Posts Tagged ‘governance’
1. The Sustainability Gap
A research by hygiene and paper company SCA looks at the trends in sustainability in North America. Read more
2. Understanding Transformation: Building the Business Case for Integrated Reporting
The report tracks the behavioral changes during the first year of the IIRC’s pilot program initiative which aims to help develop an International Integrated Reporting Framework. Read more
3. Measuring Shared Value: How to Unlock Value by Linking Social and Business Results
The report by Michael E. Porter and FSG explains the specific purpose of shared value measurement. Read more
4. Corporate Social Responsibility: A Brand New Spirit of Capitalism?
This paper aims to contribute to the current debate over whether corporate social responsibility (CSR) is either a source of radical change for corporations or a smokescreen to maintain business as usual. Read more
5. Global Sustainability Leaders Survey: Budgets and Priorities
This report provides a global benchmark of sustainability priorities, budgets and governance. Read more
6. Collaborating for a Sustainable Future
A report by SustainAbility and GlobeScan aims to better understand the renewed hope, future prospects and potential pitfalls for collaboration on sustainable development challenges. Read more
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Featured In
CSR Research Digest – January 2013
Summary
This report provides a global benchmark of sustainability priorities, budgets and governance. It is is based on interviews with 250 sustainability decision-makers at firms with revenues over $250 million, across 13 countries and 21 industries.
Key Findings
- Corporate spending on energy, environment and sustainability management in 2013 will grow by less than 10 percent.
- 46 percent of respondents expect their spending to increase by up to 10 percent next year, while 39 percent face flat budgets.
- Only 11 percent of those surveyed anticipate increasing their spending on sustainability by more than 10 percent in 2013 compared to 2012.
- About 32 percent of respondents said they expect budgets for employee engagement on sustainability, sustainability product or service innovation, sustainable supply chain and sustainable reporting to increase between one and nine percent in 2013.
- Sustainability innovation, marketing and employee engagement will receive the biggest boost in budgets in 2013, while consulting and software implementation will rank at the bottom.
- A quarter of firms spend at least 2 percent of revenues on energy, environment and sustainability initiatives.
- More than 90 percent of those surveyed predict that sustainability management will change in some way by 2015, with 43 percent predicting significant changes, 37 percent forecasting minimal changes, and 11 percent saying sustainability management will be transformed.
Author(s)
Verdantix
Source
Author: Jedrzej George Frynas
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Year: 2009
Pages: 207
Beyond Corporate Social Responsibility is an in-depth analysis of the potential of CSR in the oil and gas industry. Case studies of twenty extracting companies from developed and emerging economies investigates the potential of CSR in three core areas – environment, development and governance.
The book is based on questions such as why some companies display greater willingness to engage in CSR than others, why the same companies have different CSR policies in different countries and why some companies engage in CSR even if there is little external pressure to do so. Frynas’ main research focus is if CSR is really able to deliver on larger expectations in companies. It is becoming more and more accepted that companies should address issues such as HIV/AIDS, poverty and the environment, but at the same time companies reject the notion that they have a responsibility for such issues, they are only there ‘to do business’.
Frynas finds that the success of CSR is highly dependent on context. He shoots down the universal assumption that social and political conditions for CSR apply in all cases. Further the analysis of the three areas, the environment, development and governance, shows that while CSR has great potential for success in the environmental area – where results can be measured, are tangible and often environmental solutions also leads to lower costs for the company in the long run – CSR largely fails in the areas of development and governance. Good development practise is often incompatible with profit-maximising motives, and such aims for development should be long-term where companies often look short-term and at the measurable outcome. Corporate activity can also help undermining good governance, mainly by not acknowledging the extent to which they interact with the host country. Companies often hold the notion that their policy is non-interference but corporate activity is dependent on the conditions in the country, on which they also can have an influence.
Frynas finds that a variety of issues are yet to be addressed, especially within development and governance before CSR can have a profound effect in these areas, but that the potential of CSR in environmental areas is great and compatible with profit-maximising motives.
The book is an easily-read book with great insight in the oil and gas industry, with massive fieldwork lying as its foundation. Frynas guides the reader through complex issues and makes a fair case for the successes and failures of CSR in each analysis. He brings to light the strengths and shortcomings of current systems and organisations, coming up with recommendations for further actions.
Review by
Tine Emilie Skriver, CSR International
1. Corporates are from Mars, Charities are from Venus. The Ultimate Guide to Managing your Partnership (Kay Allen with Tanja Rasmussen)
Framed around a ten-point action plan, the book works through a charity-corporate partnership from conception to conclusion. Starting with singlehood and the desire to form a partnership, the guide journeys through the corporate-charity dating scene, engagement, marriage and through to reflections. Review by Andrea Grace Rannard. Read more
2. Reframing Corporate Social Responsibility: Lessons from the Global Financial Crisis (William Sun, Jim Stewart and David Pollard)
In the aftermath of the global financial crisis (GFC), much commentary has been dedicated to the spectacular failures of neo-liberal economics, the ‘Anglo-Saxon’ capitalist system and corporate governance, to the exclusion of CSR. In its analysis of the causes and fallout of the greatest financial and economic disaster since the Great Depression from a CSR perspective, this book takes a novel and interesting approach. Review by Katie O’Dea Cadden. Read more
3. Beyond Corporate Social Responsibility (Jedrzej George Frynas)
Beyond Corporate Social Responsibility is an in-depth analysis of the potential of CSR in the oil and gas industry. Case studies of twenty extracting companies from developed and emerging economies investigates the potential of CSR in three core areas – environment, development and governance. Review by Tine Emilie Skriver. Read more
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1. Doing Business in China: An Overview of Ethical Aspects
The paper reviews the business ethics climate within China and explores the operating environment for business and considers the cultural characteristics which underpin this. Read more
2. Corporate Governance and Social Media: A Brave New World for Board Directors
The report provides insights on the power of new social technologies to shape boards’ decisions and bolster stakeholders’ influence. Read more
3. Governance of State-owned Enterprises in the Baltic States
This publication intends to build a more profound understanding of how governance works in the Baltic States, and to develop suggestions for how to implement world class standards in the Baltic region. Read more
4. Moral Intensity, Issue Importance and Ethical Reasoning in Operations Situations
The study investigates the relationships among moral intensity, perceived ethical issue importance, and three stages of the ethical reasoning process: recognition of an ethical issue, ethical judgment, and ethical intention. Read more
5. Best Corporate Citizens in Government Contracting
Corporate Responsibility (CR) Magazine has released the 3rd annual Best Corporate Citizens in Government Contracting List. Read more
6. The Shareholder-Manager Relationship and Its Impact on the Likelihood of Firm Bribery
The article examines the impact on firm bribery of two corporate governance devices heavily studied in corporate governance research—i.e., separation of ownership and control, and equity share of the largest shareholder. Read more
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Featured In
Governance Research Digest – July 2012
Summary
This publication intends to build a more profound understanding of how governance works in the Baltic States, and to develop suggestions for how to implement world class standards in the Baltic region. It looks at four interlinked aspects of State-owned Enterprises (SOEs) governance: public perceptions; individual SOE rankings; an examination of board structures; and an analysis of the legal and institutional framework.
Key Findings
- There is considerable public dissatisfaction with SOE governance and SOE performance in the Baltic region.
- The issue of SOE governance and SOE performance has the potential to become politically inflammatory if a scandal or financial duress should emerge.
- Governance practices pose both an economic and a political risk.
- One can clearly identify SOEs that are leaders and SOEs that are not.
- The leaders are rapidly approaching world-class standards of governance.
- These SOEs show that modern and professional governance practices are possible in the Baltics. They should serve as models for other SOEs in the region.
- Unfortunately, many SOEs are still far removed from good practice, much less best practice.
- The report identifies both areas of strength and areas of weakness where governance practices could improve.
- All SOEs will benefit from a governance improvement plan and a concerted governance improvement effort.
- The state itself will likely reap significant benefits in terms of the efficiency and effectiveness of its SOE oversight.
- In some cases financial reporting is comparable to world class practice.
- However, in most SOEs the control environment is compromised by the absence of a direct reporting relationship between the internal auditor and independent board members or an independent audit committee.
- Audit committees are either missing, or are constituted only to comply with formal requirements.
- Civil servant board members are stretched beyond what can be reasonably expected of them, leaving the state’s capacity for oversight dangerously weak.
- Many boards are fiefdoms of ministries or political parties leaving SOEs vulnerable to political influence.
Author(s)
Baltic Institute of Corporate Governance
Source
1. Inclusive Green Growth: The Pathway to Sustainable Development
In the 2012 report Inclusive Green Growth: The Pathway to Sustainable Development, World Bank economists set out an economic argument and framework for countries to begin greening their growth. Read more
2. Sustainability Valuation: An Oxymoron?
The report outlines a direct and indirect approach companies can use to put a value on sustainability, including long term, difficult-to-quantify benefits. Read more
3. Corporate Social Responsibility and Government in Western Europe and Northeast Asia from a National Governance Systems Perspective
This paper explores the relationship between corporate social responsibility (CSR) and government. Read more
4. On Track for Rio+20? How are Global Companies Responsible to Sustainability?
With the UN’s 2012 Rio+20 Earth Summit coming up in June, the research house applied its Sustainability Ratings methodology to measure the sustainability performance of 2,063 global companies from the FTSE Aall World Developed Index. Read more
5. Long-Term Growth, Short-Term Differentiation and Profits from Sustainable Products and Services
Accenture has released a new report about sustainable business and commercial growth. Read more
6. Handling Objections: A Professional’s Guide to Overcoming Objections to Sustainability Adoption and Implementation
This discussion paper summarizes the ideas shared at a Toronto Sustainability Speaker Series workshop event facilitated by author and sustainability expert Bob Willard on February 16, 2012. Read more
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Featured In
CSR Research Digest – June 2012
Summary
This paper explores the relationship between corporate social responsibility (CSR) and government. It relies on the national governance systems literature, under whose rubric is included ‘national business systems’ and the ‘varieties of capitalism’ to fame the discussion.
Key Findings
- Given the rising importance of CSR, authors demonstrate that there is a varied role that the governments can play in order to promote CSR in accordance with the wider national governance systems.
- Whilst CSR – often viewed as self-regulation – and government reflect no obvious relationship for many, by following the CSR practices in Western Europe and Northeast Asia (Japan, South Korea, and China), historically and dynamically, we identify six types of CSR-government relations:
- namely, not only CSR as self-government,
- but also CSR as endorsed by,
- facilitated by,
- in partnership with, and
- mandated by, and
- as an alternative form of government.
Author(s)
ICCSR
Source
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