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Blog 31. July 2013 | 2 Comments

Change the World

The month of June is ending. The rains have started and the school year is well under way. In Bilbao, the first Global Dialogue on Sustainable Business is underway and at AIM, the second term of the MBA program is ending and our students have just finished reporting on their walkabouts. For me, it is a week for thinking about space, discovery and dreams. It is a week for thinking about what kind of leadership is necessary to change the world. Network:  Global Network for Corporate Citizenship [more]

Blog 02. July 2013 | 0 Comments

Following the Letter versus the Spirit of the Law

While progressive companies like Unilever, Nestlé, Danone, and others have been “leading the pack” with innovative and profitable CSR strategies, the news of late has also highlighted less salutary backward business behavior.  Consider several cases where companies have hewed to the “letter” of the law, but seemingly ignored its spirit. Network:  Global Network for Corporate Citizenship [more]

Blog 23. May 2013 | 0 Comments

Employee Engagement in Social Innovation: Collaborative Idea Management at Ericsson

By Bradley Googins and Philip Mirvis   Top companies are doing many different things to engage their employees through CSR nowadays. There has, for example, been a big increase in corporate volunteering—including global service learning programs whereby companies send teams of employees into emerging markets to help groups and organizations address economic, social, and environmental concerns.   On the operating front, more employees today are involved in sustainable supply chain management, cause-related marketing, and green business initiatives.  Ericsson, the Swedish maker of advanced telecom equipment, pulls these threads together when engaging its employees in corporate social innovation. Network:  Global Network for Corporate Citizenship [more]

Blog 08. May 2013 | 1 Kommentar

In Memory of Felipe “Fil” B. Alfonso

As many of you have heard, our dear colleague Fil Alfonso passed away a few weeks ago.  As one of the founding members of the Global Network for Corporate Citizenship , Fil brought decades of experience with CSR throughout Asia through his leadership at The Asian Institute of Management and the founder of the Asian Forum.  More than that Fil´s incredible warmth and colleagueship was instrumental in developing and guiding the Network. Network:  Global Network for Corporate Citizenship [more]

Blog 16. January 2013 | 0 Comments

One Word of Truth – David Grayson on Michael Woodford’s “Exposure” (Portfolio Penguin, 2012)

“One word of truth outweighs the whole world.” Those words, from the Russian novelist Alexander Solzhenitsyn’s Nobel Prize speech, resonated with me back in the early 1970s as a teenager with an emerging political consciousness. Indeed, geek that I was, I learnt the entire speech by heart! Network:  Global Network for Corporate Citizenship [more]

Blog 06. November 2012 | 0 Comments

Blog from the director of the Doughty Centre, 2012/11/06

Just back from the annual Asian CSR Forum (AFCSR) in Bangkok.  As with last year's event in Manila, the sense of dynamism and optimism about the future, that one experiences in Asia Nowadays, was palpable - particularly by contrast to a more sclerotic European scene.  Years ago, I used to head regularly to the USA to get a top-up of "can-do"spirit.  Today, I head east! Network:  Global Network for Corporate Citizenship [more]

Blog 19. October 2012 | 0 Comments

Blog from the director of the Doughty Centre, 2012/10/18

I shared a platform  with Baroness Susan Greenfield, the scientist and broadcaster, in Belfast on October 17th, for Business in the Community Northern Ireland Responsible Business conference.  Susan gave a fifteen minute master class on the brain, how it adapts and is adapting. Network:  Global Network for Corporate Citizenship [more]

Blog 16. January 2012 | 0 Comments

Next for Responsible Business: Operational Innovation

By Bradley Googins and Philip Mirvis   A 2011 Cone/Echo Global poll finds that more than 90% of the world’s consumers want businesses to launch “operational innovation for the greater good.”  There is more to this than a company “cleaning up its act” by, say, reducing pollutants or protecting human rights in its supply chain.  It is about a company using its know-how and leverage to develop new business practices that have a positive impact on the world.      [more]

Blog 02. December 2011 | 0 Comments

Holiday Shopping and the Brand Promise of CSR

By Bradley Googins and Philip Mirvis   Holiday shopping season is upon us and businesses have spent a fortune to give their brands (and the company behind them) a distinct personality.  Their logic: consumers want "stuff" that makes them feel cool or exciting or maybe secure, sophisticated, or powerful and top brands, gift wrapped or not, promise to deliver what they want.   Business knows that investments to enhance a brand's functions, features, and emotional appeal translate into big profits.  Meanwhile, as this is also the season of thanks and charity, a firm's largesse extends to holiday parties and CSR.  [more]

Blog 04. October 2011 | 2 Comments

Share Value or Shared Values?

By Bradley Googins and Philip Mirvis   It is hard to believe that by adding or dropping an “s” in the word value that the whole meaning changes.  The business world is abuzz with the proposal by Michael Porter and Mark Kramer that business “redefine capitalism” by producing products and services that are good for profits and for people and the planet.  The idea is not theirs alone--Jed Emerson called it “blended value” several years prior and we spoke of it in the “socio-commercial” business models of GE, Unilever, IBM, and other firms in our book Beyond Good Company.  But the term “shared value” has received the imprimatur of the Harvard Business Review, so let’s stick with it. Network:  Global Network for Corporate Citizenship [more]