CSR and Anti-Corruption: New Report from Transparency International

We often hear that corporate social responsibility, or corporate citizenship as it is often called in the business community, is more than philanthropy.  Its easy to agree with this statement.  But what does this “more than philanthropy” mean?  What is good corporate citizenship beyond financial contributions to a legitimate cause?

A new paper by Transparency International argues that fighting corruption is good corporate citizenship.  One of the issues highlighted in the paper is that in move towards non-financial reporting on companies’ activities, reporting on anti-corruption strategies is often lacking.

In 2007, TI commissioned a survey to probe company reporting on practices to combat bribery and corruption. The study, Transparency in Reporting on Anti-Corruption – A Report of Corporate Practices (TRAC) assessed the extent to which close to 500 leading companies have reported the strategies, policies and management systems they had in place for fighting bribery and corruption. In spite of some exemplary practices, only seven of the 486 companies reviewed achieved the top score while 151 received the lowest.

Overall, the paper is a good summary of the evolving field of social responsibility, various developments in the anti-corruption field, and how an aggressive stance against corruption by companies can be part of good corporate citizenship.

Published Date: April 06, 2010