Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-76fb5796d-skm99 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-28T03:13:29.638Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

12 - Practitioner Views of Corporate Political Responsibility

Toward a New Social Contract

from Section V - Implementing Corporate Political Responsibility: Opportunities and Challenges

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 November 2023

Thomas P. Lyon
Affiliation:
University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
Get access

Summary

As scholars and activists seek to define and promote greater corporate political responsibility (CPR), they will benefit from understanding practitioner perspectives and how executives are responding to rising scrutiny of their political influences, reputational risk and pressure from employees, customers and investors to get involved in civic, political, and societal issues. This chapter draws on firsthand conversations with practitioners, including executives in government affairs; sustainability; senior leadership; and diversity, equity and inclusion, during the launch of a university-based CPR initiative. I summarize practitioner motivations, interests, barriers and challenges related to engaging in conversations about CPR, as well as committing or acting to improve CPR. Following the summary, I present implications for further research and several possible paths forward, including leveraging practitioners’ value on accountability, sustaining external calls for transparency, strengthening awareness of systems, and reframing CPR as part of a larger dialogue around society’s “social contract.”

Type
Chapter
Information
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2023

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

AAA Framework for Climate Policy Leadership. (2019). AAA Framework for Climate Policy Leadership. www.aaaclimateleadership.org/Google Scholar
Business for Social Responsibility. (2020). The Business Role in Creating a Twenty-First Century Social Contract, June 24.Google Scholar
Carroll, A.B., Lipartito, K., Post, J.E., & Werhane, P.H. (2012). Corporate Responsibility: The American Experience. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Chambers, S. (2003). Deliberative Democratic Theory. Annual Review of Political Science, 6(1), 307326.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
D’Agostino, F., Thrasher, J., & Gaus, G. (2011). Contemporary Approaches to the Social Contract. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Winter.Google Scholar
Darnell, S. & McDonnell, M.H. (2023). License to Give: The Relationship between Organizational Reputation and Stakeholders’ Support for Corporate Political Activity. In Corporate Political Responsibility. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Donaldson, T. & Dunfee, T.W. (1999). Ties That Bind: A Social Contracts Approach to Business Ethics, Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press.Google Scholar
Doty, E. & Kouchaki, M. (2015). Commitments, Disrupted: Understanding and Addressing Commitment Drift in For-Profit Enterprises. Working Paper.Google Scholar
Drutman, L. (2015). The Business of America Is Lobbying: How Corporations Became Politicized and Politics Became More Corporate. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Edelman. (2021). Edelman Trust Barometer 2021.Google Scholar
Favotto, A., Kollman, K., & McMillan, F. (2023). Responsible Lobbyists? CSR Commitments and the Quality of Corporate Parliamentary Testimony in the UK. In Lyon, T., ed., Corporate Political Responsibility. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Fishkin, J., Siu, A., Diamond, L., & Bradburn, N. (2021). Is Deliberation an Antidote to Extreme Partisan Polarization? Reflections on “America in One Room.” American Political Science Review, 115(4), 14641481.Google Scholar
Freed, B., Sandstrom, K., & Laufer, W.S. (2023). Targeting Private Sector Influence in Politics: Corporate Accountability as a Risk and Governance Problem. In Lyon, T., ed., Corporate Political Responsibility. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Friedman, W., & Rinehart, C. (2019). The Fix We’re In: What Americans Have to Say about Opportunity, Inequality and the System They Feel Is Failing Them. Public Agenda.Google Scholar
Gallup. (2021). Confidence in Institutions. Gallup.Google Scholar
Gehl, K.M. & Porter, M.E. (2020). Fixing U.S. Politics. Harvard Business Review, July–August.Google Scholar
Gilbert, D.U. & Benham, M. (2009). Advancing Integrative Social Contracts Theory: A Habermasian Perspective. Journal of Business Ethics, 89, 215234.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gilens, M. & Page, B.I. (2014). Testing Theories of American Politics: Elites, Interest Groups, and Average Citizens. Perspectives on Politics, 12(3), 564581.Google Scholar
Gunningham, N., Kagan, R.A., & Thornton, D. (2004). Social License and Environmental Protection: Why Businesses Go Beyond Compliance. Law & Social Inquiry, 29(2), 307341.Google Scholar
Hacker, J. & Pierson, P. (2021). Conflicted Consequences. The Center for Political Accountability, July 13.Google Scholar
Henderson, R. (2020). The Business Case for Saving Democracy. Harvard Business Review, March 10.Google Scholar
Henderson, R. (2020). Reimagining Capitalism in a World on Fire. New York: Public Affairs Press.Google Scholar
Ketu, Y. & Rothstein, S. (2023). Practicing Responsible Policy Engagement: How Large U.S. Companies Lobby on Climate Change. In Lyon, T., ed., Corporate Political Responsibility. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
KPMGInternational. (2014). A New Vision of Value: Connecting Corporate and Societal Value Creation.Google Scholar
Livni, E. (2021). On Voting Rights, It Can Cost Companies to Take Both Sides. New York Times, June 5.Google Scholar
Lyon, T.P., et al. (2018). CSR Needs CPR: Corporations, Sustainability and Politics. California Management Review, 60(4), 524.Google Scholar
Mizruchi, M. (2013). The Fracturing of the American Corporate Elite. Boston, MA: Harvard University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Murray, A. (2019). America’s CEOs Seek a New Purpose for the Corporation. Fortune, August 19.Google Scholar
Novet, J. (2021). Microsoft President Brad Smith Explains How Political Contributions Really Work. CNBC, January 22.Google Scholar
Paine, L.S. (2003). Value Shift: Why Companies Must Merge Social and Financial Imperatives to Achieve Superior Performance. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2003.Google Scholar
Preventable Surprises. (2021). Corporate Lobbying Alignment Project (CLAP). Preventable Surprises.Google Scholar
Public Affairs Council. (2021). Taking a Stand: How Corporations Engage on Social Issues. Public Affairs Council.Google Scholar
Rainie, L., Keeter, S., & Perrin, A. (2019). Trust and Distrust in America. Pew Research Center, July 22.Google Scholar
Ramanna, K. (2020). Friedman @50: Is It Still the Social Responsibility of Business to Increase Profits? California Management Review, 62(3), 2841.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Repucci, S. & Slipowitz, A. (2021). Democracy under Siege. Freedom House.Google Scholar
Scherer, A.G. & Palazzo, G. (2006). Corporate Legitimacy as Deliberation: A Communicative Framework. Journal of Business Ethics, 66, 7188.Google Scholar
Scherer, A.G. & Palazzo, G. (2007). Toward a Political Conception of Corporate Responsibility: Business and Society Seen from a Habermasian Perspective. Academy of Management Review, 32(4), 1096–120.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Scholz, M., de los Reyes Jr., G., & Smith, N.C. (2019). The Enduring Potential of Justified Hypernorms. Business Ethics Quarterly, 29(3).Google Scholar
Schwab, K. (2019). Why We Need the ‘Davos Manifesto’ for a Better Kind of Capitalism. World Economic Forum, December 1.Google Scholar
Sorkin, A.R., et al. (2021). The C.E.O.s Who Didn’t Sign a Big Defense of Voting Rights. New York Times, April 14.Google Scholar
Strine, Jr., L.E. (2019). The 2019 CPA-Zicklin Index of Corporate Political Disclosure and Accountability: Foreword. The Center for Political Accountability, 78.Google Scholar
Transparency International. (2020). Corruption Perceptions Index 2020. Transparency International, January.Google Scholar
United Nations. (2021). United Nations Global Compact Website. United NationsGoogle Scholar
Walker, E.T. (2023). What Drives Firms to Disclose Their Political Activity? In Lyon, T., ed., Corporate Political Responsibility. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Wall Street Journal Editorial Board. (2021). The Price of Woke Corporate Politics. Wall Street Journal, May 19.Google Scholar
Washington, P. & Spierings, M. (2021). Under a Microscope: A New Era of Scrutiny for Corporate Political Activity. The Conference Board.Google Scholar
Werner, T. (2023). Promise and Peril: Lessons from Shareholder Reactions to Corporate Political Activity Disclosure. In Lyon, T., ed., Corporate Political Responsibility. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Wheeler, K.J., et al. (2019). Statement on the Purpose of a Corporation. The Business Roundtable.Google Scholar
Winkler, A. (2018). We the Corporations: How American Businesses Won Their Civil Rights. New York, NY: Liveright Publishing.Google Scholar
World Business Council for Economic Development. (2021). Time to Transform. Vision 2050, March.Google Scholar
World Economic Forum. (2020). Measuring Stakeholder Capitalism: Towards Common Metrics and Consistent Reporting of Sustainable Value Creation. World Economic Forum, September 22.Google Scholar

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×