Quanta Corporate Citizenship Icebergs and Hippos 18/05/2010
Whilst in Europe and other countries close to the poles the expression ‘tip of the iceberg’ is well understood, in rural Africa, icebergs don’t come along very often, so you are more likely to find reference to the ‘hippo’s ears’ that peep out giving little indication of the size of the animal below the surface of the water.
Failing to understand cultural context means we often risk making rather costly mistakes.
There are examples across all sectors of how important it is to understand the world around us, and CSR is no exception. As Carrigan and De Pelsmacker pointed out in Will ethical consumers sustain their values in the global credit crunch?, different consumers around the world care about different issues. "Their moral values are socially and culturally constructed, and culture filters our perceptions of what is ethical or unethical consumption". In the same way, cultural context impacts on each of our key stakeholders, be it our staff, shareholders, suppliers, society at large or government.
The German foundation Bertelsmann-Stiftung recently published The CSR Navigator, reviewing CSR from a public policy perspective, and looking at how sharing of responsibility and co-operation with public and private sectors has been organised and institutionalised across different nations. Just by looking at the factors they selected for classification – global standards, customer expectations, human rights and domestic institutions and norms – we can begin to appreciate the diversity across many cultures.
Their findings showed that France, China and Poland, which all demonstrated little experience or success with informal approaches to co-operation, usually require more structure and direction when it came to CSR. The UK, Sweden and Germany, all countries that regard transparency as important and that are more prone to be egalitarian and good at managing change, clearly preferred partnering opportunities between business, NGOs and government. The likes of South Africa and Vietnam, both countries undergoing political and social transformation, seemed to prefer addressing one specific rationale and then adjust their entire CSR policy accordingly, using the full range of instruments available to them. Developing countries like Mozambique, made the most of CSR to closely address the key obstacles they were facing, namely building of trust in its governance.
The economic, political and social context each of these countries finds themselves in is shaped by their own unique histories and as such their approach to CSR will be different. Understanding this difference is what will be key to a global adoption of collective and collaborative responsibility, particularly as the ISO26000 standard creeps ever closer.
- Kim
Failing to understand cultural context means we often risk making rather costly mistakes.
There are examples across all sectors of how important it is to understand the world around us, and CSR is no exception. As Carrigan and De Pelsmacker pointed out in Will ethical consumers sustain their values in the global credit crunch?, different consumers around the world care about different issues. "Their moral values are socially and culturally constructed, and culture filters our perceptions of what is ethical or unethical consumption". In the same way, cultural context impacts on each of our key stakeholders, be it our staff, shareholders, suppliers, society at large or government.
The German foundation Bertelsmann-Stiftung recently published The CSR Navigator, reviewing CSR from a public policy perspective, and looking at how sharing of responsibility and co-operation with public and private sectors has been organised and institutionalised across different nations. Just by looking at the factors they selected for classification – global standards, customer expectations, human rights and domestic institutions and norms – we can begin to appreciate the diversity across many cultures.
Their findings showed that France, China and Poland, which all demonstrated little experience or success with informal approaches to co-operation, usually require more structure and direction when it came to CSR. The UK, Sweden and Germany, all countries that regard transparency as important and that are more prone to be egalitarian and good at managing change, clearly preferred partnering opportunities between business, NGOs and government. The likes of South Africa and Vietnam, both countries undergoing political and social transformation, seemed to prefer addressing one specific rationale and then adjust their entire CSR policy accordingly, using the full range of instruments available to them. Developing countries like Mozambique, made the most of CSR to closely address the key obstacles they were facing, namely building of trust in its governance.
The economic, political and social context each of these countries finds themselves in is shaped by their own unique histories and as such their approach to CSR will be different. Understanding this difference is what will be key to a global adoption of collective and collaborative responsibility, particularly as the ISO26000 standard creeps ever closer.
- Kim
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