[Dialogue] Change belief

Tue Aug 9 09:41:56 EDT 2011

			This would not be bad . . .Companies (add in governments, etc.)
 cannot continue to pretend to serve society while simultaneously acting
 against it. Neither can they continue to give shareholder's interest 
primacy above the interests of the public. No amount of investment in 
charitable causes or employee volunteering can change that fact. The 
purpose of a company will be to create shared value, where business and 
society achieve success together.
CSR is dead, long live social enterprise

					We must move in to an
 era were companies do not separate themselves from the consequences of 
their operations, we must champion shared values

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			Comments (2)

					                        	        	            Dermot Egan

			Guardian
 Professional,			

				            Tuesday 9
 August 2011 06.00 BST	        	        
        Article
 history

								  Companies cannot continue to pretend to 
serve society while simultaneously acting against it, says Dermot Egan 
Photograph: Issei Kato/REUTERS

	    Corporate social responsibility (CSR) has been around as a term 
since the 60s but it really came to prominence in the last decade when 
large multinationals began to adopt the phrase to demonstrate that they 
were serious about delivering a positive social impact on the 
communities in which they operated.Some cynics felt that 
CSR was simply a marketing exercise, an attempt to reassure employees, 
garner consumer favour and stave off government regulation. Other more 
hawkish economists such as Milton Friedman were uncomfortable with the 
notion that companies had any moral obligation to society, famously 
stating "the social responsibility of business is to increase its 
profits".To communicate their efforts companies such as PepsiCo, Shell and Barclays
 began to produce CSR reports which laid out all their positive impacts 
from charity donations and employee volunteering to supporting renewable
 energy production and promoting diversity. CSR reporting became so 
popular that even much maligned companies such as British American Tobacco felt 
that they too needed to communicate the benefits of their operations to 
society.As climate change and the environment came to the 
fore, CSR reports quickly evolved into sustainability reports and their 
emphasis became more focused on driving low energy solutions and 
mitigating the environmental impact of a company's operations.While
 the language and emphasis of CSR has changed, one key problem remains. 
The adoption of CSR has been and continues to be reactionary, a response
 to a growing concern from employees, customers, and to an increasing 
extent investors, about the conduct of businesses. The principal drivers
 have been largely external rather than internal, calling into question 
whether those principals are core to the companies DNA.The
 explosion in popularity of social enterprises recently is a direct 
consequence of the inability of existing companies to grasp the new 
reality that a company's core purpose must be to deliver positive social
 impact and not to simply minimise negative impacts while ultimately 
focusing on maximising profit in the short-term.As 
esteemed Professor at Harvard Business School, Michael E Porter wrote corporations must "create economic 
value in a way that also creates value for society by addressing its 
needs and challenges".The comments are taken from a 
remarkable article in the Harvard Business Review where Porter lays out 
his concept of "shared value". Companies are urged to "reconnect company
 success with social progress" and "take the lead in bringing business 
and society back together".You could be forgiven for 
thinking that these words had been lifted from the speech of a social 
entrepreneur to describe their business philosophy. But Porter is the 
father of modern business strategy and his Five Forces model has been 
universally taught to students of business for the last 30 years.While
 Porter doesn't mention the term explicitly, he is in effect calling on 
all businesses large and small to reinvent themselves as social 
enterprises and redefine their operations beyond profit maximisation 
towards addressing societal needs.Placed in this context, 
CSR initiatives appear hopelessly inadequate. Particularly, as they have
 tended to exist as peripheral activities connected to the marketing 
function of companies and leveraged as a means to enhance reputation.The
 extent to which companies, particularly large corporations, are able to
 embrace the shared value concept will depend on the attitudes of those 
leading them and the foundation on which they were built. In some cases,
 they will be able to seek inspiration from their history. Companies 
such as General Electric, Johnson & Johnson 
and SC Johnson
 have delivered profound positive social impacts, raising people's 
quality of life, improving healthcare and helping to develop basic 
hygiene standards. What inspired these companies was a combination of 
the profit motive and the desire to innovate and improve people's lives.For
 other companies whose motive and inspiration is profit above any 
explicit social purpose, it will be more difficult to adjust.As
 we move towards the shared value model, more questions will be asked of
 companies. The measure will not simply be profit, but to what end 
profit is pursued, how it is gained and what is its impact. Whether it's
 the pollution of the environment by energy companies pursuing fossil 
fuels or the effect on child obesity from food companies promoting 
unhealthy snacks to infants; companies will no longer be able to 
separate themselves from the consequences of their operations, with 
taxpayers and governments paying for the resulting negative outcomes.Companies
 cannot continue to pretend to serve society while simultaneously acting
 against it. Neither can they continue to give shareholder's interest 
primacy above the interests of the public. No amount of investment in 
charitable causes or employee volunteering can change that fact. The 
purpose of a company will be to create shared value, where business and 
society achieve success together.CSR is dead, long live 
social enterprise.

Jim Wiegel

Life isn't meant to be easy, it's meant to be life.  -- James Michener, The Source

401 North Beverly Way, Tolleson, Arizona 85353-2401

+1  623-363-3277  skype:  jfredwiegel

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--- On Tue, 8/9/11, John Cock <jpc2025 at triad.rr.com> wrote:

From: John Cock <jpc2025 at triad.rr.com>
Subject: [Dialogue] Change belief
To: "'Colleague Dialogue'" <dialogue at wedgeblade.net>
Date: Tuesday, August 9, 2011, 6:11 AM

So what belief do you really want to change in the "entire community," bro
Jim? 

John

-----Original Message-----
From: dialogue-bounces at wedgeblade.net
[mailto:dialogue-bounces at wedgeblade.net] On Behalf Of James Wiegel
Sent: Tuesday, August 09, 2011 8:49 AM
To: James Wiegel; Colleague Dialogue
Subject: [Dialogue] Any colleagues connected with Rensselear
PolytechnicInstitute?

All it takes to change
Globe and Mail 8/9/2011

"To change the beliefs of an entire community," says Discovery News, "only
10 per cent of the population needs to become convinced of a new or
different opinion, suggests a new study done at the social cognitive
networks academic research center at Rensselear Polytechnic Institute.  At
that tipping point, the idea can spread through social networks and alter
behaviors on a large scale."

Jim Wiegel
Jfwiegel at yahoo.com

When physicians were given a gift a bag of candy they were better at
integrating case information and less likely to become fixated on their
initial ideas and coming to premature closure in their diagnosis.  --  Some
study I read about somewhere

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