Going global: how to identify and manage societal expectations in supply chains (and the consequences of failure)

Michael E.Blowfield1
1Senior Research Associate at the Center for Corporate Citizenship, Boston College, Boston, Massachusetts, USA. E‐mail: [email protected]

Tóm tắt

PurposeMultinational companies that want to be reputable global citizens need to manage divergent and often conflicting societal expectations. Aims to show that some do this by using a universally applicable set of policies, approaches, rights and responsibilities, while others believe it is better for companies to manage the issues most material to where they are operating.Design/methodology/approachThis paper, drawing on empirical studies in five continents, examines how companies identify and manage societal expectations when the notion of society itself is undergoing change, and the relationship between business and wider society is being revisited.FindingsDiscusses the experience of employing global social and environmental standards, the value of thinking in terms of a global ethic, and whose interests are served by this approach. Argues that, with certain important caveats, current approaches to managing the social and environmental dimensions of global supply chains provide at best a crude means of tackling societal expectations that can mislead managers into thinking they have the problem in hand.Research limitations/implicationsThis paper has consequences not only for those whose expectations are ignored, but also for company managers who think they are doing the right thing but are actually being blinded to important material issues. Argues that this is a direct consequence of how values and power are overlooked in corporate citizenship theory and practice, and that one needs to be more open and thoughtful about what expectations can and should be met.Originality/valueThese observations in this paper challenge aspects of corporate citizenship's orthodox thinking and require that new consideration be given to the challenge of working with and distinguishing between global communities of need and of expectation. They provide a timely reality check for those propounding and employing popular contemporary approaches to managing the business‐society relationship, and at the same time suggest more effective ways of addressing expectation management in the future.

Từ khóa


Tài liệu tham khảo

Attfield, R. (1999), The Ethics of the Global Environment, Purdue University Press, West Lafayette, IN.

Ayios, A. (2003), “Competence and trust guardians as key elements of building trust in East‐West joint ventures in Russia”, Business Ethics: A European Review, Vol. 12 No. 2, pp. 190‐202.

Barrett, R. (1998), Liberating the Corporate Soul, Butterworth‐Heinemann, Boston, MA.

Barrientos, S., Dolan, C. and Tallontire, A. (2003), “A gendered value chain approach to codes of conduct in African horticulture”, World Development, Vol. 31 No. 9, pp. 1511‐27.

Barry, B.M. (1976), Power and Political Theory: Some European Perspectives, John Wiley, London.

Barry, B.M. (1989), Democracy, Power, and Justice: Essays in Political Theory, Clarendon Press, Oxford.

Blowfield, M.E. (1991), Does Bo Know Nike?, Asian American Free Labor Institute, Jakarta.

Blowfield, M.E. (2000), “Ethical sourcing: a contribution to sustainability or a diversion?”, Sustainable Development, Vol. 8, November, pp. 191‐200.

Blowfield, M.E. (2002), “ETI – a multi‐stakeholder approach”, in Jenkins, R.O., Pearson, R. and Seyfang, G. (Eds), Corporate Responsibility and Labour Rights: Codes of Conduct in the Global Economy, Earthscan, London.

Blowfield, M.E. (2003), “Ethical trade: the negotiation of a global ethic”, DPhil thesis, University of Sussex, Falmer.

Blowfield, M.E. (2004a), “Ethical supply chains in the cocoa, coffee and tea industries”, Greener Management International, Vol. 43, pp. 15‐24.

Blowfield, M.E. (2004b), “Implementation deficits of ethical trade systems: lessons from the Indonesian cocoa and timber industries”, Journal of Corporate Citizenship, Vol. 13, pp. 77‐90.

Blowfield, M.E. (2004c), “CSR: a global ethic?”, paper presented at The Inter‐Disciplinary CSR Research Conference, Nottingham University, Nottingham, 22‐23 October.

Blowfield, M.E. (2004d), “CSR and development: is business appropriating global justice?”, Development, Vol. 47 No. 3, pp. 61‐8.

Blowfield, M.E. (2005), “Corporate social responsibility – the failing discipline and why it matters for international relations”, International Relations, June.

Carroll, S.J. and Gannon, M.J. (1997), Ethical Dimensions of International Management, Sage Publications, Thousand Oaks, CA.

Chatterjee, S.R. and Pearson, C.A.L. (2003), “Ethical perceptions of Asian managers: evidence of trends in six divergent national contexts”, Business Ethics: A European Review, Vol. 12 No. 2, pp. 203‐11.

Donaldson, T. (2003), “Ethics away from home”, in Thomas, D.C. (Ed.), Readings and Cases in International Management: A Cross‐Cultural Perspective, Sage Publications, Thousand Oaks, CA, pp. 133‐40.

Evers, H.‐D. and Schrader, H. (1994), The Moral Economy of Trade: Ethnicity and Developing Markets, Routledge, New York, NY.

Faubion, J.D. (2000), Power, New Press, New York, NY.

Gereffi, G.A. (1999), “Commodity chains framework for analyzing global industries”, available at: www.nt1.ids.ac.uk/eldis.

Giddens, A. (1991), Consequences of Modernity, Stanford University Press, Stanford, CA.

Hebrew Union College‐Jewish Institute of Religion (1980), Ethics and Corporate Responsibility, Hebrew Union College‐Jewish Institute of Religion, Cincinnati, OH.

Henderson, D. (2001), “Misguided virtue: false notions of corporate social responsibility”, Hobart Paper, No. 142, The Institute of Economic Affairs, London.

Humphrey, J. and Schmitz, H. (2001), “Governance in global value chains”, IDS Bulletin, Vol. 32 No. 3, pp. 19‐29.

Jenkins, R.O. (2002), “The political economy of codes of conduct”, in Jenkins, R.O., Pearson, R. and Seyfang, G. (Eds), Corporate Responsibility and Labour Rights: Codes of Conduct in the Global Economy, Earthscan, London.

Jones, L.B. (1995), Using Ancient Wisdom for Visionary Leadership, Hyperion, New York, NY.

Kelly, M. (2000), The Divine Right of Capital: Dethroning the Corporate Aristocracy, Berrett‐Kohler Publishers Inc., San Francisco, CA.

Kolk, A., van Tulder, R. and Welters, C. (1999), “International codes of conduct and corporate social responsibility: can transnational corporations regulate themselves?”, Transnational Corporations, Vol. 8 No. 1, pp. 143‐80.

Kwan, A. and Frost, S. (2002), “Made in China: rules and regulations versus codes of conduct in the toy sector”, in Jenkins, R.O., Pearson, R. and Seyfang, G. (Eds), Corporate Responsibility and Labour Rights: Codes of Conduct in the Global Economy, Earthscan, London.

Litvin, D.B. (2003), Empires of Profit: Commerce, Conquest and Corporate Responsibility, Texere, New York, NY.

Lucas, C. (1992), “Power and the panopticon”, in Burke, P. (Ed.), Critical Essays on Michel Foucault, Scholar Press, Cambridge.

McKinlay, A. and Storkey, K. (Eds) (1998), Foucault, Management and Organization Theory, Sage, London.

Markopoulos, M. (1999), Community Forest Enterprise and Certification in Mexico: A Review of Experience, Oxford Forestry Institute, Oxford.

Nace, T. (2003), Gangs of America: The Rise of Corporate Power and the Disabling of Democracy, Berrett‐Koehler, San Francisco, CA.

O'Rourke, D. (2003), “Outsourcing regulation: non‐governmental systems of labor standards and monitoring”, Policy Studies Journal, Vol. 31 No. 1, pp. 1‐29.

Rawls, J. (1971), A Theory of Justice, Harvard University Press, Cambridge.

Redfern, K. (2004), “An empirical investigation of the ethics position questionnaire in the People's Republic of China”, Journal of Business Ethics, Vol. 50 No. 3, pp. 199‐210.

Sethi, S.P. (2003), Setting Global Standards: Guidelines for Creating Codes of Conduct in Multinational Corporations, John Wiley, Hoboken.

Thrift, N. (2002), “Think and act like revolutionaries: episodes from the global triumph of management discourse”, Critical Quarterly, Vol. 44 No. 3, pp. 19‐26.

Varley, P., Mathiasen, C. and Voorhes, M. (1998), The Sweatshop Quandary: Corporate Responsibility on the Global Frontier, Investor Responsibility Research Center, Washington, DC.

Wick, A. (2001), Workers' Tool or PR Ploy? A Guide to Codes of International Labour Practice, Friedrich‐Ebert‐Stiftung/SÜDWIND Institut für Ökonomie und Ökumene, Bonn.