CSR 2.0

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= "corporate responsibility linked to Web 2.0 characteristics such as participation, transparency and many-to-many communication."

(http://www.psfk.com/2007/05/csr_20.html)


Characteristics

"1. Inclusiveness – involving stakeholders directly from beginning to end

2. Market driven – no longer expert driven

3. Innovation – smart companies turn market pressure into stakeholder led innovation

4. Sincerity – you can no longer uphold an image that is not real

5. Co-ownership – a truly embedded value-based culture requires involvement

6. Dynamics – standards and annual audits replaced by 24/7 engagement

7. Quality - CSR as immersive business strategy

8. Personal - It’s about you, not your sector! What are your own ethics?

9. Pluralism – number and nature of CSR projects will expand dramatically

10. Proximity - local impact is global

(Mikkel Sørensen and Nicolai Peitersen, from http://www.psfk.com/2007/05/csr_20.html)


Discussion

CSR and Web 2.0.

Summary of a working paper by Mikkel Sørensen and Nicolai Peitersen, Actics.com on new ways of uniting business goals with greater societal engagement through direct stakeholder involvement.


"CSR is currently coming back strongly after years of critique ranging from accuses of green-washing and mere lip service to coincidental philanthropy and defensive risk minimizing measures. Today, CSR is again on top of the agenda in many corporations but increasingly as a strategic competitive differentiator. There’s a growing market for sustainable products and a lot of loyalty towards brands sincerely looking beyond traditional stakeholders - meaning ‘owners’. A lot of different economical, social, and business related factors have helped this comeback of CSR. Shifts in the public mindset, new urgent socio-environmental agendas and convincing business arguments for ‘doing right’ surely did their part. But Web 2.0 stands out as a pivotal factor through unprecedented levels of public involvement and co-creation in online processes. Combining these trends you get ‘CSR 2.0’.

The most important aspect of Web 2.0 presently reshaping CSR is the empowerment of individuals; both in raising awareness but also as part of the solution. Consumers are not only technologically empowered, they are also socially and psychologically empowered and ethically aware. Traditionally, consumers have been a largely unstructured stakeholder group left to their own buying habits. Web 2.0 has changed that. Consumers are more informed and aware than ever, critical, used to being heard, and with a potential audience of hundreds of millions on the web. Even relatively marginal voices pose serious threats to companies if vocal enough and with a generally appealing case. If they need extra leverage, grouping happens very easily and the proper ‘viral’ message spreads swiftly to like-minded.

Most stakeholders’ perception of a business’ corporate values is not formed by the annual shiny social impact audit report. It is formed continually by all kinds of interaction with the company, from their employees’ actions to their billboard commercials and not least other stakeholders. Consumers feel that their opinion matter just as much to a brand than a corps of ‘expert’ auditing or any NGO pursuing a specific agenda. They expect a say to stay loyal, even if not asked through surveys or customer satisfaction questionnaires. The web is very yielding when it comes to ways of voicing a concern, idea or opinion. Companies better tap into the many-to-many communication to listen and answer. Even better the companies could provide the platform for discussion whether it’s a corporate blog, wiki on specific topics or a community and hope that stakeholders feel sufficiently empowered by the medium to join.

Luckily, Web 2.0 is not all ‘push’ of demands. There are many motivational ‘pulls’ and reasons to embrace the new empowered stakeholders in an invigorated approach to CSR. CSR 2.0 is all about opening the corporate membrane to let humanity shine out for stakeholder affiliation to reach in. More and more companies have realized the innovative potentials of tapping into lead-user knowledge and opinions. Likewise actively engaging stakeholders on CSR issues to identify better ways of reducing waste, identifying unmet needs and changed consumer preferences is likely to be accepted. But it must be done fair and sincere far away from old-fashioned one-way marketing. Many stakeholders have a very real interest in a company’s operations; stakeholders inhabit the very same threatened globe and would rather have their consummation part of the solution than part of the problem. Besides, stakeholders might have special knowledge on specific issues from chemistry to local demographics in southern American mountain villages. Or the next visitor to the company website might simply have witnessed breaches to the company codes on a factory during travels in India and help conduct supply chain management by letting the company know." (summarized at http://www.psfk.com/2007/05/csr_20.html)


More Information

Full paper is at http://blog.actics.com/index.php/actics-working-papers/