Corporate University: a lever of Corporate Responsibility
Abstract from the book of Annick Renaud-Coulon, published in 2008.
Why do the social and environmental commitments established
by companies risk backfiring on their authors? Annual reports
that companies conscientiously produce year after year, with
the help of special agencies, don’t usually posit them
as responsible and respectable to their stakeholders. No more
than the decision to set-up a Sustainable Development (CSR)
or Diversity Management department, neither to create a foundation,
to commit to adhering to the United Nations Global Compact
Principles, or OEDC Principles for multinationals, for instance.
For an organisation to be responsible, it must mobilise its
entire workforce on the societal stakes, in order to bring
true changes to fruition. It must educate employees and establish
them in a situation of learning new behaviours and skills.
Therefore the author, who has already published reference books
on Corporate Universities, now propels the Corporate University
phenomenon into the future and invites companies to make their
educational structure a lever of their Corporate Responsibility.
In the first part of this book, the author asks the question:
of what is Corporate Responsibility? She highlights the hazy
semantics which surround the global ethical wave, exploring the
foundations of Corporate Responsibility, covering critiques on
Corporate Responsibility as the cunning of capitalism, denouncing
a foolish mixture of ideas that makes companies out to be a monster.
At the same time she invites companies not to confuse ethics
with image. She identifies the key players of current confounding,
disparate, and muddled global regulation, (governmental international
institutions, rating agencies and indexes, and civil society),
where Corporate Responsibility appears as one of the pillars
of global governance. She then presents nine Corporate Responsibility
case studies from around the world.
In the second part, the author invites the reader to enter the
complex world of corporate universities. She explains the genesis
of the phenomenon and provides the semantic and strategic keys,
and explains the differences between corporate universities and
training centres. She delivers her typology and own references
before demonstrating how those structures can be used as true
political tools for forging the soul and identity of a company,
implementing business strategies on conditions tied to certain
principles of action.
In the third section, the author delivers her business case
to make corporate universities a lever of Corporate Responsibility.
Further to the seven guiding principles, she adds methodological
orientation with examples of educational activities, facilitating
the implementation of social and environmental strategies for
internal and external stakeholders. The author concludes by providing
illustrations of Corporate Responsibility programmes and projects
led by corporate universities across the world.
Annick Renaud-Coulon suggests that Hegel's famous phrase, “Nothing
great has been accomplished in the world without passion”,
may one day soon apply to the successful marriage of corporate
education and Corporate Responsibility.
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