"This week in CSR" (08/19/06 - 08/25/06)

Soon I'll be re-starting my part time work for the Center for Corporate Citizenship at Boston College (after a wonderful summer off!), and this means I'll be combing through even more CSR news every week. One post a day won't cover it; and several paragraphs per post would be too much for my schedule.

Therefore, I'm going to try a new format for Friday postings: "This week in CSR." It will be a few bullets on the stories you shouldn't have missed if you have a serious interest in this field, plus some interesting but less-essential tidbits.

This first edition won't be comprehensive, but I might as well start with something…

• AOL has several controversies - one is an Internet sensation of a recorded telephone call that reveals what many of us already knew: that it is next to impossible to cancel your account; the other is the un-vetted release of anonymous but individually-coded search data to an academic portal, which was widely copied and saved before AOL removed it; the data show interesting patterns such as who was searching for personal information online and who was looking up "how to kill my wife."
• Wal-mart has allowed its China stores to have unions (or rather, to have employees join China's one and only state-recognized "union"), and more recently has allowed employees to form Community Party committees at its stores.
• Pepsi has been banned (along with Coke) in several Indian states for allegedly allowing pesticide residues in its drinks; ironically, it has also named an Indian woman to its top post - a move that might have seemed too coincidental if not for longstanding predictions that she would eventually take over the helm. In another Pepsi/Coke saga, three senior Coke executives tried to sell secrets to Pepsi, but the company took the high road (or perhaps the good-publicity road?) by making the incident known to Coke and to the public.

Got any news that I should include? For inclusion in future Friday briefs, send me an email (mtritter at gmail dot com) to notify me of some story you think the CSR world should know about. Thanks!