By purchasing these Nike sneakers, am I aiding in the cycle of poverty that entraps most of the world? Now that Unilever owns Ben and Jerry’s, is my extra money for novelty ice cream still going towards making the world a better place, or am I just contributing money that the workers at the bottom of the supply chain will never even receive? Should I buy these groceries at Super-Wal-Mart to save a few dollars, despite Wal-Mart’s human resource policies? Not many people ask themselves these questions. Moreover, not many people think about how the answers are affecting our world presently, not to mention their effects on the future. Thus, the first reason I chose Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) as the subject of my blog is to expose others to something I am very passionate about: how and why corporations should focus on the triple bottom line of profits, environmental sustainability, and social responsibility. Secondly, I believe that the greater the public knowledge and support of CSR, the greater the possibility that responsible business practices become the standard to which all corporations are held.
One of the major questions within the realm of CSR is that of motivation. Is it enough for businesses to incorporate CSR solely based on the desire for a solid reputation, in an attempt to avoid public distrust and tarnishing of their brand image? A large number of CSR supporters—or fanatics, if you will—would say “Yes. As long as they are incorporating CSR, motivation does not matter.” In fact, in Jeffrey Hollender’s What Matters Most, he devotes an entire chapter to reputation, where he utilizes Royal Dutch Shell’s conflict with Greenpeace and Intel’s conflict with SWOP as two major examples of reputation’s influence on encouraging CSR and never discredits their motivation for doing so. While I highly suggest reading Hollender’s book if you are new to the world of CSR, I have to disagree with his suggestion that concern for reputation is enough to encourage CSR effectively. As CSR represents a particular line of development within organizational leadership, focusing solely on reputation reflects stagnation in the egocentric or ethnocentric state, preventing development within the world centric state. In other words, if organizations are solely incorporating CSR for their own progress or competition with others, that’s just it: they are merely incorporating CSR. They are trying to squeeze this idea of CSR in their framework that revolves around their corporation, rather than developing into the world centric state of CSR through building their framework around wanting to change the world for the better. Furthermore, consumers can tell the difference—they want to support making the world better, not making some corporation richer than it already is.
For example, in “The Myth of CSR,” Deborah Doane supports her view that CSR will not work with the statement that “less than five percent of consumers in the UK show consistent ethical and green purchasing behaviors” despite the high level of eco-marketing in northern Europe. Rather than demonstrating why CSR will not work, however, this statistic simply suggests the need for change in order for CSR to be more effective. These leaders in green marketing— including companies from Toyota to McDonalds—are simply stuck in the ethnocentric state of CSR development: they are trying to show customers their competitive advantage through marketing green products. They are focusing on the products, and in effect, attempting to sneak green products into mainstream. This product marketing is simply remaining in the economic archetype of leadership, thereby focusing on purchasing power and markets. Instead, these “green leaders” should move into the religious archetype of leadership and focus on moving people through meaning. In this way, they could progress into a world centric state of development within CSR and focus on educating about the importance of green products, not just marketing the products themselves. Education of the importance of certain behaviors fosters much more commitment than education about a product. In focusing on how to make the world a better place, these companies could exemplify the religious archetype of leadership and world centric state of development through simply marketing differently: marketing issues that inform and inspire changing buying habits and help customers understand how and why they should do so.
Ultimately, it is time to stop and think: do the corporations you support market issues or products? Do they care about environmental sustainability and social responsibility or solely profits? By purchasing from these corporations, are you helping to make the world a better place?
