Corporate responsibility or core competence?

Abstract

Although the concept that corporations are responsible not only to their shareholders but also for the social and environmental impacts of their activities has now entered the mainstream, pressure is still required to ensure that companies honour their public commitments. This article describes the work of the Ecumenical Council for Corporate Responsibility in harnessing the power of individual shareholders and ethical investors in order to hold companies to account, with particular reference to the activities of Shell in Nigeria and the Republic of Ireland. It is argued that companies do not exist to carry out community development, and so should be judged not on these grounds but rather on the impact of how they conduct their core business.

Notes

1. Developed in the 1990s, stakeholder theory identifies all those affected by corporate activity as having a stake in the company. This was often formulated as a series of concentric circles with groups such as shareholders, employees, and customers at the centre, and communities and the environment depicted as more peripheral.

2. Some commentators suggested that this resolution could signal a change in the way multinational companies, many of which have annual turnovers as large as the GDP of a medium-sized country, do business throughout the world (The Chemical Engineer 1997).

3. The ECCR Report (ECCR 2002) was shared with Shell and contains the company's comments.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Barbara Hayes

Barbara Hayes is Chair of the Ecumenical Council for Corporate Responsibility.

Bridget Walker

Bridget Walker is a founding member of the Ecumenical Council for Corporate Responsibility and is Co-Director of Responding to Conflict, an organisation that provides advice, cross-cultural training, and longer-term support to people who are working for peace, development, rights, and humanitarian assistance in societies affected by violent conflict.