"If CSR is the answer, what is the question?"

Tonight was the holiday party for the Center for Corporate Citizenship at Boston College, where I work part time, remotely putting together a weekly news brief. I've only been to the office once, for my orientation, and so it was a rare chance to actually meet my virtual co-workers. I had several great conversations, and thought I'd just post some tidbits here.

One woman told me about the upcoming conference that the Center is hosting this March. It has a fantastic theme: "If CSR is the answer, what is the question?" Beyond getting a chuckle from sci-fi fans, it gets at the idea that CSR means many things to many people; in fact, as a popular buzzword it ends up being co-opted by a variety of groups. In particular, advocates of various causes or points of view argue that CSR means that companies have to support their agendas. But this can result in a frenzy of activity, without necessarily appeasing everyone - groups are for or against abortion, for or against gay lifestyles, for or against saying "Merry Christmas" (see http://www.savemerrychristmas.org/), and a variety of other incompatible causes. Sometimes I wonder if my mom thinks this is the sort of thing I aspire to do for a living, actually - stump for one cause or another, and needle corporations into bending to my will.

But for me, the real question is very broad, and it's this: How do corporations fit into society? I'm intrigued by how they fit into different societies (post-communist, for example), and by how they fit with the other puzzle pieces of government, NGO's, consumers, investors, media, etc. I want to know how societies determine their values, and how they can build systems and incentives that will allow and encourage businesses to act in accordance with those values - whatever they may be. Intellectually, I'm more concerned with whether we can build that sort of system than with what precisely the system encourages.

There was also a great conversation about the future of CSR education. I described my experience at the Fletcher School, where a lack of faculty expertise restricts the school's ability to offer more formal and deeper training - even though there is a great deal of interest among the student body.

This tied into other conversations about funding. The Center receives most of its funding though memberships, and some through conferences, classes, and special projects. My boyfriend, who is an engineer, asked me why a Center affiliated with a university isn't simply funded by that university. Good question. Is it simply because we study business, and business has more money than the subjects of other intellectual discourse, that we are expected to be financially independent? Isn't this a valid and worthwhile field on its own, or at least wouldn't it become one if we had more resources with which to study it?

It does seem a shame that the field is restricted by a lack of faculty, and yet I don't know if I could ever afford a Ph.D. (or an MBA) without more funding and support - jobs in this field don't often pay enough for that. And yet it's such an important field to study, as corporations become more powerful and less easily controlled. Can't the government, or the universities, or foundations - can't one of them help with funding? Perhaps they will someday, and I'm just too early on the bandwagon.