The CSR Newsletters are a freely-available resource generated as a dynamic complement to the textbook, Strategic Corporate Social Responsibility: Sustainable Value Creation.

To sign-up to receive the CSR Newsletters regularly during the fall and spring academic semesters, e-mail author David Chandler at david.chandler@ucdenver.edu.

Thursday, May 3, 2018

Strategic CSR - 5e

 
This is the last CSR Newsletter of the Spring semester.
Have a great summer and I will see you in August!
 
 
I am happy to announce that Sage has asked me to write the fifth edition of Strategic CSR. I plan to do that this Fall, with a publication date in the summer of 2019.
 
As such, I would like to ask for your feedback on the 4e, please. Sage is conducting a formal review of the 4e, so has probably contacted some of you for your assistance with that. If you are an adopter and Sage contacts you, please help if you can. You know the book as well as anyone and your feedback is invaluable to making improvements for the 5e.
 
If Sage has not contacted you, however, and you have any thoughts/ideas on how the book can be improved, please let me know. This includes content currently in the 4e that you would like to see retained for the 5e, content that you think can be excluded in the 5e, as well as new content that is currently missing.
 
As ever, your thoughts and comments are welcome, as well as any questions you have about the book, online simulation (http://www.strategiccsrsim.com/), or, of course, the Newsletters.
 
Thank you for your support.
Take care
David
 
 
Instructor Teaching and Student Study Site: https://study.sagepub.com/chandler4e
Strategic CSR Simulation: http://www.strategiccsrsim.com/
The library of CSR Newsletters are archived at: https://strategiccsr-sage.blogspot.com/
 

Tuesday, May 1, 2018

Strategic CSR - Inequality

I have been doing some thinking recently as to whether the bifurcation of society in terms of income/wealth disparity is a natural consequence of market forces. Is it an inherent aspect of capitalism that wealth will eventually concentrate among a small subset of the population? Or, alternatively, can capitalism be tweaked to ensure a more consistent, level (read sustainable) playing field that allows wealth to follow ability from generation to generation?
 
I was introduced to this challenge via the fantastic (and extremely prescient) work of the Human Services Coalition (now Catalyst Miami, http://catalystmiami.org/) in Miami in the early 2000s. Daniella Levine (now an elected official on the Board of County Commissioners in Miami), who founded HSC, saw earlier than most that the middle class in Miami was being hollowed-out and that this would be the future for other major US cities.
 
Given the political upheavals we have seen in the past couple of years in the developed economies, and that these have largely been attributed to social inequality (as a result of globalization), my question then is: Is this an inevitable outcome of capitalism? In other words, given human nature (and our tendency towards inertia, biases, and shortcuts), is it possible to design a market (driven largely by self-interest, which rewards specific skills/merit) that, over time, results in more equitable opportunity? My sense is that it might not be possible. If so, and if we accept that altruism is an unrealistic model on which to structure society (and every previous attempt suggests this is true), what alternative structure would produce something more equitable? And, more importantly, how do we get there? To some extent, this is accounted for in Strategic CSR via an empowered stakeholder model. But, in order for it to work at the extreme, requires a significant correction – an outcome that history teaches us is usually violent and, as a result, worth avoiding (if possible).
 
Over the summer, I plan to think more about this. If anyone has any ideas/thoughts, I would love to hear them.
 
Take care
David
 
 
Instructor Teaching and Student Study Site: https://study.sagepub.com/chandler4e
Strategic CSR Simulation: http://www.strategiccsrsim.com/
The library of CSR Newsletters are archived at: https://strategiccsr-sage.blogspot.com/