So, we’ve all been wondering whether corporate America would walk away from corporate responsibility commitments when the going got rough. Shareholders might tolerate some dabbling on the social and environmental fronts when there’s plenty of cash in the coffers, but wouldn’t corporate executives feel pressured to reroute the money back to earnings and dividends – or to mitigate losses – during a downturn?
The surprising answer, according to Fortune magazine, is that many companies are taking the long view. Rather than decimate these programs in tough times, they’re continuing to provide resources. Prudent management will, of course, always look for efficiencies and cut support for efforts that aren’t producing results, and citizenship programs are undergoing this kind of scrutiny. But to a surprising degree, companies are continuing to back their citizenship efforts.
The farther down the road a company has gone, the more likely it is to continue its commitment to citizenship. For example, companies that serve on the board of Business for Social Responsibility indicate that cost-cutting efforts will leave their citizenship programs mostly untouched. These include the likes of Ikea, Microsoft, Rio Tinto, Chiquita and Shell. Starbucks and General Electric also have become strongly identified with citizenship efforts and are keeping their budgets intact.
These companies all have committed to corporate citizenship as one of the pillars that supports their reputation. They’ve weighed the costs of damaging their reputation against the dollars saved by reducing their citizenship efforts, and they’ve decided that reputation has the greater value. That’s a real ray of hope during some extraordinarily difficult times.
