The entry of an intellectual heavyweight like Michael Porter into the debate on corporate social responsibility is a further sign that the subject is now part of mainstream business thinking (see article here).
But the Harvard Business School professor’s comment that CSR is a religion filled with priests is only true in part. The trouble with CSR is not that it is filled with priests, but that, with some notable exceptions, few of the priests have anything interesting to say and the racket coming from the pews drowns out serious thought. When it comes to business ethics, everyone has an opinion. Not all opinions, however, are equally valid – a tricky problem in a broad church.
Behind the jibe by a thinker well-known for his work on competitiveness and strategy lies a serious point: faith, not fact, dominates the field. Indeed, there is a chronic lack of substantive, reliable data on which to base judgments. This is not just because the field is still fairly young. Sloppy definitions, dodgy surveys and views skewed by special interests dominate the world of corporate social responsibility. If the first responsibility of a company is to make a profit, the prime responsibility of CSR practitioners should be to develop a strategy that meets the business objectives of the company and is based on sound data. One leading European bank is rumoured to be considering spending most of its CSR budget on supporting an international opera company – perhaps justifiable in marketing terms for a private-client bank wishing for an exclusive image, but of doubtful significance in a bank serving the mass market.
Of course, CSR does share one key characteristic with religion: it is rooted in values which inform behaviour. Paying lip service is not enough, as the collapse of the energy company Enron, which had a big CSR programme, showed. The challenge for companies is to align CSR programmes with their wider operational objectives. And the lesson for the priesthood is that if CSR does not help companies to make money, or at least reduce business risk, then the congregation will drift away.