CSRNYC

• Is treating workers fairly something a company should do because it is right or because it is the company’s best interest, or both, or neither?  Henry Ford doubled the pay of his workers because he was able to (profits were high), and he said it was an easy decision because it helped his workers to buy his Model T. But could this consequentialist logic be turned around  to justify Wal-Mart paying its workers less, so that they can’t afford to shop anywhere but Wal-Mart?
  
• What standards of workplace and community responsibility should be accepted?  Should you as an executive recommend your company go for an easy-to-meet standard that doesn’t cost much but is also not worth very much, or should you try to go for a more challenging standard that has high credibility and might bring some side benefits (cost savings, marketing advantages) to the company? Would it be too costly to go for the higher standard?
  
• How wide a variation in workplace standards is acceptable?  In a global economy in which the culture where goods are manufactured may be very different from the one in which they are sold? How significant are reputational risks in your consumer market raised by your activities in the producer location? Is this a risk only for companies, or is there a national risk? Should the U.S. Government have a policy on corporate social responsibility? Why not just regulate business? Workplace and consumer-protection practices, and government regulation, have often evolved in the aftermath of scandal and tragedy.
  
• How should your company respond to variations among countries in legal enforcement? Developing countries have great differences in their legal systems, their level of law enforcement and the culture of compliance. How does a multinational company best operate in this environment to minimize negative exposure to its brand(s)?
  
• Should corporate giving be strategically related to brand-building or in the long run is it better to make it independent? For example, pharmaceutical companies are expected to improve people’s health—should corporate charity in this industry therefore focus on medical education and public health programs? The argument for this is that they possess the appropriate expertise and can provide medical products and services at cost. But what if doing so might have the effect of undercutting their market demand fro their goods and services? Do desperately poor people in Africa have an inalienable right to medicines at a price they can afford, for widespread, life-threatening illnesses? If so, who is responsible for responding to this right?
  
• How much does CSR contribute to actual brand sales? Polls show that consumers and investors say they care about CSR and will choose products to buy and companies to invest in with an eye on their social records. But do significant numbers of consumers and investors actually behave as they say they will? If they do act on the social records of companies, how reliable are the records they use?
  
• What is the most effective way to focus attention on a company’s CSR efforts for brand-building? Should CSR information be in a separate CSR report or incorporated in the annual report? If included in the annual report, how much space should be devoted to CSR? How easily can consumers identify corporate behavior at the point of purchase? Are investors able to find out about CSR records at the point when they buy a security?
  
• What CSR activities bring value to the financial bottom line? What CSR activities bring value to the company independent of the brand value to consumers and investors? For example, does the activity increase productivity, reduce costs, improve quality, create more loyal employees, and improve management? Can CSR policies and measures help select business partners that are well-managed, reliable, and ethical?
  
• Who can best influence workplace standards in developing countries? In industrialized countries, consumers, socially responsible investors, NGOs and the media may advocate CSR. In developing countries, CSR practices are often the product of customer supply-chain demands, but sometimes also domestic demand and CSR leadership. How does the source of demand for CSR affect producer response?
  
• Can low-cost retailers continue to focus almost exclusively on price in the supply chain? Can a company like Wal-Mart, the world’s largest retailer, address negative NGO campaigns primarily by attention to environmental issues, without responding to workplace issues?
  

U.S. Workplace Laws - Origins

• A “culture of compliance” is essential, with wide agreement on minimum standards and employers routinely abiding by the law—whether motivated by decency, fear of enforcement, or the bottom-line benefits of good human resources management.
  
• The existence of a culture of compliance in the United States and other developed countries significantly amplifies government enforcement.