Beyond corporate social responsibility: Integrated external engagement
ByCompanies must incorporate interaction with stakeholders into decision making at every level of the organization.
Traditional corporate social responsibility (CSR) is failing to deliver, for both companies and society. Executives need a new approach to engaging the external environment. We believe that the best one is to integrate external engagement deeply into business decision making at every level of a company. In this article, we show how to make that kind of integrated external engagement (IEE) a reality. We set out to answer three questions. Are companies doing well at external engagement? Where might they be going wrong? How can they do better?
Are companies doing well at external engagement?
Properly understood, external engagement means the efforts a company makes to manage its relationship with the external world. This relationship can and should include a wide variety of activities: not just corporate philanthropy, community programs, and political lobbying, but also aspects of product design, recruiting policy, and project execution. In practice, however, most companies have relied on three tools for external engagement: a full-time CSR team in the head office, some high-profile (but relatively cheap) initiatives, and a glossy annual review of progress…
Beyond corporate social responsibility: Integrated external engagement
