This is the seventh in a series of posts reflecting
excerpts from a chapter authored on corporate social responsibility
(“CSR”) for the Corporate
Legal Compliance Handbook.
CSR places concrete performance goals in an
aspirational context: it can infuse corporate compliance requirements with a
level of intrinsic motivation whereby company employees share a collective
sense that the company is trying to improve its performance and act in a
responsible manner.
A compliance program should ideally support a company’s
commitment to responsible business behavior: compliance requirements should not
be the driver of operational change, but rather should be consistent with the
company’s over-arching sense of what should be done.
Ideally, a company’s CSR commitments will be
aligned with corporate values. Effectively leveraging the linkages between
corporate values, CSR commitments, and compliance processes can promote an
overall compliance culture that is not purely “rules” focused but rather based
on a collective sense that every employee is expected to fulfill their
responsibilities in a principled manner.
An article
in Corporate Compliance Insights observed, “only after we inspire our
organizations, employees, and supply chain to reason through a lens of
integrity, self-govern their personal actions, and influence the actions of
their peers will we ever be able to achieve compliance with the law and
maintain an ethical culture.”
CSR can promote an approach to compliance
that is built on values and supported by robust management systems: such an
approach provides a company with the capacity to adjust, as necessary, to
future regulatory and legislative changes that may be reflective of shifting
stakeholder expectations.
-Business Advisor
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