Among the images that present the contrasts between these percentages, one of the most widely reported was of the group of affluent citizens attending a cocktail party on the balcony of the legendarily exclusive Cipriani’s during the first week of the protest (now into its third week). Attendees were filmed sipping champagne, looking down on the thousands of protesters, and even snapping photos of the throng with their smartphones. That moment has been compared in the press to the Roman circuses and the comparison is sobering given how apt the analogy seems and how the Roman era ended. Though the protest seemed to be well contained during my visit to the city, more than 780 people have been arrested since it started on September 17 – more than 700 of them for obstructing the Brooklyn Bridge this past weekend.

The fact that the occupation/movement/protest (leaderless non-specific expression of a broad cultural zeitgeist of disaffection) has drawn so many is significant. Similar actions are taking place in multiple cities.  As significant as the numbers drawn is the fact that despite having a diverse set of complaints, the local foci of the protest in all of the cities where the movement has taken hold are the symbolic centers of commerce – in Boston, the Federal Reserve; at the epicenter of the movement, Wall Street, which is symbolic of – if not synonymous with – business in the U.S.

Media interviews with participants reveal a collection of people of disparate backgrounds – a 60-year-old unemployed veteran, grandmothers, average workers, college students and recent grads – drawn together to channel their shared anger over the trend of income inequality and the corruption of the American way into advocacy for our collective well-being.

Protesters have numbered in the several thousand over the weekends. On the Monday and Tuesday when I observed them, there were a few hundred. Where had those protesters gone? Many probably went back to work at their jobs in corporations. Going back to a corporate job after protesting against Wall Street might seem incongruent. It seems that this is an inherent condition of modern human experience. Just as Google Circles allows us to share different facets of experience with people who inhabit each sphere of our lives, so must we think long and hard about what we project and protect, through action or deed in all of our citizenship domains.

Corporations are ultimately groups of people connected by implicit and explicit contracts and covenants.  When the interests of the corporation and the individual are in sync, there can be tremendous potential for positive impact. I heard a powerful example of this on the same trip to New York at the Commit!Forum from Jeffrey A. Joerres, CEO of the ManPowerGroup. He recounted that after the tsunami last year, the Japanese government realized its capacity to generate power sufficient to restart manufacturing operations was 30 percent shy of what was needed. Collectively, Japanese corporations turned off all of the lights in their high-rise offices during the day and all non-essential night lighting (think Times Square on a massive scale going dark except for street lights). Households participated as well. With this collective action, Japan was able to conserve and redeploy almost all of the electric power required to restart the manufacturing so vital to its economy. Individual companies put the interest of the entire economy over the interests of their own firms.

Seeing the protesters on Wall Street made me wonder if we have in this country the collective will and ability to focus our actions in a disciplined way toward a common goal. At the Center, we talk about citizenship as a combination of rights, obligations, privileges, and responsibilities – and we focus on corporations as the unit of analysis. In the United States, there is cultural emphasis on the rights of individual people or entities to act freely, to compete, and to win status, resources and power, to the fullness of their ability, and to exercise privileges resulting from successful efforts. Our cultural focus on rights of individuals seems increasingly out of balance with ensuring that basic needs are met for a growing number of disaffected and increasingly disadvantaged people in this country. The focus on competition and individual achievement doesn’t seem to improve our well-being or happiness. With one of the highest GDPs in the world, the U.S. does not rank at the top of any of the global indices for educational attainment, health, or happiness.

At a time when national employment and poverty statistics paint a picture of greater want for more people than at any time since the War on Poverty in the ‘60s, we cannot rely on corporations alone to solve significant social and environmental problems, nor can we blame corporations for all of the significant problems that we face.

The perspectives of greater numbers of individual citizens seem to indicate that we are living in a world that we don’t like or want.  Recent Gallup polls put approval ratings of big business and Congress at the lowest levels that they have ever been (each near 15 percent).  This is a world of our own making.

Individual and corporate citizenship co-exist in the U.S., and one cannot substitute for the other. Both must be exercised in order for our system to work.  As individuals, we must stop looking to institutions to solve our problems.  Good corporate citizenship is necessary and should be expected of firms, but it typically and appropriately addresses the question, “What kind of world do we want to do business in?”

Many firms engage in good citizenship and contribute positively to our civic and social environments.  Employees of corporations should support these initiatives and act as ambassadors for the good works that their employers can accomplish with and beyond profit-making. This employee involvement, however, should not be mistaken for personal civic engagement.

The rhetoric of occupywallstreet.org may not represent my perspectives and values, but if I do not participate in an alternative collective, I deserve what I am served. Corporate citizenship does not replace personal individual action nor can it answer the question, “What kind of world do I want to live in?”  As individual citizens, we must make sure that our institutions seek the outcomes that represent, as nearly as possible, the answer to the latter question.

As our most prominent global leaders departed Davos, Gallup released several polls that highlighted related themes. Among them, one conducted January 7-9 noted that 67 percent of Americans are dissatisfied with the size and influence of major corporations today, the highest level since Gallup first asked this question in 2001. Of seven aspects of the United States rated in the poll – including questions about the influence of government and religion – Americans are least satisfied with corporate influence.

The same poll revealed that we are more skeptical about the opportunity to get ahead by working hard. That’s likely because in our third recovery since 1991 in which jobs have not followed GDP recovery, unemployment as of the end of January has hit 9.8 percent and underemployment may be approaching 19 percent. As business leaders are called to participate in the development of our national economic policy, this may be the time to re-examine in what kind of society we want to live and operate and what may be required to attain that standard. Will we wait to get sufficient numbers of disaffected unemployed youth in revolt to make changes?

Among the G7, the American GDP was second only to Canada, yet our employment picture was at the bottom by a large margin. Unemployment here is higher than Britain, China, and Russia, and much higher than Germany or Japan.  The EU nations with worse unemployment than the United States (Greece, Ireland, and Spain) have not yet emerged from their debt crises. Most agree that relative to most other countries, American employers operate with many fewer restraints. We have weak unions in the private sector and laws in many states that favor at-will employment arrangements.

The pressure on business is to maximize profit and our collective sigh of relief at the multiple recent proclamations of the recession’s end actually created a breeze. None of us wants to see the equities allocation in our 401K statements dropping value.

President Obama has urged companies to create jobs by investing the growing equity on their balance sheets but firms are concerned that consumers will be slow to spend and are overburdened by debt – making pre-recessionary revenue levels difficult to attain. In times when consumption is reduced especially, there is pressure to reduce costs to maintain margin. The highest impact place to make cuts is typically payroll.  We do not make it easy for firms to keep workers.

The still-substantial ranks of people out of work only add to an existing problem of income inequity in the United State. Since 1975, practically all the gains in household income in the United States have gone to the top 20 percent of households and most of the gains came at the very top, according to the CIA World Fact Book. Statistics like this should make us consider whether our current measures of business success will yield the best results for our society – and the long-term prosperity of business. Even Alan Greenspan in his 2008 congressional testimony admitted that financial markets failed to regulate themselves, and that his assumption that they would had been proven wrong. In that same prepared statement, he predicted that unemployment would increase, credit would tighten, and the future stability of our economy would be a long way off. He also noted the stress that would be placed on working American households.

Past recession recoveries were V-shaped and companies would keep the expense of good workers on the balance sheet so they had them on call when the upswing of the V occurred.  This practice would result in lower measured productivity during recessions.  We are now in long, flat U-shaped recoveries that demonstrate higher productivity.  In his Worthwhile Canadian Initiative blog post, “US Productivity Exceptionalism”, Nick Rowe notes that labor hoarding only makes sense when the human capital is firm-specific. So when countries have big falls in sectors such as construction, where the human capital is general, jobs are shed and productivity goes up in recessions counter cyclically. This also means that when layoffs come they typically hit the least specialized workers first and in the largest numbers, (note we see unemployment of below 5 percent for college-educated workers).

We cannot expect that every person in our society can be college educated – and there is plenty of other work to do.  As a society we will pay for this gap in many ways – decaying infrastructure, increased pressure on social services as more people lose their foothold on the path to attaining “The American Dream,” and ultimately reduced competitiveness. Recent policy focused on saving banks and plugging gaps in state budgets may have been necessary, but it does not help businesses participate in the long-term strengthening of our society. Our strategy has been to grow the economy to grow jobs but data suggest that strategy seems to benefit only the top quintile of earners in this country.

Now the president is offering tax breaks and other government support for exports and innovation. He has proclaimed that he “gets it” when business leaders talk about their obligations to shareholders to make investment decisions based on economic conditions.

Perhaps now is the time to think about how we measure the economic value created by business. More jobs would mean more people participating in the economy, but possibly that profits would be returned to shareholders in smaller increments. The Global Reporting Initiative is moving toward its next generation of guidelines, Bloomberg has put ESG indicators on its terminals; accounting firms are gearing up for non-financial reporting practices, and the Obama administration has started down the path with its business advisory group. In this context we should remember that as individual and corporate citizens, short-term profits do not always create sustainable gains and ask how we can, as a society, make it easier for businesses to consider more than profit.

Share your ideas here about how we can do this most efficiently.

Other sources:

• Gallup report–Good Jobs:  The New Global Standard © 2011
• In Wreckage of Lost Jobs, Lost Power by David Leonhardt, The New York Times, Jan. 19, 2011
• Gallup Survey: Unemployment Solidifies Position as Most Important Problem, Feb. 11, 2011

 The executives also say business should take a greater role solving problems in health care, product safety, education, and climate change, but dismiss the need for greater regulatory oversight by the federal government.

Our research team also saw significant expansion of environmental sustainability efforts (greening of products, services and operations), and increasing integration of corporate citizenship into the business strategy, with 75% of CEOs leading the agenda and 40 percent of all companies (65% for large companies) have a team or individual assigned to work on corporate citizenship issues.

As in the 2007 survey, the most recent data also show that attitudes of support for corporate citizenship are strong but there remain some gaps between those beliefs and the practices and investments of some businesses.

It’s worth setting aside a couple of hours to read the full report. The executives were asked about a wide range of topics – from what drives their company’s corporate citizenship (reputational value and the companies’ traditions and values top the list) to how their philanthropy is faring (38 percent reported a decline in giving) to how the economy is affecting R&D for new sustainable products (up 15 percent) and so much more.

The State of Corporate Citizenship in the United States 2009 is a joint project of the Boston College Center and The Hitachi Foundation. It is the only research of its kind to provide a comprehensive overview of small, medium, and large-sized U.S. businesses. 

Highlights of the survey include:

• Despite upheaval in the economy, a majority of U.S. companies are not making major changes in their corporate citizenship practices. Of those who made changes 38% reduced philanthropy/giving, 27% increased layoffs, and 19% reduced R&D for sustainable products.
• Most U.S. senior executives believe business should be more involved than it is today in addressing major public issues including health care, product safety, education, and climate change. Surveyed in June, just as the national debate on health care began to intensify, some 65 percent said business should increase its involvement in this issue.
• Reputation was cited by 70% as a driver for corporate citizenship, tied for the top spot with “it fits our company traditions and values.”
• The citizenship response during the recession differed between larger and smaller companies. Large companies significantly increased their investments and involvement in citizenship activities, but were more likely to impose layoffs. Small firms stayed committed to their emphasis on treating employees well by minimizing layoffs. But they significantly decreased attention to other aspects of citizenship.
• Based on current economic conditions, 15% of companies are increasing R&D for new sustainable products; 11% are increasing corporate citizenship marketing and communications; and 10% are increasing local and/or domestic sourcing or manufacturing.
• Half of the businesses are supporting skill development for employees making less than $40,000 annually and see these efforts as boosting productivity.
• Only 34 percent of executives who responded to the survey say greater regulatory oversight by the federal government is an important part of solving the current economic crisis and creating a more stable economy.

Conducted by GlobeScan between June 4 and June 23 of this year, the survey queried 756 executives, 36% of whom were at small businesses (1-99 employees), 24% at medium (100-999), and 40% at large companies (1000 + employees).  The biennial survey was first conducted in 2003.

View the State of Corporate Citizenship here.

Co-sponsored by the Hitachi Foundation and the Boston College Center, this year’s biennial State of the Corporate Citizenship Survey included more than 750 CEOs and senior executives from small, medium and large companies across the United States. Some of the key question asked included:

• What do companies see as the the way out of the current economic crisis and what do they think it will take to create a more stable American economy going forward?
• Should business be involved more or less in addressing public policy issues such as climate change, health care and public education?
• What are the key drivers for business to engage in corporate citizenship practices?
• Do companies align corporate citizenship with their business strategy?
• Are companies becoming “greener” or planning to “green” their products and operations in the future?
• Do companies support skill development for low-wage employees? Why? Or why not?
• How has business’ support for economically distressed communities changed over the past two years?
• Who do companies choose to partner with to address social and environmental issues and why?

The 2007 survey found high aspirations among senior executives: 73 percent said that corporate citizenship needs to be a priority for business, 81 percent said it’s important to value and treat employees well, and 61 percent believed corporate citizenship makes a tangible contribution to their company bottom line. But not surprisingly, actions were behind aspirations: just 54 percent of companies offered health insurance to all employees, only 39 percent reported including corporate citizenship in their business planning process and just 21 percent reported to the public on corporate citizenship issues.

There is no doubt the downturn has taken a toll on many corporate citizenship practices but which ones do American companies see as strategic to business so that they maintained their support in these tough economic times? Did companies find new opportunities to differentiate, reduce costs or improve their reputation from corporate citizenship strategies?

The 2009 State of Corporate Citizenship Survey will have answers to many of these questions. Stay tuned.

Buck conventional wisdom and differentiate yourself in a meaningful and relevant way.
Companies with C-RM that is focused on business objectives, based on issues material to the company and responds to societal needs are often successful in challenging economic times.

The needs of the community will be increasing.
Communities will reward the business heroes that have made a true connection with them. An infusion of cash or donated volunteer hours from businesses into the non-profit sector is critical.

Consumer mistrust of public and private sector leaders is at an all time high.
Reducing or cancelling C-RM activities now can damage your image and lead to accusations of using your partnerships with causes merely for public relations gains.

Consumers demand that companies be socially accountable, so let them know you are.
It’s the wrong time to be wasting marketing opportunities.  Marketing is about making connections. Utilize C-RM to link your business to the wants, needs, lifestyles and interests of your customers.

Do more with less.  
C-RM is a proven tactic in improving employee recruitment and retention efforts. Volunteering time and expertise helps in developing superior leadership skills and encouraging cross-function teamwork among employees. Like your consumers, your employees are looking for meaningful connections.

C-RM is a proven way of driving sales.
Study after study has shown that, given the choice, Americans would switch brands to one associated with a cause.  Why not take advantage of that? The bottom line is that C-RM helps those in need and it drives sales while creating good public relations for your company.

Past economic downturns have produced winners and losers. This time companies have the opportunity and the studies to prove that C-RM builds lasting connections with consumers. When executed correctly, C-RM will pay short and long-term dividends by positively impacting your community, consumers, employees, and most importantly, your bottom line.

“Volunteerism on a Budget,” the fourth in our Toolkit for a Tough Economy series, was created to help you show corporate leadership the business benefits of volunteer programs, even in a down economy. Inside you will find examples of companies that are being creative in maintaining their volunteer programs while on a limited budget as well as resources that you can use to improve your company’s volunteer program.

These tools are provided in both PowerPoint and Adobe PDF formats so you may view them in a meeting or share them with your colleagues. You can view the two versions by clicking on the following links. (All tools are available only to Center members; login is required to view them.)

Volunteerism on a Budget (PowerPoint or PDF)

You can access all the tools in the series by visiting the Center’s web site, www.BCCorporateCitizenship.org, and selecting “Member Tools.”

Keep a lookout for future tools focusing on other cutting-edge topics such as:

• Identifying New Markets with Corporate Citizenship
• Communicating Corporate Citizenship
• Philanthropy on a Budget
• Preparing for New Regulations
• Employee Engagement
• Rethinking Partnerships
• Urgency for Transparency

These are two of the issues illustrated in the second tool in our “Toolkit for a Tough Economy” series that highlights insights from our engagement with corporations.

Tool No. 2, Reputation Builds Revenue, provides information about the link between reputation and revenue, including resources that highlight the role citizenship plays in reputation; talking points to illustrate the importance of corporate citizenship in a down economy; and details of how companies create trust, admiration and good feelings with the public in the United States.

These tools are provided in both PowerPoint and Adobe PDF formats so you may view them in a meeting or share them with your colleagues. You can view the two versions by clicking on the following links. (All tools are available only to Center members; login is required to view them.)

Reputation Builds Revenue (PowerPoint or PDF)

You can access all the tools in the series by visiting the Center’s web site, www.BCCorporateCitizenship.org, and selecting “Member Tools.”

Keep a lookout for future tools focusing on other cutting-edge topics such as:

• New Urgency for Internal Collaboration
• Volunteerism on a Budget
• Identifying New Markets with Corporate Citizenship
• Communicating Corporate Citizenship
• Philanthropy on a Budget
• Preparing for New Regulations
• Employee Engagement
• Rethinking Partnerships
• Urgency for Transparency

This has led me to recall a much earlier time in my life when President Kennedy declared the goal of putting a man on the moon within 10 years. Maybe that is why I was quite taken by an article in a recent issue of the Harvard Business Review by Gary Hamel, one of the more sage management gurus. In the piece, he describes how he brought together a distinguished group of management scholars and business leaders to lay out a road map for reinventing management.

Their immediate goal was to create a list of make or break challenges that should be the focus of energy for management innovators everywhere. He referred to these challenges as “management moon shots” and acknowledged that he was inspired by an exercise by the U.S. National Academy of Engineering that proposed 14 grand engineering challenges such as reverse engineering the human brain. Why shouldn’t managers and scholars commit to equally ambitious goals?

So I immediately thought corporate citizenship professionals should use these extraordinary times to envision our own moon shot. Will there ever be a better time to capitalize on the uprooted markets and the cracks in the foundations of finance and capitalism? How could their be a more perfect time, a more propitious environment where questions are trumping answers and where leadership and vision are in such short supply?

Is this not the best time to think boldly and creatively around the game changing that we have for a long time felt was necessary for a sustainable capitalism and for achieving a just and sustainable world?

What emerged as Hamel’s management moon shots reveals that the time for citizenship is before us. Just look at the first two that were formulated:

• Ensure that the work of management serves a higher purpose. Tomorrow’s management practices must focus on the achievement of socially significant and noble goals.
• Fully embed the ideas of community and citizenship in management systems.

I might have expected these results from a retreat of corporate citizenship practitioners and academics – but from management gurus? What this really tells me is that the underlying essence of corporate citizenship has now become critical to business success. Maybe we have come a lot farther along on our journey than I had thought, or maybe the time has really arrived for citizenship.

In any event these findings suggest several things to me.

1. Integrating and aligning corporate citizenship is critical to the success of business.
   We have talked about this for some time. But while the awareness and understanding of strategic integration has made its way into the literature and rhetoric, it has not been deeply embedded in the frameworks and practices within companies. We need to accelerate our translation of the aspiration and the desire into the planning and implementation of citizenship, and build it into the core of the business. The time has come to lift up citizenship and drive it into the business at a time when others are finally coming around to understanding the value proposition.
2. Branding corporate citizenship
   I am not convinced that most folks, including those in senior management, really understand corporate citizenship – from its value proposition to its usefulness to both business and social goals. We have been aware for some time now about the confusion (Isn’t corporate citizenship an oxymoron? Isn’t it about philanthropy and obeying the law?). Consequently, without a platform of awareness and demonstrated value, it becomes virtually impossible to jump into strategy, value creation and integrating citizenship into the business. So while the opportunity is here to raise citizenship to new heights, there remains significant work to be done on the foundation.
3. Readiness
   I am not convinced that corporate citizenship professionals in most firms are ready to assist management in this moon shot. Too few understand the business. Most have not created effective relationships with key internal stakeholders and have not articulated the vision and voice of leadership that will be necessary for moving into the next circle. Although great strides have been made over the past few years, there is no established game plan for just the occasion that is now emerging. The wind of change is blowing all around us but we’ll never reach the distant shores if we don’t have the savvy to tack and fill the sails of corporate citizenship. What a shame it would be if, as the conditions shift in our favor, we are simply not ready to take advantage of the circumstances.
4. A call to arms
   Now is the time for the corporate citizenship community to come together so we can create our moon shots. In front of us lies a historic opportunity that we may not see again. In short, this is an opportunity to create visionary goals that will inspire, stretch and mobilize us; that will inspire us and pull in the growing crowds of folks from many places who are trying to find new ways to create a more just and humane society. Finding the new balance between economic and social goals and between the success of the company and the success of the society is both the challenge and the opportunity. Are we ready? Anyone out there want to help pull this together?

I will continue to address this theme in future blogs and focus on the new set of challenges that are facing corporate citizenship managers dealing with this volatile and unforgiving business and economic environment. I’ll also be suggesting a few possible moon shots that could launch corporate citizenship into the future.

In the meantime, I would love to know what moon shots you might envision.

“I’m being asked to do more with less.”

“This time of crisis is a huge opportunity for corporate citizenship.”

In response, we are creating a series of tools designed to help our members do more with less and utilize this time of uncertainty to elevate their company’s citizenship initiatives. Condensed from our research, this “Toolkit for a Tough Economy” will provide easily digested information relevant to today’s struggles. These tools are provided in both PowerPoint and Adobe PDF formats (presented with no more than 10 slides) so practitioners may view them in a meeting or share them with colleague.

Tool No.1, Why Corporate Citizenship is Essential to the Bottom Line, illustrates the importance of corporate citizenship in a down economy and provides insights from the trenches featuring two Center members, Hamlin Metzger from Best Buy and Fiona Jones of Petro Canada.

The toolkit is provided in both PowerPoint and Adobe PDF formats so you may view them in a meeting or share them with your colleagues.You can view the two versions by clicking on the following links. (All tools are available only to Center members; login is required to view them.)

• Why Corporate Citizenship is Essential to the Bottom Line: PowerPoint or pdf

Keep a lookout for future tools focusing on other cutting-edge topics such as:

• Reputation Builds Revenue
• New Urgency for Internal Collaboration
• Volunteerism on a Budget
• Identifying New Markets with Corporate Citizenship
• Communicating Corporate Citizenship
• Philanthropy on a Budget
• Preparing for New Regulations
• Employee Engagement
• Rethinking Partnerships
• Urgency for Transparency

As always, we are committed to providing the best-quality member service and we believe these tools will help our members when they need it most.

Steve Ballmer joined U.S. House Democrats for their annual retreat and offered a very sobering assessment of our present economic state. He didn’t mince words or let anyone off the hook as he fingered unsustainable levels of debt as the culprit for our economic meltdown.

Ballmer said it’s time for a “fundamental economic reset” that will require three things: 1) deleveraging the economy, 2) restoring confidence and 3) returning to growth through innovation and productivity.

Offering his assessment of our current situation with some historic perspective, Ballmer also provided more visionary ideas about the future. The full speech is well worth reading. It’s never cool to give away the end of a story but please know that in the second half of his speech Ballmer provides a vision for grasping this “once-in-a-lifetime economic crisis” and through the use of science and technology creating a stronger future. Read the full speech here.

Similar themes were presented to Washington, D.C., insiders on February 10 by Intel CEO Paul Otellini, who spoke hours before Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner unveiled his financial stability plan. In his breakfast speech to the Economic Club of Washington, Otellini announced Intel’s plans for a $7 billion overhaul of existing chip manufacturing facilities in Arizona, New Mexico and Oregon, and offered interesting insights on finding opportunity within the current crisis.

“…I see this economic crisis differently. Our institutions and paradigms have become unfrozen by this economic crisis. We have a once in a lifetime opportunity to reshape how things will look and behave as growth resumes,” said Otellini.

He also called for a new mindset among business leaders. “If we want to see a return of American prosperity, we have no other choice than to invest in creating the future, not merely preserving the past. As we contemplate our future, we must accept the fact that many of the assumptions under which business operated for the past 50 years no longer hold true.”

Calling for a new culture of investment, he said that was the key to long-term prosperity. “What do I mean by a culture of investment?” asked Otellini. “It begins with common understanding that good investments ought to lead to ideas and discovery; which spawn new businesses; that in turn create new jobs; and ultimately leads to wealth creation and higher standards of living. The start of this cycle is investment. Investment by government, investment by business, investment by individuals.” Read Otellini’s full remarks here.

Both of these CEO speeches are recommended reading. Passing them on to your CEO is also recommended. The Boston College Center is encouraging more business leaders to offer constructive solutions to the big problems of the day.