We talk a lot about CSR, known as Corporate Social Responsibility, and what that means but rarely do you hear Corporate Moral Responsibility mentioned. It has me thinking about whether or not the two are really that different.
Wikipedia defines Corporate Social Responsibility, also known as corporate responsibility, corporate citizenship, responsible business, sustainable responsible business (SRB), or corporate social performance,[1] is a form of corporate self-regulation integrated into a business model. Ideally, CSR policy would function as a built-in, self-regulating mechanism whereby business would monitor and ensure its support to law, ethical standards, and international norms. Consequently, business would embrace responsibility for the impact of its activities on the environment, consumers, employees, communities, stakeholders and all other members of the public sphere. Furthermore, CSR-focused businesses would proactively promote the public interest by encouraging community growth and development, and voluntarily eliminating practices that harm the public sphere, regardless of legality. Essentially, CSR is the deliberate inclusion of public interest into corporate decision-making, and the honoring of a triple bottom line: People, Planet, Profit.
So how is this different from Corporate Moral Responsibility? Interestingly enough, Wikipedia doesn’t have a definition for Corporate Moral Responsibility. When searching for CMR, ‘moral responsibility’ simply comes up. A person, or in this case, a company/corporation, has a moral responsibility if they are responsible for something occurring. And if something does occur, then they are responsible for the outcome, good or bad. In most cases, we tend to hear the bad outcomes much like the Louisiana Oil Spill and BP’s responsibility for the disaster.
It gets even more complicated in that we can also be called ‘moral agents’ and such, can have ‘causal responsibility’ for the disaster that occurred.
Moral agents are those who have a moral responsibility for an action.
I argue that we are ALL moral agents, and regardless of what we label it, CSR or CMR. If we all went about our day, our business understanding that our actions have an impact on our world, on our neighbours, our environment, we would think twice about how we do business, where we do business, who we do business with. We would align our businesses with other ‘moral agents’.
As a moral agent, it removes any suggestion of hypocrisy or insincerity in our business practice. As much as I do agree we need developed business ethics, fair trade policies and organizations like B Corp, I think the core of CSR and/or CMR comes down to an individual being that ‘moral agent’.
So is there really a difference between Corporate Social Responsibility and Corporate Moral Responsibility? I don’t think so, they are one of the same.
Whipping out the door with my ‘moral agent’ cape flapping in the wind…anyone care to join me?
