责任竞争力：使可持续发展在全球市场中具有重大意义

现任世贸组织总干事拉米先生曾为“责任竞争力”下了一个定义：“责任竞争力把具有前瞻性的企业策略、创新的公共政策和充满活力的公民社会混合在一起。它涉及创建新一代的有利可图的产品和业务流程，以支持各个社团的广泛的社会、环境和经济目标为基础。”我们已经认识到，责任竞争力不仅仅是公司行为，而是上升到国家的层面。因此我们希望进一步细分各国的做法，以推进国家在经济上的竞争力。     

Balancing Performance, Ethics, and Accountability

Practical mechanisms for aligning performance, ethics, and accountability are urgently needed. The context for this includes the organisational, technological, and regulatory transformations underlying current patterns of globalisation. These factors, combined with the associated emergence of civil action concerned with corporate accountability and deeper value-shifts, make such realignments a practical possibility. Social and ethical accounting, auditing, and reporting provides one of the few practical mechanisms for companies to integrate new patterns of civil accountability and governance with a business success model focused on deepening stakeholder relationships around core non-financial as well as financial values and interests. Experience over the past decade has enabled viable and effective methods to evolve and to lay the foundation of "standards-in-practice" against which future accounting, auditing, and reporting, will be benchmarked. Institutions are emerging to regularise this arena of actions, in the first instance through voluntary codes and process standards. A number of challenges exist in securing social and ethical accounting and auditing as a legitimate and effective framework within which organisations can achieve an appropriate balance of financial and non-financial interests, aims, actions, and outcomes. The emerging experience, expertise, methodologies, and institutions provide the basis for these challenges to be effectively met.     

The Practice of Buddhist Economics?

A bstract . The guidance provided by Buddhism about forms of economy is examined, focusing on individual and social aspects of Buddhist practice, rather than a literal readings of the canonical texts. The case of the village-level development organization in Sri Lanka, Sarvodaya Shramadana , illustrates issues concerning Buddhist approaches to organization at the micro level. The impact of the Buddhist institution of the laity supporting monks on economic growth is considered, and the role of material welfare in a Buddhist conception of development. This examination of Buddhism suggests that its practice reveals insights into approaches to economy.     

The path to corporate responsibility

Nike's tagline,"Just do it," is an inspirational call to action for the millions who wear the company's athletic gear. But in terms of corporate responsibility, Nike didn't always follow its own advice. In the 1990s, protesters railed against sweatshop conditions at some of its overseas suppliers and made Nike the global poster child for corporate ethical fecklessness. The intense pressure that activists exerted on the athletic apparel giant forced it to take a long, hard look at corporate responsibility--sooner than it might have otherwise. In this article, Simon Zadek, CEO of the UK-based institute AccountAbility, describes the bumpy route Nike has traveled to get to a better ethical place, one that cultivates and champions responsible business practices. Organizations learn in unique ways, Zadek contends, but they inevitably pass through five stages of corporate responsibility, from defensive ("It's not our fault") to compliance ("We'll do only what we have to") to managerial ("It's the business") to strategic ("It gives us a competitive edge") and, finally, to civil ("We need to make sure everybody does it"). He details Nike's arduous trek through these stages-from the company's initial defensive stance, when accusations about working conditions arose, all the way to its engagement today in the international debate about business's role in society and in public policy. As he outlines this evolution, Zadek offers valuable insights to executives grappling with the challenge of managing responsible business practices. Beyond just getting their own houses in order, the author argues, companies need to stay abreast of the public's evolving ideas about corporate roles and responsibilities. Organizations that do both will engage in what he calls"civil learning".