Integrating Citizenship into the Business

Abstract

When companies join the Global Leadership Network, they complete a selfassessment where they rank to what extent they engage stakeholders and define issues material to their business, how citizenship factors into their business strategies, and whether or not they are getting the kind of leadership needed to move their citizenship agenda forward. They also rate themselves along four, fundamental, blocking-and-tackling-type issues:

• Does the company employ its core management systems and processes to manage corporate citizenship?

• Are business units, managers, and employees responsible and accountable for economic, social, and environmental performance?

• Has the company built competencies and skill levels to manage citizenship effectively?

• Are there measures and evaluation processes to determine the effectiveness of citizenship in the company?

Faced with these kinds of questions, one manager pictured the way her company was handling the demands of corporate citizenship as a disintegrated array of programs, handled by corporate staff groups, and largely disconnected from one another (see Figure 10.1).