Networking for Social Responsibility

From the Wall Street Journal | Nov 19, 2009

By ALINA DIZIK

Companies Increasingly Turn to Business Schools to Find Ways to Build Good Practices

The
Boston College Center for Corporate Citizenship created an invite-only
online community this month for its member companies to directly share
best practices on corporate responsibility.

In less than three weeks, 314 members joined a group of 226 who
tested the system for six months. Center administrators expect this
kind of exchange will attract even more companies to join the
center-and pay as much as $10,000 a year for membership.

The
community offers user-generated advice and access to a cadre of
business studies from the center, part of Boston College's Carroll
School of Management. School administrators say the online site was
launched partly because companies were increasingly contacting the
center for advice and information about what their peers were doing in
the area of corporate social responsibility.

"We have leaned on them significantly," says Robert Chatwani, head
of global citizenship at eBay Inc., who was part of the original test
group.

With input from other members and business-school case studies, the
online-auction company is finding ways to expand the reach of its
social initiatives. For example, Ebaygreenteam.com, a site that points
users to ecofriendly products, is now seen by millions of users as a
result of tips from the online community to align its marketing with
eBay's brand-name cachet, says Mr. Chatwani.

Like eBay, a growing number of
companies are turning to business schools these days for help in
redefining what it means to be socially responsible. School
administrators say firms in industries across the board are looking to
incorporate initiatives in this area into their business plans and
everyday leadership decisions.

One reason for the heightened interest in social responsibility is
that companies seeking to expand globally need to first understand what
social issues matter most in their target countries, says Gil
McWilliam, an executive director at Duke Corporate Education.

"If you are doing business in India, you are very aware of what's
happening around you-businesses these days can't avoid it," she says.
Since Duke began its custom executive-education offerings in 2000,
about 40% of corporate clients have either discussed or taken on social
initiatives, with a big chunk of those doing so for the first time this
year, she adds.

In August, International Business Machines
Corp. collaborated with Duke to offer Forward Looking Insights, a
hands-on exercise to educate the firm's emerging leaders on the needs
of the developing world, says Suzanne DeWitt, program director of
education and leadership development.

Taught in Singapore, Madrid and Raleigh, N.C., the program aims to
help company managers expand technology offerings and sell products
abroad.

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Tim Robinson 

"It's
very important that we go through that step in expanding their
thinking," says Ms. DeWitt. "Certainly we are bringing [the concepts]
down to earth, to their particular business unit and their role in the
company."

For some companies, a renewed-or
new-focus on social responsibility is necessary to build a stronger
reputation locally and abroad. Kellie McElhaney, an adjunct assistant
professor at the University of California Berkeley's Haas School of
Business, says this kind of brand management can help positively shape
a company's public image. A large part of her consulting in the past 18
months has been focused on helping companies highlight their social
efforts to build their brand. She's currently working with a large
retailer to highlight its longtime commitment to ethical products.

Indeed, 57% of consumers say a company or brand has earned their
business because it supports good causes, according to a survey from
Edelman, a public-relations firm.

MIT's Sloan School of Management is designing a custom course on
sustainability for 12 executives and 120 directors at Itau Unibanco SA,
a large financial-services company.

The program, which launches next year, will tackle concepts like
understanding sustainability as a business opportunity and integrating
sustainability into the evaluation of risk. Richard Locke, deputy dean
at the school, says it is the first time a financial firm has asked MIT
for this sort of extensive training.

Of course, when it comes to teaching corporate social
responsibility, textbooks aren't always enough. The
concepts-incorporating an ethical approach to business decisions and
understanding the impact on surroundings-can be difficult to grasp for
professionals focused on profits, losses and monetized strategic goals.

Ms. McWilliam says immersion and emotional influence make the most
impact on developing a mind-set for incorporating responsible practices.

To that end, Duke is making an effort to harness internal resources
at companies to foster learning and change-and to make the ideals more
real for numbers-oriented managers. The school recently created a
program pairing executives at an energy and mining company with the
heads of its nonprofit environmental foundation so they can learn from
each other.

The firm hopes leaders will understand the needs of a developing
area by learning about its social and environmental factors, and that,
in turn, this knowledge will help the company manage risk as it
continues to expand internationally.

At Northwestern University's Kellogg
School of Management, a module that simulates a corporate crisis
component with a corporate social responsibility angle has become a
popular add-on. For example, managers will spend class time re-enacting
a scenario in which they react to environmental groups that have
attacked their firm's reputation. Participants learn that "you have to
integrate these moral quandaries with respect to the social issues
fairly quickly," says Daniel Diermeier, a professor of management at
Kellogg.

Last year, Mr. Diermeier taught the module to managers from more
than 40 companies, up from about five in previous years. "It's an
increasingly important part of managing and enhancing a company's
reputation," he says.

Write to Alina Dizik at alina.dizik@dowjones.com