CSR management

Next Generation Citizenship

Bradley K. Googins assesses the future of corporate citizenship.

Only a few years ago, who could possibly have created a scenario for what we are experiencing as corporate citizenship in 2008?

Even the skeptical Economist magazine has recognized, in a January cover story entitled “Just Good Business”, that “corporate social responsibility, once a do-gooding sideshow, is now seen as mainstream.” Whether it is due to the noticeable climate changes around the globe, the rise of activists, the transparency of the Internet or the tipping point of the sustainability movement, in 2008 the realities of corporate citizenship are beginning to match the hopes and aspirations many thought would take longer to be realized.

But there is no need to get carried away with the giddiness of success. There are many challenges before us, especially since the basic system driving global capitalism needs a makeover if we are to have a sustainable society. Progress in the past decade regarding corporate citizenship was mostly a result of a too smug system that needed to be opened up. This sentiment was expressed by Bill Gates at Davos when he said he was cranky because, despite incredible gains created by global capitalism, too many people are left behind.

By my reckoning, we have established a beachhead for corporate citizenship that will allow us to progress into “next generation citizenship.” What are the issues we can expect the world of corporate citizenship to be wrestling with over the next decade? While I am no prognosticator, I offer up a few.

1. Mind the Gap. The time for developing principles and standards has passed. The new challenge is to bake this into the business. We will see more attention paid to development of management frameworks, tools, processes and other aids to facilitate development of a corporate citizenship strategy that aligns with the business and can be integrated across the company. This will include structural mechanisms such as high-functioning teams, board committees and well-tested reports. We will also see advancements in measurement reflecting the maturation of the corporate citizenship and its strategic value to the business.

2. Corporate Citizenship competencies for the 21st century. The combination of skills, knowledge and practice that helped corporate citizenship evolve will not be sufficient for the needs of the next decade. We will see rapid development of new competencies needed in areas such as organizational change, measurement, global proficiencies, stakeholder engagement and communications.

What is more critical will be competencies, not just for the emerging chief responsibility officer or people staffing corporate citizenship but of the growing cadre of others throughout the business who are connected to corporate citizenship and becoming critical to its success. Look at the new cross-functional teams whose members generally lack the most rudimentary grounding in corporate citizenship and the organizational strategies needed to succeed. No company can will itself to achieve excellence in corporate citizenship. It is hard work and requires a more robust set of competencies.

3. Shared Leadership. Once corporate citizenship gets beyond the early stages of compliance and philanthropy it engages in more substantive ways with issues at the interface between the company and society. At a macro level, democracy and capitalism are experiencing a bumpy relationship and tensions related to resolving critical social and environmental issues are increasing. Corporate citizenship 2.0 is beginning to more clearly reflect the assets of the business sector, especially in terms of what it is capable of contributing and what it is not, given the limitations of the corporation.

While partnerships between sectors have been a staple of corporate citizenship, the next stage must redefine and invent new language, new approaches and new vehicles for collaborative leadership. The old forms of public-private partnerships must give way to a different mind-set and new approaches by the corporate sector in shaping a shared leadership. This shared leadership will need to get to the root of problems and create a dynamic that leads to more sustainable solutions. We are beginning to see this dynamic emerge around the new issues for corporate citizenship: water, climate, education, job creation, immigration and obesity among others.

As social and environmental issues fundamentally redefine the business model, it is imperative to find shared leadership across governments and civil society so corporate citizenship neither shirks its roles and responsibilities, nor gets overwhelmed by demands and expectations that are unrealistic or unfeasible. Most sustainable solutions to these intractable issues require contributions from all three sectors.

4. Employee Engagement. The next decade will see a greater appreciation of the employee as a key stakeholder in corporate citizenship, and a key driver for success. Again, like partnerships, employees have always been in the picture, but they’ve been relegated to the background. Because corporate citizenship for the most part is an externally facing function concerned with things like the environment, supply chain and community, employees are key to citizenship. Their absence in stakeholder dialogue, reporting and the organizational synergy between corporate citizenship and human resources, speaks loudly to their current second-class status.

A new focus on employee engagement and recognition of its importance will provide a new face and an energy source that will be a hallmark of 21st century corporate citizenship. Creating awareness, understanding and ways for employees to contribute to the citizenship strategy and enterprise will reshape it around the globe.

5.Going Global. If citizenship is still in the early stages of development from a corporate wide perspective, it is even more undeveloped from a global perspective. Most companies are not well wired or informed about critical global conditions surrounding citizenship and the issues of culture—in the national and regional context—and issues such as governance, corruption and the like.

It is safe to assume global corporate citizenship will be more central because growth of business and companies is significantly weighted toward the global. For corporate citizenship, this requires a new framework, significant new knowledge and data, different operating principles, and relationship building that will stretch conventional approaches. We will see more international networking through intermediaries and new vehicles to connect disparate entities.

The global dialogue has begun to heat up and the pressure of the business to succeed globally requires a more involved and significant role for corporate citizenship to ensure a supportive business environment in communities and countries where business is not naturally knowledgeable or comfortable. Going global while balancing local —or glocal— will be a new competency and a new framework by which corporate citizenship will be defined.

The pace of change accelerates every day. So there is one certainty about corporate citizenship: it will continue to evolve. The more responsive and agile citizenship is in handling the risks and opportunities facing business, the more influential it will become during the 21st century.