The Work Clinic

Tara,

You ask the question whether the business world should spend their money curing society's ills.

A common objection to the notion of Corporate Social Responsibility is that social responsibility should be a function for governments, not business.

I cannot agree with this viewpoint. Business controls a large portion of society's productive resources. This control gives business a great deal of power and influence over the well-being of society.

With that power comes responsibility. Business has the been granted the power of use of society's productive resources. It also has the responsibility to use the resources it has been granted in a socially responsible fashion.

You touch on the role of management accountants in business ethics. One way in which the accounting profession as a whole can contribute to socially responsible behavior is to work with the international community to develop standards to measure organizational performance in terms of the economic, social and environmental impact of its operations.

Cheers

Andrew

Sadly the minute the market tightens up CSR becomes expendible and budgets get slashed yet it's the very time that companies should be looking to play a greater part in society for both themselves and their employees who may need to find other reasons to "feel good" about their employer. CSR shouldn't be faddish and a fashion accessory for business it should be a "hard wired value".

At Accenture, corporate citizenship is at the heart of our business operations. We conduct CSR programmes because our employees expect it, our clients demand it, and our communities benefit from it. For us, it is about managing our community and environmental performance alongside our financial performance, using our core skills to make a greater impact.

Good corporate citizenship also makes strong business sense. We believe the future prosperity of our business is inextricably linked to the health and stability of our wider communities, and therefore our business strategies include investment in, and partnership with, those communities. Our strategic corporate community investment programmes aim to promote sustainable livelihoods through skills development and by integrating our community and business agendas we ensure delivery of long term shared value for our employees, clients and communities.

It is through these mutual benefits that Accenture can make a greater impact. Our employees themselves drive the environmental and community programmes by leveraging their core business competencies, but it also allows them to develop new skills, and offers them a new perspective on their day-to-day roles.

At Richard House Children’s Hospice, we are fortunate to work with some very large companies. The reasons for them wanting to support us vary greatly, but generally they feel some sense of responsibility for helping us deliver our work to the communities of London. Occasionally, it can be a collective, corporate concern where the reciprocal act of some local publicity doesn’t harm the relationship, but more often than not it’s a championing individual or group of individuals who act as the corporate conscience, lobbying, influencing and pulling whatever strings they can to help us. Companies exist only to make money but, thankfully, they are still (mostly) made up of real people aware of real community issues.