corporate social responsibility. The book consists of four parts,
highlighting different aspects of corporate responsibility. Part I
discusses the context in which corporate responsibility occurs.
Part II looks at three critical issues: the development of vision
at the individual and organizational levels, the integration of
values into the responsible enterprise, and the ways that these
building blocks create added value for a firm. Part III highlights
the actual management practices that enable enterprises to achieve
excellence, focusing on the roles that stakeholder relationships
play in improving performance. The book concludes with a
conversation about responsible management in the global village,
examining the emerging infrastructure in which enterprise finds
itself today. Throughout the text, cases exemplify key concepts and
highlight companies that are guiding us into tomorrow's business
environment.
Transforming towards Life orients change agents, policy makers,
activists, business leaders, ecologists, economists, and thoughtful
people everywhere to the values and practices needed to build a
world where all can flourish, where 'all' includes all humanity and
all of life's beings. It provides an in-depth understanding of what
it will take, especially in the wake of the global Covid-19
pandemic and the burgeoning climate emergency, to transform today's
growth-and profit-oriented socio-economic systems to life-affirming
ways benefit all rather than just an elite few. Transforming
towards Life argues that to move towards a world in which all can
flourish, we all need to start telling new, yet very ancient,
stories about who we are and why we are here in the world-stories
built on relationship or connectedness, responsibility for the
whole, reciprocity, and equity. We need to incorporate core ideas
about what gives life to systems into all businesses, communities,
governments, and other types of organizations-that is, what helps
them flourish. Business and other institutions need to create
collective value, that is, value for all, and change the mindsets
of people engaged with them so that they in turn can generate new
performance metrics, practices, and power relationships that enable
people everywhere to find their voice and their capacity to
participate actively in bringing about a flourishing world. The
book concludes with thoughts about how each one of us can do our
bit to bring about this necessary transformation.
In traditional cultures, the shaman is the healer, the connector,
and the spiritual leader or sensemaker. Today in the management
academy, some individuals use their intellectual gifts to perform a
similar role - mediating between various disciplines, ideas and
theories, as well as making sense of ideas, insights, and research
for others. This book, based on the work and lives of 28 very
well-known management academics, describes what it means - and what
it takes - to be an intellectual shaman. It is a fascinating
insight into the career paths and the sometimes maverick behaviour
that has allowed these individuals to achieve success. Based on
extensive interviews, Intellectual Shamans provides both a roadmap
to junior scholars and a critique of the current system of academic
career progression.
In traditional cultures, the shaman is the healer, the connector,
and the spiritual leader or sensemaker. Today in the management
academy, some individuals use their intellectual gifts to perform a
similar role - mediating between various disciplines, ideas and
theories, as well as making sense of ideas, insights, and research
for others. This book, based on the work and lives of 28 very
well-known management academics, describes what it means - and what
it takes - to be an intellectual shaman. It is a fascinating
insight into the career paths and the sometimes maverick behaviour
that has allowed these individuals to achieve success. Based on
extensive interviews, Intellectual Shamans provides both a roadmap
to junior scholars and a critique of the current system of academic
career progression.
Here's how to make purposeful system change happen!The world faces
a multitude of crises that demand transformative changes in how we
live and do business. Yet a core question is...how to make
purposeful transformation happen? Catalyzing Transformation shows
the way through: Innovative organizing processes that anyone can
use to catalyze purposeful whole system transformational change for
a better world. How transformation catalysts work to organize
purposeful, self-aware transformation systems that can tackle
complex systemic challenges. Three processes—connecting (seeing,
understanding, and making sense of the system), cohering
(co-creatively developing shared goals and action plans), and
amplifying (implementing, evaluating, and elaborating effective
transformative action). Design guidelines for leaders stewarding
change efforts in context-appropriate ways. Whether you catalyze
social changer, responsible businesses, activists, policymakers, or
students of change, Catalyzing Transformation can help!
Much of the writing in "The Journal of Corporate Citizenship" over
the last few years has been concerned with stakeholder engagement,
social partnership building, accountability, and reporting. To
date, however, there has been little discussion of what comes next
in potential transformational efforts to build a more secure,
peaceful and ecologically sustainable world or the corporate roles
in building that world. This issue asks the question: What is the
role of business in contributing to global peace and security over
the long haul? As can readily be seen by the variety of papers and
topics in the issue, the answer to that question is far from easy
or simple, and each person who approaches the topic does so from a
different perspective. Nonetheless, there are common threads and
themes that arise when we begin thinking seriously about how
businesses can contribute to peace and security and to what we are
calling, after Polanyi, the next great transformation. Clearly,
there are significant signs that transformation is needed in the
world today."
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