Theoretical Challenges of Global Business Citizenship:

Taking Corporate Social Responsibility

Across Borders

Donna J. WoodThe David W. Wilson Chair in Business EthicsUniversity of Northern Iowa

(acknowledging the co-creation of Jeanne Logsdon, Patsy Lewellyn, and Kim Davenport)

Global Business Citizenship

A global business citizen is a multinational enterprise that responsibly implements its duties to individuals and to societies within and across national and cultural borders.

Can Businesses Be Citizens?

• Person-to-state, and person-to-person, rights and duties. Identity, belonging.

• No: companies are ‘shells’; it’s a terrible idea; but companies still have duties.

• Yes: companies are legal ‘persons.’• Our view: Companies CAN be “citizens

of the world,” with interests and rights secondary to those of humans, upholding universal principles (UDHR, “Ten Principles”)

Deriving the GBC Process

Degree of Ethical Certainty:

Multi-domestic Strategy

Globally Integrated Strategy

Principles – a limited number of basic universal principles

(ethical relativism)

1. CODE OF CONDUCT

Consistent Norms – acceptable local variations

2. LOCAL IMPLEMENT-

ATION

(ethical imperialism)

Incompatible Norms-incompletely governed or ungoverned by, in conflict with, principles

3. ANALYSIS & EXPERIMENT-

ATION

4. ORGANIZA-TIONAL

LEARNING

• Step 1: Choose a small but compre-hensive set of universal principles, use to underlie code of conduct.

• Step 2: Implement routinely where there are no conflicts with local norms or customs.

• Step 3: Analyze problems & conflicts; engage stakeholders; experiment with solutions.

• Step 4: Systematize what is learned and share it with others.

Example: Aarhus United A/Sin Burkina Faso

SHEA NUTS: Woman’s Gold _____________________• Cottage industry and

major exported product.

• Gathered by women and girls.

• Shea nut butter and oil a key ingredient of cooking oil, margarine, cosmetics, soap, detergents, candles, and as a substitute for cocoa butter.

Problem & Solution

• UNICEF’s 2000 report on child slavery.• ILO Convention 182; Aarhus task force.• Plan 1 – school – abandoned.• Plan 2 – multifunctional platform –

UNDP. Sustainable; economically powerful.

• Global Compact and MFP postings to aid others’ learning.

UNDP Partnership and the Multi-Functional Platform (MFP)

Issues in GBC Theory Development

• Matten/Crane/Moon challenge• Rousseau-type use of “world citizen”• Choice of citizenship “types”

(minimal, communitarian, universal)• Information & power assymetries vis-

à-vis rights• Standard-setting processes, norm

enforcement mechanisms

Some Questions for Transforming GBC into Descriptive Theory

• What’s the difference between a GBC company and a non-GBC company?

• Does it matter what the differences are?• Does competitive advantage or

profitability add to or detract from GBC?• What variables can define the

constructs?• Can existing theories help? Offer

counter-suggestions?

Transiting to Predictive Theory

• Testable hypotheses of relationship and causation

• Normative underpinnings need to be worked out for prescriptive interpretations

• How to get data???

Conclusion

• CSR is a powerful heuristic but not useful for theory-building and testing:– Normative assumptions vague.– Relationship to stakeholders vague.– Prone to relativism and/or imperialism.

• GBC, by contrast, builds on political theory, is a process more than a heuristic, and suggests variables and testable hypotheses.

• More work needs to be done!