The United Nations Global Compact: Engaging Implicit and Explicit CSR for Global Governance

In the past few decades, a growth in ethical consumerism has led brands to increasingly develop conscientiousness and depict ethical image at a corporate level. However, most of the research studying business ethics in the field of corporate brand management is either conceptual or has been empirically conducted in relation to goods/products contexts. This is surprising because corporate brands are more relevant in services contexts, because of the distinct nature of services (i.e., intangible, heterogeneous, and inseparable) and the key role that employees have in the services sector (i.e., they can build or break the brand when interacting with customers). Accordingly, this article aims at empirically examining the effects of customer perceived ethicality in the context of corporate services brands. Based on data collected for eight service categories using a panel of 2179 customers, the hypothesized structural model is tested using path analysis. The results show that, in addition to a direct effect, customer perceived ethicality has a positive and indirect effect on customer loyalty, through the mediators of customer affective commitment and customer perceived quality. Further, employee empathy positively influences the impact of customer perceived ethicality on customer affective commitment, and customer loyalty positively impacts customer positive word-of-mouth. The first implication of these results is that corporate brand strategy needs to be aligned with human resources policies and practices if brands want to turn ethical strategies into employee behavior. Second, corporate brands should build more authentic communications grounded in their ethical beliefs and supported by evidence from actual employees.     

Islam and CSR: A Study of the Compatibility Between the Tenets of Islam and the UN Global Compact

This paper looks at whether the tenets of Islam are consistent with the ‘Ten Principles’ of responsible business outlined in the UN Global Compact. The paper concludes that with the possible exception of Islam’s focus on personal responsibility and the non-recognition of the corporation as a legal person, which could undermine the concept of corporate responsibility, there is no divergence between the tenets of the religion and the principles of the UN Global Compact. Indeed, Islam often goes further and has the advantage of clearer codification of ethical standards as well as a set of explicit enforcement mechanisms. Focusing on this convergence of values could be useful in the development of a new understanding of CSR in a global context and help avert the threatened “clash of civilisations”.     

Governing Corporate Social Responsibility: An Assessment of the Contribution of the UN Global Compact to CSR Strategies in the Telecommunications Industry

CSR has become an important element in the business strategy of a growing number of companies worldwide. A large number of initiatives have been developed that aim to support companies in developing, implementing, and communicating about CSR. The Global Compact (GC), initiated by the United Nations, stands out. Since its launch in 2000, it has grown to about 2900 companies and 3800 members in total. The GC combines several mechanisms to support CSR strategies: normative principles, networks for learning and co-operation, and communication and transparency about CSR activities. However, up to now only a few empirical evaluations of the contribution of the GC to CSR strategies have been conducted that however have not differentiated between different types of companies (regarding type of industry or regarding the maturity of CSR). This paper aims to partly fill this knowledge gap by a case study examination of three frontrunner companies in the telecommunications industry. The results show that the GC is only one of the many initiatives that these companies employ in shaping, implementing, and reporting about their CSR strategies, and that its role is at most modest. There are two important reasons. One is that many of the CSR issues that these companies deal with are industry specific and are hence addressed in specific networks. The second reason is that the GC principles are perceived as minimum requirements that do not provide many incentives to the three case study companies to perform better. A differentiation of norms for GC members is expected to enhance the contribution of the GC to CSR strategy employment, not only for frontrunner companies but as well for other categories of companies.     

The financial benefits of a firm's affiliation with the UN Global Compact

Since it was first introduced 13 years ago in 2000, the UN Global Compact has become the world's largest voluntary corporate responsibility initiative. The benefits for companies that have voluntarily affiliated with the UN Global Compact have been little documented from an empirical perspective, especially regarding the integration of this information by capital markets. This study attempts to address this question, drawing on a sample of French companies listed on the SBF 250 index. Results suggest that, within the French context at least, investors significantly value a firm's affiliation with the UN Global Compact. In addition, the firms affiliated are those that appear to present the least risk.     

The Organizational Implementation of Corporate Citizenship: An Assessment Tool and its Application at UN Global Compact Participants

The corporate citizenship (CC) concept introduced by Dirk Matten and Andrew Crane has been well received. To this date, however, empirical studies based on this concept are lacking. In this article, we flesh out and operationalize the CC concept and develop an assessment tool for CC. Our tool focuses on the organizational level and assesses the embeddedness of CC in organizational structures and procedures. To illustrate the applicability of the tool, we assess five Swiss companies (ABB, Credit Suisse, Nestlé, Novartis, and UBS). These five companies are participants of the UN Global Compact (UNGC), currently the largest collaborative strategic policy initiative for business in the world (www.unglobalcompact.org). This study makes four main contributions: (1) it enriches and operationalizes Matten and Crane’s CC definition to build a concept of CC that can be operationalized, (2) it develops an analytical tool to assess the organizational embeddedness of CC, (3) it generates empirical insights into how five multinational corporations have approached CC, and (4) it presents assessment results that provide indications how global governance initiatives like the UNGC can support the implementation of CC.     

企业社会责任:深圳治市新理念

深圳对CSR的赞同和推动不仅体现在理念倡导和政策研讨上，而且已经落实到具体行动。执法是政府的职责，也是政府推进CSR的重要手段。过往的经验证明，要促使企业承担社会责任，光有“大棒”还不行，还应该要有“胡萝卜”，这样才能达到事半功倍的效果。因此，深圳将会借鉴企业社会责任运动有益的经验，创设“胡萝卜”，以经济手段，标准化手段推进CSR。[编者按]     

Corporate Governance Quality and CSR Disclosures

Given the increasing importance attached to both corporate social responsibility (CSR) and corporate governance, this study investigates the association between these two complimentary mechanisms used by companies to enhance relations with stakeholders. Consistent with both legitimacy and stakeholder theory and controlling for industry profile, firm size, stockholder power/dispersion, creditor power/leverage, and economic performance, our analysis of the annual reports for a sample of 222 listed companies suggests that firms providing more CSR information: have better corporate governance ratings; are larger; belong to higher profile industries; and are more highly leveraged. Our findings support the limited prior research suggesting a link between corporate governance quality and CSR disclosure in company annual reports and suggest that, rather than mandating specific disclosures, regulators might be better served focussing on corporate governance quality as a way of increasing CSR disclosures.     

全球化面临挑战但不会逆转——兼论中国在全球经济治理中的角色

在过去的一年多里,针对全球化的质疑越来越多而且越来越激烈.全球化是否因此发生逆转？针对这个问题,结合全球化发展历程,本文利用世界银行数据,对全球化进行分析发现,全球化并没有逆转.然而,全球化正面临全球收入差距扩大、贫困问题依然突出、全球贸易统计方法落后、老龄化日益明显、网络安全监管缺位、全球金融体系社会基础薄弱等严峻挑战.唯有全球化持续,我们才有可能共同解决这些问题,让全世界共享全球化的成果.当全球化走在十字路口的时候,作为仅次于美国的经济总量最大的国家,中国将在全球化中扮演何种角色以及采取何种举措,都会引起世界的关注.结合中国的绝对经济与相对经济规模、中国对能源的掌控能力、中国出口规模与附加值获取的匹配度、中国人民币的国际认可度以及中国的创新指数等指标分析,本文认为在未来很长一段时期内,中国都将着眼于成为全球经济治理的参与者.为推动全球化的顺利进行,中国要在加强国家治理的基础上,积极参与区域治理与全球治理;通过国际市场开发和国内市场开发的良性互动,夯实中国参与全球化的经济基础;依托中国特色新型智库,及时与全世界分享中国参与全球经济治理的智慧.     

金蜜蜂2020：全球社会责任领域的新行动

金蜜蜂企业的概念于2007年提出,它是中国人对社会责任和可持续发展的一种独特理解、一种崇高境界的追求和一个美好愿景的憧憬。这种理解是企业（组织）要与其赖以生存和发展的环境等诸因素形成和谐共生的关系,追求履责目的和手段的统一的境界,     

CSR全球动向与松下电器的行动

随着ISO26000的发布,实现全球规模社会可持续发展的理念正传递至所有组织。在履行社会责任氛围更为浓厚的背景下,作者展现了松下电器公司多年来所秉持的责任理念以及责任实践的推进。本文写作于日本发生强震和海啸前,对于此次重大灾害中松下电器及日本国内企业履行社会责任的行动,本刊将做进一步的关注。     

CSR,Transparency and the Role of Intermediate Organisations

Transparency is a crucial condition to implement a CSR policy based on the reputation mechanism. The central question of this contribution is how a transparency policy ought to be organised in order to enhance the CSR behaviour of companies. Governments endorsing CSR as a new means of governance have different strategies to foster CSR transparency. In this paper we discuss the advantages and disadvantages of two conventional policy strategies: the facilitation policy and the command and control strategy. Using three criteria (efficiency, freedom and virtue) we conclude that both strategies are defective. Most attention is paid to the facilitation strategy since governments nowadays mainly use this. In evaluating this strategy we analyse the Dutch case. As an alternative we introduce a third government policy: the development of a self-regulating sub-system. By construing an analogy with the historical development of corporate financial disclosure, we point out that the vital step in the creation of a self-regulating subsys- tem is the creation of strong informational intermediate organisations.     

联合国报告：2008年世界经济增速将再降，尤其美国经济不容乐观但中印经济将继续增长

<正>2008年世界经济增速将进一步减缓2008年1月9日,联合国发布《2008年世界经济形势与展望》报告。该报告由联合国经济和社会事务部、联合国贸易和发展会议以及5个联合国区域委员会联合编制。报告指出,世界经济增长速度在2007年有所减缓,从2006年的3.9%降至3.7%,预计2008年世界经济增长率将再降至3.4%。     

Social Role Conceptions and CSR Policy Success

Businesses are eager to present themselves as honest and reliable corporate citizens who care about the overall well-being of society. This article researches whether different role conceptions of businesses regarding social issues are related to their success in dealing with social demands. Do socially active companies have a better social reputation than inactive companies? This relationship is determined by first extracting the social role conceptions of the companies from their Corporate Social Responsibility reports and then comparing this data to their social reputations. The analysis shows that there is indeed a relationship between these two variables. Companies with a broad social role conception score significantly better on their social reputations than companies with a narrow role conception. Social role conceptions therefore matter when dealing with social demands.     

The Global Compact Selected Experiences and Reflections

In this paper, the Executive Head of the Global Compact shares some of his own reflections on the evolution of the Global Compact initiative – United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan’s voluntary corporate citizenship initiative in the area of human rights, labor, the environment and anti-corruption. Two main themes are addressed. The first considers the Global Compact’s institutional context, examining how such an initiative is even possible in the historically hierarchical and traditionally business-unfriendly UN. The second concerns the voluntary nature of the initiative and how it interacts with regulatory approaches. It explains what the Global Compact has to offer as a voluntary initiative, as well as how it can make a unique and complementary contribution to regulation-backed initiatives. The paper concludes with a brief consideration of what the future holds for the Global Compact. Georg Kell Georg Kell began his career at the United Nations in 1987–1990: UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), Geneva. 1990: he joined the New York office of UNCTAD; 1993–1997: head of the office. 1997: senior officer at the executive office of the Secretary-General responsible for fostering the cooperation with the private sector. Since 2000, executive head, Global Compact, United Nations, New York.     

The Multinational Corporation and Global Governance: Modelling Global Public Policy Networks

Globalization has increased the economic power of the multinational corporation (MNC), engendering calls for greater corporate social responsibility (CSR) from these companies. However, the current mechanisms of global governance are inadequate to codify and enforce recognized CSR standards. One method by which companies can impact positively on global governance is through the mechanism of Global Public Policy Networks (GPPN). These networks build on the individual strength of MNCs, domestic governments, and non-governmental organizations to create expected standards of behaviour in such areas as labour rights, environmental standards, and working conditions. This article models GPPN in the issue area of CSR. The potential benefits of GPPN include better overall coordination among industry and government in establishing what social expectations the modern MNC will be expected to fill. David Detomasi is an assistant professor of international business at the School of Business, Queen’s University, Kingston, Ontario Canada. His research areas include corporate governance, corporate social responsibility, and business and society.     

全球粮食危机凸显，联合国召开全球粮食危机会议

<正>全球粮食危机会议6月3日在罗马开幕,人权活动人士和世界银行要求采取行动遏制粮价涨势,因为这正将约1亿人推入饥饿的境地。     

CSR,Sustainability and the Meaning of Global Reporting for Latin American Corporations

Although the ethical judgment of consumers in the United States and other industrialized countries has received considerable attention, consumer ethics in Asian-market settings have seldom been explored. The purchase and making of counterfeit products are considered common, but disreputable, attributes of Southeast Asian consumers. According to the Association of South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN), Indonesia ranks third among the leading countries of counterfeit items in Asia. Retail revenue losses attributed to counterfeiting amounted to US $183 million in 2004. Therefore, elucidating the ethical perspectives of Indonesian consumers is an effective means of clarifying an important cultural influence on consumer behavior. This exploratory study of 230 Indonesians has many meaningful findings. First, certain personal attitudes apparently affect the ethical judgments of Indonesian consumers. Second, Indonesian consumers who exhibited high ethical concern over actively benefiting from illegal actions had high levels of materialism and idealism, as well as low levels of relativism. Third, materialism, idealism, and relativism significantly influenced whether benefits were created from actively engaging in some questionable activities (DELEGAL). Analytical results indicated that Indonesians with high materialism and relativism were more likely to engage in actions that were questionable but legal. Finally, consumer ethics were compared by applying demographic variables such as gender, age, education, religion, and occupation, indicating that all variables significantly varied except for religion.     

The Role of NGOs in CSR: Mutual Perceptions Among Stakeholders

This paper explores the role of NGOs in corporate social responsibility (CSR) through an analysis of various stakeholders’ perceptions and of NGOs’ self-perceptions. In the course of qualitative research based in Spain, we found that the perceptions of the role of NGOs fall into four categories: recognition of NGOs as drivers of CSR; concerns about their legitimacy; difficulties in the mutual understanding between NGOs and trade unions; the self-confidence of NGOs as important players in CSR. Each of these categories comprises the various elements analysed in the paper. We found some discrepancies between the perception of others and the self-perceptions of NGOs, which explains why their role is often controversial. The research confirms that secondary stakeholders, such as NGOs, are key players in CSR, but their role is still regarded as controversial and their legitimacy contested. Deep-seated misunderstandings and mistrust among various stakeholder groups (particularly between NGOs and trade unions) are a possible hurdle to the integration of social and environmental concerns in business activity and corporate governance in Spain. The study finds that business managers need to take a less firm-centric and a more contextual approach, and look more closely into the relationship with and among stakeholder groups. For NGO managers, the research shows that NGOs are not always aware of the stereotypes they generate and the problems caused mainly by what is seen as ambivalent roles: critic and counsellor, accuser and judge, idealist and fund raiser.

中国应作为平等伙伴积极参与全球经济治理

世贸组织拉米总干事5月24El在北京“经济发展论坛”讲演,建言中国应在全球经济治理上发挥更积极的作用。中国听众肯定都会认同,因为中国历来渴望对世界做出更大的贡献,问题在于,国际社会需要认同和接受中国发挥更积极的作用。这里的关键,是世界主要经济大国要调整心态,接受中国作为平等伙伴积极参与全球经济治理。中国从中请加入多边贸易体系那一天起,就一直竭尽全力进行体制改革以适应多边贸易体系规则。加入世贸以后,经十多年的努力,已履行了对世贸组织及其成员的全部承诺。事实证明,这对中国和全球经济都获益甚丰。