How many times have you heard a child ask, "Are we there yet?" The responsibilities that manufacturers have to society -- to their employees, their customers, their suppliers, the communities in which they operate and, if they are publicly held, to their shareholders -- are not "there" yet. Yet company social responsibility is a serious work in progress, certainly not child's play. "All multinational corporations have a responsibility to leverage their economic power and unique assets to have a net positive impact on the world," asserts Palo Alto, Calif.-based Hewlett-Packard Development Co. LP.
The basic social responsibility of a manufacturing company is to stay in business, a principle that Jane Nelson, director of the Corporate Social Responsibility Initiative at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government extends to business generally. But social responsibility also must be so integral to what a manufacturer is about that if the company fails to meet what it defines as social responsibility the company must be judged to be at least a partial failure. "What we have learned over time is that the work we do around the world to advance social and economic development and environmental sustainability is not separate from our long-term business goals, but fundamental to them," emphasized Debra Dunn, HP's senior vice president of corporate affairs and global citizenship in the company's 2005 Global Citizenship Report.
See full Article.
Also see Manufacturing & Society: Creating Value With Values.
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