2014钻石卡阅读讲义2014钻石卡阅读讲义.docx

2014钻石卡学员阅读讲义（一）Text One For all the burgeoning popularity of corporate social responsibility-the art of doing well by doing good—its benefits remain unproven. It is all well and good to say that a globalizing company needs to take account of social problems in its new markets, or that social responsibility will be its own reward, in happier employees, lower legal costs and improved productivity. But at heart, for many companies, corporate social responsibility is still just a matter of branding. Look at McDonalds and the Body Shop, for example. The former is still a target of consumer derision and lawsuits despite its introduction of healthier food. The environmentally friendly reputation of the Body Shop, on the other hand, has long outpaced its actual investment in eco-friendly processes.Building Reputational Capital, by Kevin Jackson, a professor of legal and ethical studies at Fordham University in New York, argues that corporations need to be socially responsible to build their “reputational capital”, which is similar to, but bigger than, any brand they might market. A company with lots of such capital will be able to attract better employees, charge higher prices, negotiate better deals, attract more investors. But how much control does a firm actually exercise over its own reputation? The examples Mr. Jackson gives are not entirely encouraging. Nike, a favourite target of activists for its treatment of sweatshop workers, appears several times; but Mr. Jackson does not elaborate on whether a drop in its reputational capital costs Nike any sales. Mr. Jackson does cite studies showing a positive correlation between a commitment to an ethical behavior and performance. But his examples do not make as powerful a case for the necessity of corporate social responsibility as he would like.Indeed, a firm that embarks on a plan of corporate social responsibility may be setting itself up for a worse, not a better, reputation. Mr. Jackson cites the example of H.B.