Month: February 2010

This post also appeared in CSRWire Talkback.

The thought that culture presents yet another challenge to formulating global best practices of corporate social responsibility is likely to come as an “uh-oh” moment for several CSR practitioners and activists, especially those active at the global/international level. In our quest to hold companies from across the world accountable to a set of basic responsibilities, we may have glossed over some key problems: how to decide which measures to use, actual validity of the chosen standards, preoccupation with outcomes rather than processes, overall lack of regulatory bite, etc. Throw cultural variance into this mix, and you are liable to hear a deafening roar of protests: no more tinkering with ‘best practices’!