How Corporate Social Responsibility Builds Broad Stakeholder Value

Transcript

Cathy DuBois: [0:04] Globally responsible leaders are leaders who engage their organizations with the long game in mind. They are looking broadly and deeply to create shared value, and that is value shared across the full range of stakeholders in their business. We have this not desirable history of businesses creating negative externalities.

[0:46] Environmental impacts, poor working conditions, safety and health, poor wages, that kind of thing. Responsible leaders are looking at the whole, they are looking at the system. They are trying to make sure that the business creates long term value. Responsible leaders also listen. They are always in a learning mode because they know they can always do better.

[1:15] They push the boundaries of the possible, they question old ways of doing things and forge new ways of doing things that are grounded in ethics and values and that notion, again, of creating shared value across the range of stakeholders.

Nigel DeBussy: [1:36] Probably for the last 25 years [laughs], I've been telling anybody who will listen that corporate social responsibility is absolutely central to what I understand public relations to be. The problem with the term "public relations" is that in many parts of the world, it's become a rather tainted term and in fact, it's relatively little used in many countries now as a job term.

[2:02] There are all sorts of alternative phrases and terms that people use instead. At heart, what we're talking about is building strong and positive relationships with organizational stakeholders so that those stakeholders are supportive of an organization rather than antagonistic.

[2:23] Ultimately, we're also talking about, more broadly, building a strong and positive reputation over the long term for organizations. It's obvious that you don't do that by cutting corners, by having poor standards, by being corporately irresponsible.

[2:45] Especially in today's world and more and more as time goes on, organizations and people are judged by the degree to which they behave in a responsible manner, the way in which they take into account social concerns and environmental concerns as well as purely financial results. The organizations that do that over time have better public relations, it's quite simple.

Percy Marquina: [3:16] Latin America, as you may know, we have the Amazon and we need to maintain it right now. There are many problems affecting them, and we have to do something in order to allow our students to understand the importance of the environment and the sustainability of our jungle or our Amazon.

[3:38] We have to help to reduce inequality, to give opportunities to all, and saying that is that try to solve our local or regional problems. One other important aspect in Latin America in the recent years is corruption. It should mean that maybe we are not doing enough. It's not only a fact of teach, try to be sure that we are impacting in a relevant way.

[4:10] What we discuss in international meetings in terms of assessment of learning, in terms of ethical behavior, is a must. Try not only to teach but only to be sure that we are changing the minds and the hearts of our students.

Filmed September 2019 at AACSB's Global Accreditation Conference in San Antonio, Texas, USA.