Something to Believe In

Creating Trust and Hope in Organisations: Stories of Transparency, Accountability and Governance

Edited by Rupesh A. Shah, David F. Murphy and Malcolm McIntosh

80% discount on this title

December 2003 245 pp 234 x 156mm

hardback ISBN 978-1-874719-69-4 £40.00 £8.00

Alternative formats: paperback

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How can we create organisations, institutions, groups and societies that can nurture trusting relationships with one another and among individuals?

"a roadmap for the restoration of public trust in corporate behaviour"
R.K. Pachauri

In a world where trust in politicians, corporations and the processes that determine our lives continues to dwindle, this innovative book brings together research, case studies and stories that begin to answer a central question for society: How we can create organisations, institutions, groups and societies that can nurture trusting relationships with one another and among individuals?

Something to Believe In provides a fresh take on the corporate responsibility debate, based as it is on the work of key global thinkers on corporate social responsibility, along with a raft of work developed from collaborations between the New Academy of Business and the United Nations Volunteers, UK Department for International Development and TERI-Europe in countries such as Brazil, Nicaragua, Ghana, India, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Lebanon, Nigeria, the Philippines and South Africa. The focus is on business, and particularly how deeper, more systemic changes to current ways of understanding and undertaking business can and have been enacted in both developed countries and in nations where the Western concept of CSR means nothing. The market-based model of economic thinking-the increasingly distrusted globalisation project-which threatens to sweep all before it is challenged by many of the contributions to this book.

The book tells stories such as the mobilisation of civil society in Ghana to bring business to account; the reorientation of a business school to focus on values; the life-cycle of ethical chocolate; the accountability of the diamond business in a war zone; the need to reinvent codes of conduct for women workers in the plantations and factories of Nicaragua; a Philippine initiative to economically empower former Moslem liberation fighters; and the development of local governance practices in a South African eco-village.

The book is split into four sections. 'Through Some Looking Glasses' contains short, thought-provoking pieces about the issues of trust, belief and change from writers including Thabo Mbeki, Malcolm McIntosh and a reprinted piece from E.M. Forster. Section Two asks how it will be possible to believe in our corporations and provides new approaches from around the world on how space is being opened up to found businesses that are able to create trust. Section Three examines the role of auditing in fostering trust. Corporations continue to attempt to engender trust through their activities in philanthropy, reporting and voluntary programmes. But, post-Enron et al., even the most highly praised corporate mission statements are tarnished. Can social and environmental audits of corporate reports, codes and practices assuage our doubts about boardroom democracy? Section Four examines alternative forms of accountability, transparency and governance from around the world and offers some different ways of thinking about the practice of creating trust in society.

Something to Believe In provides a host of fascinating suggestions about redefining and renewing the underlying deal between society and its organisations. It will become a key text for students, thinkers and practitioners in the field of corporate responsibility.

PRAISE

If you want to create organisations to aspire to and that are worthy of our aspirations you have to keep nurturing trust. This is not only with the customers who buy the products but also with the suppliers and the communities you trade with worldwide. If you want to enable everyone you engage with to have this trust, then this book will offer you an ecology of diverse ideas and stories to act on.
Dame Anita Roddick, Founder, The Body Shop

In this age of major failures of some business organisations and even more distressing failures in business ethics, this book comes as a refreshing compilation of insights on actions and initiatives that can lead to a brighter future jointly for business and society. More importantly, this volume provides a roadmap for the restoration of public trust in corporate behaviour.
R.K. Pachauri, Director General, The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI) and Chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change

At a time when business is rapidly becoming the most powerful force on the globe, there is an accompanying groundswell of activism for more human, more socially connected and more hopeful approaches to the relationships that define our lives. This book holds between its pages a range of stories and experiences that reflect real possibilities for building trust, through living and working in a way that is underpinned by the transcendent values such as tolerance, faith and ardour for enlightened learning. It is an inspiration to those of us who aspire to a more conscious and more joyful life, both personally and professionally.
Colleen du Toit, Executive Director, SAGA

To me Trust also means Hope. A suspicious mind is closed to enlightenment. An inquisitive mind on the other hand leads to evolution. Whether it is in personal, private, corporate or public life, trust and openness are two facets of a coin. This book gives us hope 'if we try in our own small way we can make a change ... for the better'. Kaizen is a philosophy that appeals to me; it means change for the better in small steps. This book is one small step in that journey.
Tushar A. Gandhi, Managing Trustee, Mahatma Gandhi Foundation, India

REVIEWS

The discussions in this book range across a wide number of areas including management schools, specific companies, countries, industries, codes of conduct, communities and government. What emerges is ... a recognition that just as people and individuals and institutions are very diverse, so too are the journeys to change the future. ...the most important feature of the journeys described here is that ... to change the world requires considerably more imagination and creativity than we are seeing from the sorts of codes and standards which are increasingly taken up by many right now.
The Corporate Citizen 4.1 (2004)

This book addresses themes related to the idea of trust…one strength is that there is a refreshing focus on examples of corporate social responsibility from countries that is unusual to hear from (including Ghana, Lebanon and India). Another strength is the weaving of quite different perspectives on trust from a variety of perspectives.
Social and Environmental Accounting Journal Vol. 25 Issue 1

Foreword

Sharon Capeling-Alakija, United Nations Volunteers

Introduction

Rupesh A. Shah, David F. Murphy and Malcolm McIntosh

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Part 1: Through some looking glasses

1. Something to have struggled for and now to believe in

T.M. Mbeki, then Vice President of the Republic of South Africa

2. PlanetHome

Malcolm McIntosh, Writer and Teacher, UK

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3. From terrorism to trust: trusting our nature?

Mary-Jayne Rust, Jungian Analyst (Society of Analytical Psychology) and Art Therapis

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4. Partnering trust: India’s corporate social responsibility heritage

Viraal B. Balsari, TERI-Europe

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5. Tolerance

E.M. Forster

Part 2: How could it be possible to believe in our corporations?

6. Demanding corporate responsibility is the key: the creation of a movement for corporate responsibility in Ghana

Joseph Yaw Boateng, United Nations Volunteer, Association of Ghana Industries, Ghana

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7. Corporate responsibility: the emerging South Asian agenda

Ritu Kumar, TERI-Europe

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8. Corporate governance, shareholder interests and managerial accountability in turbulent times

Scott Bourke and Neil E. Béchervaise, Australian Graduate School of Entrepreneurship, Australia

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9. Strange bedfellows make for democratic deficits: the rise and challenges of private corporate social responsibility engagement

Matthew J. Hirschland, Department of Political Science, University of Colorado, USA

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10. The rise of the ‘abdroids’

Roger Warren Evans, Barrister-at-law, UK

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11. Changing focus: a business school for sustainable development

Juliet Roper, Eva Collins and Mike Pratt, University of Waikato Management School, New Zealand

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Part 3: Auditing for whom?

12. Love in a time of chocolate: the corporate discipline of compassion

Adrian Henriques, Middlesex University, UK

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13. Trouble at the Hard Rock Café: diamonds and corporate social responsibility

Ian Smillie and Ralph Hazleton, Partnership Africa Canada

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14. In search of transparency: corporate codes of conduct and women workers in Central America

Marina Prieto-Carron, University of Bristol, UK

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15. Voluntary governance or a contradiction in terms: are voluntary codes accountable and transparent governance tools?

Simon B. Archer, Torys LLP, Canada, and S. Tina Piper, Balliol College, University of Oxford, UK

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16. The auditor has no clothes: challenging the pursuit of objectivity in auditing

Rupesh A. Shah, New Academy of Business, UK

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Part 4: New initiatives

17. In the business of making peace: La Frutera and Paglas in the Philippines

Charmaine Nuguid-Anden, United Nations Volunteer, Philippine Business for Social Progress

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18. Corporate responsibility in New Zealand: a case study

Bob Frame, Richard Gordon and Ian Whitehouse, Landcare Research, New Zealand

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19. Reforming government, working with business: the Office of the Minister of State for Administrative Reform in Lebanon

Lubna Forzley, United Nations Volunteer, UNDP Lebanon

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20. Living and learning in the Boland

Mark Swilling and Eve Annecke, University of Stellenbosch, South Africa

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21. It’s the film that matters, not the photo: good governance in development co-operation

David F. Murphy, New Academy of Business, UK

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Part 5: Conclusion

22. Under the Trumpet Flower

Abdul Cader Riswana, Ismael Ashraff, Jinutheen Rasmina, Kanathan Dinojit, Stepan Sampath, The Butterfly Garden of Batticaloa, Sri Lanka

ABOUT THE EDITORS

	Rupesh A. Shah. Since starting work with the New Academy of Business in November 2001, I have been supporting our research and educational activities through a focus on action research. I have been involved in collaboration with United Nations Volunteers (UNV), aimed at both exploring and enhancing the relations between communities and business in seven countries from the South. I have also supported the New Academy's educational work with universities and begun a stream of work on responsible business education in schools. In my PhD, from the School of Management, Centre for Action Research in Professional Practice at the University of Bath, I explored the links between personal change, organisational learning and sustainable development. I did this through a double lens of the collaboration between an NGO and business alongside my own attempts at engaging in collaborative research. When I need to nurture the parts of me that research doesn't quite reach, I can be found in a community-owned, organic garden, near where I live in Bath.
	David F. Murphy. I am Director of the New Academy of Business, an independent business school that provide entrepreneurs, managers and organisational leaders with the insights and capacities necessary to respond progressively to the emerging challenges of sustainability and organisational responsibility. Since I joined the organisation in 1998, I have developed the New Academy's international network of partners working together on various education and research initiatives on global corporate responsibility. This work has included a two-year international action research project on business-community relations with United Nations Volunteers (UNV) in seven countries. Other recent projects include good governance in development co-operation with the European Commission, corporate responsibility practices in South Asia with TERI-Europe, and a feasibility study on the social marketing of job quality in micro and small enterprises with the International Labour Organisation. From 1993-97, I undertook research at the University of Bristol on the implementation of corporate social responsibility policies and completed my PhD on business-NGO relations and sustainable development. Prior to my arrival in the UK in 1993, I co-ordinated various community development programmes for the Canadian NGO CUSO in West Africa and Canada, where I also managed volunteer programmes for a Canadian AIDS organisation. I am the co-author of In the Company of Partners: Business, Environmental Groups and Sustainable Development Post-Rio (The Policy Press, 1997) and am currently a member of the Amnesty International (UK) Business Group on Human Rights.
	Malcolm McIntosh. I am a writer and teacher on corporate responsibility and sustainability and a Visiting Professor at the universities of Bath and Nottingham (UK) and Waikato (NZ). I also teach at the universities of Stellenbosch (SA) and Bristol (UK). In 2003 I was appointed a Special Advisor to the UN Global Compact. I am Founding Editor of The Journal of Corporate Citizenship, Editor of Visions of Ethical Business 1998-2002 (FT Management/PricewaterhouseCoopers) and author and co-author of many books and articles on corporate citizenship. My latest book is Raising a Ladder to the Moon: The Complexities of Corporate Responsibility (Palgrave Macmillan, 2003). I am currently working on a new book, Learning To Talk: The Early Years of the UN Global Compact (Greenleaf Publishing, 2004) with Sandra Waddock and Georg Kell with a Foreword by Kofi Annan. I am most interested in the possibility of a new metalanguage which reaches across professional and intellectual divides. This requires the development of cultures of humility and conviviality.

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