Publication Detail: Corporate Social Responsibility at a Crossroads: Futures for CSR in the UK to 2015, By Halina Ward, Craig Smith, August 2006 - IIED
Abstract: The UK is widely considered to be a leader in the field of corporate social responsibility (CSR); home to some of the word’s leading thinkers, practitioners and campaigners in the field. Despite this, there are few opportunities for collective strategic thinking about CSR across stakeholder groups. Corporate Social Responsibility at a Crossroads was designed to help to fill that gap. It was a process of analysis and stakeholder engagement to build scenarios for the future of CSR in the UK to 2015. The aim was to facilitate a dialogue across informed stakeholders in the UK; to provide an accessible map of the territory; and to set out some plausible scenarios for the future shape of the CSR agenda in the UK. This report records that analysis and the ideas that emerged from the process.
On behalf of Nigel Roome of Solvay Business School, recently elected Chair of the Academic Board, who is leading the recently launched EABIS European Knowledge & Learning Network on “CR & Clusters of Innovation”, EABIS is pleased to inform you about the following opportunity of engagement:
Join the EABIS European Knowledge Network on CR & Clusters of Innovation
Initiative: The intent is to bring together researchers and practitioners who have studied clusters of innovation and/or innovation for sustainability from a variety of perspectives to enable the construction of a more transdisciplinary understanding of this phenomenon and to develop the ground for comparative research across Europe that enables the conditions that inhibit or promote the activities of clusters to be developed. The objective is to work together to share approaches as a way to formulate a concerted research proposal for submission to the EC under FP7.
Target group: The proposal is open to both scholars and practitioners from the EABIS network with previous empirical research background or experience of this type of clusters
Grants: Available for academic members. Business members and affiliates are expected to cover their own travel costs
Selection criteria: Expertise & Motivation to contribute to a more transdisciplinary perspective of this phenomenon
Application deadline: Friday 27 October 2006
Next steps: Applicants will be informed of selection Friday 3 November latest. A kick-off meeting is scheduled to take place in Brussels on 20 Nov (evening) and 21 Nov.
This initiative, part of the European Knowledge & Learning Network (formerly Category C) Funding Scheme of the EABIS Corporate Funded Programme, has been made possible due to the generous financial support of EABIS's founding corporate partners: IBM, Johnson & Johnson, Microsoft, Shell and Unilever.
Speech by Gavin Neath, Senior Vice President Global Corporate Responsibility at Unilever, given at the World Banks' Business and NGO Conference in Washington, USA (10 April 2006). Read full speech here
London Business School has begun Year Two of a three year project on curriculum development in the areas of Ethics, Corporate Responsibility and Business and Society. The purpose of the project is to develop degree and executive programme designs and teaching materials that will assist the process of mainstreaming CR. The project in particular focuses on the development of mainstream materials that can be used not only in core ethics and CR courses but also in core courses across all management disciplines.
The focus of Year One has been effective case-writing and case-teaching, including a review of existing cases and the development of up to ten new cases by the end of 2006. The project started with a Call to tender, which brought in 26 submissions from Schools across Europe. Following a rigorous selection process, six cases were selected for funding and a further two or three are also likely to be developed. All will be profiled at the EABIS Colloquium in 2007.
The cases confirmed so far are as follows:
Hydro Polymers Ltd – Sustainable PVC? (London Business School)
Waste Concern – Turning a Problem into a Resource (IESE)
ENEL - CSR and Performance Measurement (SDA Bocconi)
The Strategic Agreement between IBERDROLA and SEO/BIRD (IESE)
Corporate Responsible best practices in SMEs: The Case of Illycaffe (SDA Bocconi)
Innocent: Values and Value (BITC and London Business School)
Unilever, Oxfam and the Role of International Business in Poverty Reduction (London Business School and Unilever)
Aging Population In The Knowledge Society (Microsoft and INSEAD)
For a full description of these cases, please read the case outlines here or contact Gay Haskins at London Business School
Ashridge Publishes Report on Management Competencies and Leadership Qualities for CR
Ashridge has launched the Final Report of its Responsible Leadership Project during the 5th EABIS Annual Colloquium in Milan, September 2006.
Management competencies and Leadership qualities for corporate responsibility
New research by Ashridge and the European Academy for Business in Society (EABIS) identifies five abilities that managers need to develop in order to integrate social and environmental considerations into their individual business decisions. The findings are based on a questionnaire of over 100 managers and a series of in-depth interviews with senior managers in eleven leading European-based multinational companies, including Unilever, IBM, Microsoft, Johnson and Johnson, and Shell. The research identifies the five abilities as:
Systematic thinking
Embracing diversity and managing risk
Balancing global and local perspectives
Meaningful dialogue and developing a new language
Emotional awareness
The abilities identified are concerned with the fundamental features of an individual’s character and behaviour. To make sense of these abilities, individuals require a carefully structured process of analysis and reflection. This process is not necessarily compatible with the traditional content and environment of some business schools and training providers. Therefore, building responsible business practice into the mainstream of management development and executive education is a long term task that requires a process of cultural change.
Teaching Business Sustainability: Cases, Simulations and Experiential Approaches
"Greener Management International" Issue 48 is a special theme issue on Teaching Business Sustainability - Cases, Simulations and Experiental Approaches, edited by Chris Galea, St Francis Xavier University, Nova Scotia, Canada.
If there is one area of business education that requires, out-of-the- box, creative thinking it is sustainability. Business sustainability, by its relative newness (and hence uncertainty), its dependence on interdisciplinary thinking, its need to work with different stakeholders, its non-traditional operating approaches and so on, demands that we train our managers in wholly new ways. This need for new and non-traditional teaching approaches is reflected in this collection of unorthodox teaching pedagogies. The underlying philosophy behind them is that deep learning for sustainability needs ultimately to be experiential: that is, learning while doing rather than a passive absorption of facts and figures. While much of the underlying theory of sustainability may be taught using more traditional lecture and reading approaches, the implementation of true business sustainability requires students to experiment - to win and lose - while grappling with the myriad challenges and frustrations posed by sustainability: the same challenges and frustrations, one might add, that companies bent on implementing sustainability face on a daily basis in the outside world in which they operate.
This issue of "Greener Management International" will be essential reading for business educators everywhere and is a taster for the forthcoming book (Spring, 2007) "Teaching Business Sustainability 2".
What makes sustainable management in multinational enterprises successful
GTZ / Deutsche Gessellschaft fur Technische Zusammenarbeit (GTZ) , 2006
This study analyses the implementation of sustainability strategies in German multinational enterprises and aims to identify the criteria which make corporate sustainability strategies and management processes successful. In order to do so, twenty multinational German enterprises were analysed on the on the basis the following categories:
motivation and perception
identification of strategic challenges
strategy development,
operational implementation
control and monitoring
Key findings of the study include:
although the enterprises attach great importance to sustainable management, sustainability aspects only play a subordinate role in strategic management
while sustainable aspects are largely integrated into management processes and systematically implemented within the environment sector or in social standards, the sustainable management scope for value added remains largely unexploited in areas such as research and product development
often there is a gap between words and deeds, between the challenges faced and the strategy adopted, or between strategy and implementation
there are enterprises that perceive sustainability as more than just taking defensive or reactive measures and seek to harness the economic potential of sustainability issues, for example for new products or markets
The study also categorises enterprises into different groups:
drivers grasp the meaning and influence of sustainability issues for their core business and mainstream and are also strong enough to clearly define and operationalise long-term strategies and turn them into competitive advantages
operators have a tradition of taking individual sustainability aspects very seriously due to practical exigencies, such as risky production processes. Nevertheless, their commitment does not have a direct bearing on core business
calculators mainly place the focus of sustainable management on capital market communication. Sustainability activities are closely aligned with ratings and indices, so that coherent corporate challenges are seldom identified
minimalists attach no very great importance to sustainability as an issue. The response usually ends with reactive risk avoidance and meeting outside requirements.
Based on its categorisation, the study identifies four essential success factors:
Request notifications