The Caux Round Table

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National Values Corporate Social
Responsibility Stephen B. Young, Global
Executive Director Caux Round Table Beograd Dece
mber 11, 2008
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The Challenge What are the cultural
foundations for CSR Management? Does CSR
Management fit within a national development
strategy?
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• What is CSR Management?
• Business decision-making that includes
  anticipation and measurement of a wide range of
  consequences
• Incorporates cultural and moral perspectives
  into the financial metrics of successful firms
• Normative standards derived from global
  perspectives (Caux Round Table, UN Global
  Compact, GRI, SA 8000)

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• What is National Culture?
• Customs, habits, values, priorities that create
  a psychological comfort zone for individuals
• Predispositions and dispositions of personal
  character
• Core concepts axial principles - expressed in
  language and apprehended through language use

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• What Are Axial Principles?
• Core principles about human purpose and reality
  that influence many attitudes, behaviors, and
  expectations of right and wrong, good and bad,
  close and far
• Cultures have unique axial principles
• Axial principles shape national character
• Axial principles are expressed in language but
  carried out in behavior

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From Normativity to Facticity (Jurgen
Habermas)
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Virtue
Other-Regarding The Moral Sense Self-Regardin
g
Self-Interest Considered upon the
whole Self-Interest Narrowly considered Basic
physical and Ego needs
Self Interest
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Stewardship
Service The Moral Sense
Exploitation
Power for common good Ethical leadership
Kyosei Fear Power only for
self Dysfunctional Leadership
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Dominion
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Cosmos
The Basic Self
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Virtue
Self interest
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Conclusion CSR Management will be most
successful when CSR norms are integrated with
axial principles of a national culture
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• The Cultures and Axial Principles
• of Southeastern Europe
• The past controlling the present
• We live our lives walking back and forth on the
  Value Sediments left by History

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• Value Sediments Left by Conflict
• Living At the intersection of value empires
• Between Rome and warrior tribes
• Between Slavs and Ural-Altaics
• Between Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy
• Between Islam and Christianity
• Between Turks and Slavs (with Albanians as well)
• Foreign Rule from Venice, Budapest, Vienna,
  Istanbul
• Smaller Imperial visions Greater Serbia,
  Greater Bulgaria, Greater Romania

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• Value Sediments left by Family Structure
• Dinaric family system the Kuca (Dinko Tomasic,
  Personality and Culture in Eastern European
  Politics, G.W. Stewart, NY 1948)
• Patrivilocal house cycle with complexity (Karl
  Kaser, Introduction Household and Family
  Contexts in the Balkans, The History of the
  Family, Vol. 1, No.4 1996)

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• Daughters-in-law and granddaughters-in-law come
  to live with husbands family multigenerational
  household cycle
• Sons stay together as an economic/social unit
  paternal property (the ocevina) not divided with
  marriage or death, but only after generations
  when the family group divides.
• Kuca ruled by the Starjesiva domineering head
  male elder
• Where the elder is not obeyed, God does not
  help.
• The young to obey the elder to command.

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• Family Dynamics within the Kuca
• Oscillation between overindulgence in affection
  and over strictness in punishment
• Ambivalence between love/hatred
  submission/defiance
• Desire for self-maximization coupled with keen
  resentment of accepting dictation from others
• Frequent conflicts Father/son Parent/child

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• One Consequence
• Too good an opinion of oneself pride can become
  quite boundless
• Desire to win a place of their own in the world
  can lead to unjustified personal and national
  claims

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• Second Consequence
• Alternate between activity and passivity
• Lack of emotional balance
• Hope and Despair equally excessive

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• Third Consequence
• Rivalry and Antagonism
• Cunning manipulation of others admired
• Submission yet waiting to exert own power
• Mistrust from fears of disloyalty on the part of
  others
• He who does not trust will not be duped.
• Woe to him who trusts a man.
• He who has force has justice.
• Force is stronger than a kind word.
• He who knows how will gain double.

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• Value Sediment Left by History
• Power is not accepted as automatically
  legitimate
• Determination to preserve core values against
  rulers
• National/linguistic/ethnic/religious
  sub-cultures in the region most important for
  sustaining individual identity and family
  solidarity

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• Turning Lead into Gold
• Every value has its good and bad aspects
• What is a strength can become a weakness
• What is a weakness can become a strength
• Yin/Yang approach to the flow of power and
  circumstance

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• Self-assertion side of Dinaric family pattern
• Keen Awareness of self and values held dear by
  self
• Deep respect for importance of values
• Search for value-based solutions in the face of
  power, cruelty and cynicism

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• Positive CSR Management Orientations
• Predisposition to please customers, to innovate,
  to seek quality
• Role as favored suppliers in global supply
  chains
• Provide employees with opportunities to excel
• Employees willing to step up to challenges if
  they get personal freedom and recognition
• Emphasis on training and workforce development
• Respond avidly to competition in free market
  setting
• Concern for quality of life in local community
• Resistance to abuse of political authority

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• Less Positive CSR Management Orientations
• Less concern for quality of public goods
  provided by the state
• Less concern for far-off environmental issues
• Mistrust of investors, partners, suppliers
• Mistrust of government
• Need to be powerful and arbitrary in dealing
  with customers and employees, rivals and outsiders

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• CSR Management Advantages in Southeastern Europe
  Value Sediments
• Recognition of importance of individual
  achievement use this to promote human capital
  formation
• Education
• Training
• Inventions and innovations
• Hard work
• Easy ability to articulate thoughts and feelings
• Respond quickly to opportunities