Page 69 - DMGT521_PROJECT_MANAGEMENT

Project Management

Notes
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Case Study Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR)
and Project Management

orporate Social Responsibility (CSR) has gained significant momentum in recent
years. The push is on to identify projects that reflect the corporation’s sense of
Csocial responsibility and to tailor projects to reflect that sense. This is perhaps a
step in the right direction when it comes to the corporation’s position in the host community,
but is extremely difficult and complex in its implementation. There are two key factors
that contribute to its difficulty:
1. Corporations’ main goal is still profits; they owe this to their shareholders. Although
profits and social responsibility are not necessarily mutually exclusive, there is
frequently a price tag associated with CSR projects and this creates a conflict: choose
the CSR project, or tailor the project to meet CSR objectives OR focus on increased
ROI? Where a project meets both objectives, the conflict is eliminated but you know
intuitively that this won’t always be the case and indeed there are more and more
news reports about cases where this wasn’t the case.
2. How does the corporation determine what is socially responsible and what isn’t?
This is seldom clear cut and in many cases different social groups have goals and
objectives that are opposed to one another. The corporation can’t satisfy the objectives
of both groups and will be seen as irresponsible when it chooses one or the other.
These issues are compounded when a corporate citizen of one country engages in work in
another with different social values. The chances of a conflict between two social groups
who are stakeholders in the venture increase because of the cultural differences between
the stakeholders in the home community and those in the foreign country. Companies
have invested millions of dollars developing their CSR persona only to see it destroyed
by one ugly conflict that gets media exposure. The results achieved by the CSR investment
are not newsworthy while the single incident that tarnishes that image is.
Take the recent debate over the behaviour of Canadian mining companies overseas and in
South America for example. The media exposure was triggered by a private members bill
(C-300) proposed by a member of the Canadian parliament. The bill asks that the federal
government assume the power to investigate complaints that any Canadian mining
company failed to comply with international human rights and environmental standards.
On the face of it, there doesn’t seem to be anything a socially responsible mining company
could object to. The problem is that the bill can’t guarantee that the accused mining
company would have the ability to confront their accuser to answer the charges and that
is what the association representing Canadian mining companies is objecting to.

The debate on the bill has spawned two stories in the Toronto Star about potential problems
with mining operations in Ecuador, Argentina, and Papua New Guinea. The stories include
responses from spokespeople of the mining companies involved, but the exposure of
these allegations in a national newspaper has tarnished the CSR reputation built up by the
mining companies mentioned. I won’t mention those companies here because none of the
allegations has been proven. Some of the mining companies have gone to great lengths
and expense to build a reputation as socially, economically, and ethically responsible
corporate citizens, only to see that reputation threatened by these stories. Now, I’m not
suggesting that the allegations are all false. I have no idea as to their validity. What I do
Contd...

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