The challenges of the global financial crisis, cut-throat international competition and globalization, and the pressure to deliver profits to shareholders all create a difficult environment for business leaders to operate while following principles of social and environmental “responsibility.” This difficulty triggered Prof Henri-Claude de Bettignies, CEIBS Distinguished Professor of Globally Responsible Leadership, to team up with Prof Francois Lepineux, Head of the Centre for Responsible Business at Rennes School of Business (Brittany, France) to publish Business, Globalization and the Common Good  (2009, Peter Lang).

Sparked by weaknesses inherent in modern day globalization, Business, Globalization and the Common Good offers a powerful vision of corporations internalizing the “common good” to make the world a better place. The foregoing notwithstanding, there is nothing cliché about this book.

The work is logically organized into three sections, each consisting of five chapters. Part I offers a framework for understanding the language and historical teachings of the concept of “common good.” The contributions span theoretical, ethical and spiritual analyses. Without demeaning current corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives, the authors make a compelling case, stating that international businesses have a responsibility to go beyond CSR and pursue the global common good. Part II is even more practical, offering examples of companies (and even nations) that successfully strive to serve the common good in a globalized economy. The breadth of real-life illustrations readily counters the unspoken anxiety that global common good is a lofty, impracticable goal. Part III examines whether a global social contract (or even a world government) can be established to confront the unsettling failings of globalization.

 

Prof Henri-Claude de Bettignies

The collection is an unorthodox celebration of diversity - not merely in academic discipline and nationality, but in style and substance as well. Essays take guidance from places as incongruous as the United States Declaration of Independence and Nicaraguan politics; neo-Hobbesian realism and Rousseau’s romanticism; Pope Benedict XVI and atheist John Stuart Mill.

The majority of business leaders and academics are still grappling with the workings of CSR and stakeholder thinking. Yet, this book presciently looks beyond conventional CSR goals and asks soul-searching questions about social awareness. A fine balance is struck between acknowledging the enormity of the task and encouraging practical action. Business, Globalization and the Common Good offers a gateway in understanding the collaborative policy solutions necessary to conquer the inevitable failures of globalization.