Often the Private Sector hurls abuse at public sector workers – they are too well paid, they have fat pensions, they are lazy and ineffective. I am a public sector worker. Am I financially better off than I would have been in the private sector –debatable. I am not lazy, and I am reasonably effective in my work. But just as the Private Sector has these biases against public sector workers, I have biases against the corporate sector, and in particular big business.
I have a nagging feeling that business is all about separating the little people from their money. I know this is a contradictory viewpoint from someone doing a Masters in Business. Equally, I know very conscientious, very generous, and very “good” individuals working in the corporate world.
Readers from the corporate world are probably familiar with the world of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), I was not until recently.
Three things fundamental to a successful business:
I have learned that there are three things (probably a million more too, but lets stick with the three) that are fundamental to a successful business:
- A good team (even if that team is your brother, sister, husband or wife or a thousand employees);
- A strategy that allows you to: either do different things to your competitors, or do the same things differently to provide customer value;
- Careful management.
Big companies need investors, and one of the ways companies try to stand out from other companies to attract investors is through Corporate Social Responsibility.
Annual Reports of these companies include CSR sections. I have read several of these. Some outline real projects, others seem to tick boxes, but clearly it is becoming an increasingly important part of the corporate role.
Some companies hold CSR very close to their hearts. Their CSR ethos underlies many of their decisions, thus trying to produce a win-win situation with their employees, with their business neighbours or community, their investors and with governments.
Corporate Citizenship
In the United States, Corporate Social Responsibility is often referred to as Corporate Citizenship.
There are 4 main pillars of Corporate Social Responsibility or Corporate Citizenship: economics, ethics, legal and philanthropic.
Some interesting examples of CSR come from Intel Ireland, through the following examples below:
- They proactively support their staff by investing in on-going education and professional development;
- They offer a service where a family meal can be ordered for collection at the end of work-shifts so that working parents do not have to spend tiem with their families cooking, and so enhancing quality family time;
- They invested in conservation of the land surrounding their factory and in working with local communities in doing this;
- They support second and third level entrepreneurship competitions encoraging next generation Intel-ites.
Reading about Kingspan, an Irish company which designs and manufactures next generation building products is working towards very green factories of its own using green power and limited CO2 emissions.
Philanthropy
Philanthropy is a very interesting aspect of Corporate Citizenship. Philanthropic donations are not subject to tax. The donor can decide who should be the recipient. The donor may or may not capitalise on the PR provided.
Philanthropic giving is fascinating.
There are philanthropists who, like Chuck Feeney who established the Atlantic Philanthropies is genuinely all about the giving. Chuck Feeney cashed in his wealth and established a plan to give his riches away, mostly to Ireland to be invested in education and to Vietnam to be invested in Healthcare. Chuck Feeney is retirred, he is not in business – he is just giving.
Denis O’Brien is famous for giving too, but he is still in business and the good PR from giving, performs a useful function in countering any bad PR, which has been known to surface from time to time.
I am aware of another company which supported philanthropic activities in an emerging country with the intention of securing licenses for drilling for oil.
Then there is the totally cynical donor, who gives to advertise – nothing more, nothing less. I read of a chain of chicken diners in the US, where the owner sponsored development of all playgrounds and sports pitches atound his diners and it had a very positive impact on his business.
This brings me to the key question about philanthropy:
If you do a good thing for the wrong reasons, does it negate the wrong thing?
The answer, I think, is “No”.
So one final point on philanthropy. How come the companies get to decide who they give their money to? Maybe the money would be more usefully used if directly invested in a given economy. That’s not going to happen though but it would be good to dream of a society driven to do good at all levels for the right reasons.
We are the customers. Maybe some of you are even investors. We should raise our voices and encourage CSR and nudge it in the direction of a better world in terms of education, healthcare, income disparity and the environment – good things for good reasons!
Next Generation Notions 