Carroll School’s Center for Corporate Citizenship releases Profile of the Practice 2010

Boston College research goes behind the scenes to look at CSR structure and strategies
Dec 6, 2010 10:00 AM ET
Campaign: Boston College Center for Corporate Citizenship Knowledge & Research

(3BLMedia/theCSRfeed) Chestnut Hill, Mass. - December 6, 2010 - Nobody wants to reinvent the wheel but everyone wants to know if someone has come up with a better way to build it.

The Carroll School of Management’s Center for Corporate Citizenship at Boston College offers just that kind of insight with its just-released Profile of the Practice 2010 by examining how corporate citizenship is being managed behind the scenes in today’s companies. Building upon the 2008 edition, this report contains the latest data on the corporate citizenship strategies, operational structures, and management and leadership tactics at 190 companies.
 
The purpose of the biennial Profile of the Practice study is to capture the current state and trends over time in corporate citizenship structure, strategy and management. This information has proven useful to companies for strategic planning as well as benchmarking purposes.
 
Some key findings from the Profile of the Practice survey include:

  • Most companies report having a written corporate citizenship strategy

  • Addressing environmental issues, community and local economic development, and employee well-being are top goals of company strategies

  • More companies direct corporate citizenship cross-functionally from the executive level

  • Board involvement is increasing but most boards are not fully informed

  • More companies are establishing senior positions for managing corporate citizenship

 
While the full report is available only to Center members, these and other key findings are available in an Executive Summary on the Center website.
 
A recent Center for Corporate Citizenship webinar, “Strategy and Structure: What it Takes to Run a Corporate Citizenship Program” featured a discussion of the findings of the Profile of the Practice by Jim George, vice president, corporate social responsibility, The Hershey Company; Sarah Martinez, vice president, corporate responsibility, ProLogis; and Sylvia Kinnicutt, the Center’s lead researcher on the Profile of the Practice 2010. The webinar is still available for viewing on demand in the Center’s online Member Community. Among the questions addressed in the webinar were:

  • What does a successful corporate citizenship strategy looks like?

  • What are the most common ways to structure a corporate citizenship?

  • How are companies assigning staff and resources to this area?

With formal titles, department structures and management systems in place, corporate citizenship has become a part of competitive business strategy. The data from the Profile of the Practice 2010 survey suggest that amid a global recession, corporate citizenship has survived and is becoming more essential to businesses.
 
The Carroll School of Management’s Center for Corporate Citizenship at Boston College is a membership-based research organization. It is committed to helping business leverage its social, economic and human assets to ensure both its success and a more just and sustainable world. As a leading resource on corporate citizenship, the Center works with global corporations to help them define, plan and operationalize their corporate citizenship. Through the power of research, management and leadership programs, and the insights of its 350 corporate members, the Center creates knowledge, value and demand for corporate citizenship. www.BCCorporateCitizenship.org
 
For more information contact:
Peggy Connolly, Boston College Center for Corporate Citizenship
Email: connolpl@bc.edu Phone: 617-552-0722
 

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Boston College Center for Corporate Citizenship

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