Corporate Social Responsibility in the Board Room: The Need for a Coherent Business Case.

Much has been made in recent years of the advantages to business of being a good corporatecitizen; numerous studies now show a positive link between financial performance and ethicalbehavior. There is however little work which explores the role of the board and in particular howNon Executive or Outside Director (NEDs) affect corporate behavior.This study into the role and contribution of the Non Executive Director highlights an interestingdilemma; the majority of work in the boardroom is quantitative in nature. For many boardroommembers especially those not working on a day to day basis within the organization, the verycomplexity of steering a large organization requires that data be presented in an easy to follownumerical format, and that a business case be established for individual projects. As a result ofthis NEDs are typically uncomfortable with the label CSR, which for them has connotations ofsimply “giving away profits”. Many NEDs in the study seemed to prefer the term “CorporateResponsibility” which for them implies a more reciprocal approach, whereby the organizationestablishes projects which then either directly or indirectly provide a straight forward return to thecompany for example; a company working in Africa establishes a number of HIV programs toensure a healthy workforce, thereby lowering risk, and in doing so increases political support,raises worker moral and improves corporate reputation.