Cross Cultural Aspects of Corporate Social Responsibility

Dear friends,

After a break for writing, work and travel I am back addressing this topic. The simplest approach to the cross cultural aspects of corporate social responsibility is seen through the fact that trust is established in each culture in its own, culturally appropriate manner. Establishing trust in the USA, which is usually the cultural backdrop of the many books written on the establishemnt of trust, is totally focused on the USA values and practices. Establishing trust in Mexico has to be done in a manner that honors the values and practices within Mexico, and the same is true for each nation in our global working world.

With the concept of establishing and maintaining culturally appropriate trust, a corporation's approach to corporate social responsibility in each nation where it is doing business, must also be planned, established and maintained in a culturally appropriate manner. Corporate social responsibility is an aspect of trust. Trust in any nation functions on many levels. One of the levels of trust, as Steven R. Covey demonstrates in his book THE SPEED OF TRUST, is "Social Trust, The Principle of Contribution". (page 272) This is a very tangible expression of the fact that trust within each nation where a corporation is doing business, must function within the society of that nation's culture. "Business cannot succeed in societies that fail.", as Jorma Ollila, then Chairman and CEO of Nokia is quoted as saying in Covey's book. (page 282) So when a corporation is planning its corporate social responsibility approach and implementation, as well as its maintenance of that policy, the coporation must understand its own national and thus corpoate culture and then the national culture of each nation which will benefit from its corporate social responsibility policy.

For such guidance we at LiSimba would welcome the opporutnity to work with each member of a corporation's corpoate social responsibility planning team in order to maximize the benefits for the nations where the policy will be implemented and of course to maximize the beneifts flowing to the implenting multinational corporation.

Warm regards,

Jane

Jane E. Smith, Esq.
LiSimba Consutling Services, Inc.
Building Relationships for International Business Success
www.lisimba.com
jsmith@lisimba.com