1. Global Corporate Citizenship
Chapter 7
Global Corporate Citizenship

2. Ch. 7: Key Learning Objectives
Defining global corporate citizenship
Understanding how the multiple dimensions of corporate citizenship progress through a series of stages
Assessing how corporate citizenship differs among various countries and regions of the world
Understanding how a business or social groups can audit corporate citizenship activities and report their findings to stakeholders
Recognizing how an organization communicates its corporate citizenship practices and manifests its attention to the balanced scorecard and triple bottom line approaches

3. Global Corporate Citizenship
Refers to putting an organization’s commitment to social and environmental responsibility into practice worldwide not only locally and regionally.
Entails putting corporate social responsibility into practice by
Proactively building stakeholder partnerships
Discovering business opportunities in serving society
Transforming a concern for financial performance into a vision of integrated financial and social performance

4. Global Corporate Citizenship
Concept is consistent with several major themes discussed throughout this book:
Managers and companies have responsibilities to all their stakeholders
Corporate citizenship (CC) involves more than just meeting legal requirements
CC requires that a company focus on, and respond to, stakeholder expectations and undertake those voluntary acts that are consistent with its values and business mission
CC involves both what the corporation does and the processes and structures through which it engages stakeholders and makes decisions

5. Citizenship Profile
Research by Gardberg and Fombrun argues that corporate citizenship activities should be viewed as strategic investments (like research and development)
Create intangible assets that lead to improved legitimacy, reputation and competitive advantage
Particularly true of global firms where citizenship activities overcome nationalistic barriers and build local advantage
Important for global firms to choose a Citizenship Profile which matches the local setting
Public expectations vary on factors such as environmental risk, philanthropy and worker rights
Companies that choose the right configuration of citizenship activities to match public expectations will reap strategic advantages

6. Management Systems for Global Corporate Citizenship
Global corporate citizenship is more than espoused values; it requires action
In order to become leading citizens of the world, companies must establish management processes and structures to carry out their citizen commitments
Could be assigned to committee of the board, senior executive committee, single executive/group of executives, or departments of corporate citizenship
As the practice of corporate citizenship has spread, so have professional associations and consultancies serving managers in this arena
Business for Social Responsibility, Canadian Business for Social Responsibility, Asian Forum on Corporate Social Responsibility

7. The Stages of Global Corporate Citizenship
Is a developmental change process, involving new attitudes, routines, policies, programs and relationships
Mirvis and Googins of the Center for Global Citizenship proposed a five stage model of global corporate citizenship
Each stage is characterized by distinct patters of:
Citizenship content
Strategic intent
Leadership
Structure
Issues management
Stakeholder relationships
Transparency

8. Stages of Global Corporate Citizenship
Figure 7.1

9. Corporate Citizenship in Comparative Perspective
How businesses interpret and act on their citizenship varies across the glob
Trends from current studies
Companies in Northern America and Europe are more likely than Asian companies to have written corporate citizenship policies, Asian companies however are more likely to have written ethics policies
Comparative study across the Americas showed “huge gap” between the practices of companies in U.S. and Canada and Latin America and Caribbean
Governments in Europe play a much more important role in promoting CSR than in the U.S.

10. Social Performance Auditing
Is a systematic evaluation of an organization’s social, ethical, and environmental performance
Demand for social auditing has gained momentum in Europe and U.S.
In some European countries auditing is required by law
Corporate citizenship scales against which a firm’s citizenship activities can be compared include:
Performance measured against a company’s own mission statement or policies
Performance measured against a set of established standards
Like the Davenport Principles presented in Exhibit 7B of the text, or the global standards presented on the following slides

11. Global Social Audit Standards
Figure 7.2

12. Trends in Corporate Social Reporting
Figure 7.3

13. Other Social Reporting Methods
Balanced Scorecard
A focused set of key financial and nonfinancial indicators, with four quadrants or perspectives – internal business processes, learning and growth, customer, and financial
Triple Bottom Line
Companies report to stakeholders not just their financial results -- as in the traditional annual report to stakeholders – but also their environmental and social impacts
Financial, social, and environmental results, taken together as an integrated whole, constitute a company’s triple bottom line
Transparency
Growing demand by stakeholders for companies to report clearly, fully, and publicly the results of their financial, social and environmental performance audits