Managing a Company in an Activist World: The Leadership Challenge of Corporate Citizenship

Corporate giving to worthy causes has never been higher—but hostility toward companies has also never been higher. A company's first loyalty may be to its shareholders, but woe to the executive who neglects his or her role as corporate citizen.

Managing corporate citizenship is an emerging field of study, and this book takes an early lead in proposing practical steps for the general manager to follow. The general manager? Author Edmund M. Burke makes the point that managers in the trenches "are ultimately held accountable for the success or failure of a business enterprise." In many companies, for example, the facility manager and not the community relations department is held responsible for the reputation of the organization in the surrounding community.

Burke begins by reviewing the rise in protests, boycotts, activism, and even hostile acts directed against the modern corporation. "Activism is increasing and becoming increasingly successful in determining what a company can or cannot do in communities and societies," he writes.

So what is a general manager to do? Become aware of changing expectations for corporate performance and make a plan: Good corporate citizenry does not happen off the cuff. Every company needs to develop what is known as a site community strategy, because "no company…can operate freely today without a strategy that generates consent and acceptance by a community's formal and informal leadership," writes Burke. The company should also develop a global or societal strategy.

Burke is the founder and Director Emeritus of the Center for Corporate Citizenship at Boston College.—Sean Silverthorne

1. With apologies to James Carville..."It's the behavior, stupid"
2. The case for change
3. The faces of activism
4. Step one: You start with a vision—a social vision
5. Step two: Abandon the command and control style of managing external affairs
6. Step three: Use the CACDIC strategy
7. Step four: Who are our external stakeholders and what do they value?
8. Step five: What are the characteristics of our relationships?
9. Preparing managers for the new thing
10. The stakeholder relations plan
11. The site community strategy: A responsibility of the facility manager
12. The site community strategy, continued
13. The societal strategy—the CEO's responsibility