"Moving Beyond a Shareholder Focus: Using Corporate Social Responsibility to Create Long-Term Competitive Advantage"
Lecture by Dr. Joseph Cote
Critics have argued that the traditional shareholder focus is insufficient to guide strategy development and implementation. They suggest that companies need to act in a socially responsibility way to be successful. But in practice, the value of corporate social responsibility (CSR) appears mixed.
Dr. Cote offers an alternative perspective of corporate social responsibility. He starts by reframing the meaning of social responsibility. CSR is not a response to public pressures implemented across a series of isolated initiatives or image building (even if relevant to the core business). Rather, socially responsible behavior is aligning stakeholder interests in a fair and balanced manner that meets societal expectations, secures key resources, and contributes to the organization’s long run performance. It requires fully understanding the role of social responsibility across the complete range of business activities. By moving beyond CSR as image building to a focus on Stakeholder-Based CSR, companies can address social issues in a way that creates competitive advantage.