Just a quick note to add to Rhys' mention of Sue Barratt and
attempts at 'quantifying' benefit in corporate philanthropy. There is
a lot of work going on which would claim that it can be done - with
the New Economics Foundation perhaps seen as leading the way
in the UK (although not alone, they certainly have a degree of
control over what is considered the 'right way' of conducting
social/ethical/ecological audits i.e. 'quantifying' the effects of
corporate philanthropy on both recipient and donor). The point
made across most of the models which exist is that quantification
need not imply a simple and direct impact on the bottom line;
furthermore this impact can be measured in other ways which are
far more tangible than just reducing it to the 'feelgood factor'.
It seems a shame that we should have to quantify something in
this way to justify doing it - but at least with more corporations
making some attempt to do so we are seeing a similar (slow
moving) pattern to that of the auditing of environmental impacts of
commerce and industry. Although the pressure to conduct social
and ethical auditing is still often just a customer relations exercise
of wishing to look and feel good, the practice is growing and is
increasingly affecting personal and corporate decision making
about suppliers, purchasing and other partnerships; with the advent
of statutory obligations we may see still wider impacts and benefits
which will make 'pushing the button' something much more
meaningful and embedded in 'the system'.
Sara
> Dear all,
>
> Regarding the Feed the World website, i encountered it about four
> months ago. I personally went through a mini version of this debate
> before finally deciding to 'push the button' and thus indicate my
> support for the concept, even if i have reservations.
>
> I want to second Liisa Cormode's assertion. There is a lot more to
> this particular issue than can be encompassed in a quick negative
> response.
>
> There is a very interesting literature on cooperation between
> environmental NGOs (Greenpeace, WWF, etc) and large corporations -- and
> the case studies show that sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't.
> And sometimes the NGO gets co-opted, as was the experience with the
> Greenpeace/MacDonalds programme in the US. David Murphy at the New
> Academy of Business has a book out on this topic.
>
> Closely related to his work is work in the Social Policy field by Sue
> Barratt on corporate philanthropy, which, among other things, examines
> business's attempts to 'rationalise' or quantify benefit in corporate
> good citizenship programmes. As i recall, the verdict is that this
> can't be done and some of the most successful programmes happened to
> have corporate sponsors who reject financial benefit as a reason for
> corporate good citizenship but who nevertheless feel an almost moral
> obligation to 'give something back' to communities, or to help 'build
> healthy communities'. ---Yes, these literatures talk in these terms.
>
> So that brings up the question of how can large capitalist
> profit-making enterprises talk of 'morals' or even 'community'? After
> all, by the foundational constitution of their identities as capitalist
> corporations, morals are subsumed by profit. They are fundamentally
> unable to operate in other than strict profit-taking mode, otherwise
> they will fail against other more rapacious competitors.
> And yet some of them do. {Bye the way, there is a far larger
> percentage of businesses with corporate philosophy programmes, and
> individual firms give much more, in American than in Britain --
> interesting to think on this....}
>
> In the same way, how can we, employed by Universities, driving cars,
> willingly borrowing capital to buy houses from big banks; how can we
> talk of morals? Are we not as immured in the system as the
> corporations, even those of us who actively oppose the system? None of
> us get out of here clean, in those terms.
>
> Yet of course, we can and do think in terms other than rationalities of
> profit. We exist in a complex, contradictory, several universe and
> our responses are also complex, contradictory and several. And so, in
> the end, i personally decided that a bowl of rice is a bowl of rice and
> that although i found the process distasteful, i would overcome my
> aesthetic objections and push the button.
>
>
>
>
> Other interesting questions arise when you look at the list of
> corporate sponsors. I didn't recognise any of them. By this, i take
> it that they are not large multi-national corp'ns. What does this
> represent, then? Interestingly, the sponsorship page does try and
> define the benefit to a sponsor, check out their formula....
>
> i wondered when this debate would appear on the forum. At the risk of
> over egging the cake, 'It's Good To Talk'.
>
> cheers
>
> rhys
>
>
> ----------------------
> Rhys Evans
> Arkelton Centre For Rural Development Research
> University of Aberdeen
> Old Aberdeen, UK AB24 3DS
>
>
>
>
________________________________________________________
Dr. Sara MacKian
Research Fellow
Institute for Public Health Research and Policy
Faculty of Arts, Media and Social Science
4th Floor, Humphrey Booth House, University of Salford
Hulme Place, Salford M5 4QA
Telephone: O161 295 2826
Fax: 0161 295 2818
E-mail: [log in to unmask]
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