Close to 500 business professionals representing some 200 companies attended The Center’s annual International Conference on Corporate Citizenship during the first week of April. The conference drew participants from 40 states and 23 nations. Major speakers at the event included Starbucks Coffee Company CEO Jim Donald, Harvard Business School Professor Rosabeth Moss Kanter, ImagineNations CEO Rick Little, futurist and author Andrew Zolli, and Tom McCoy, executive vice president for legal affairs and chief administrative officer of AMD.

The conference theme, "Mapping the Future of Corporate Citizenship: Redefining the Markers for Business Success," was present in each keynote speech and in the 20 workshops organized during the two-and-one-half-day event.

This is the largest conference focusing on corporate responsibility in the United States that is open exclusively to professionals working inside companies. This year’s conference also marked the 20th anniversary of The Center for Corporate Citizenship at Boston College and reflected how the work, once consigned to community relations professions has broadened during the past two decades. AMD, the presenting corporate sponsor and conference co-chair, was joined by 29 other sponsoring companies such as Accenture, Starbucks, Agilent, Coca-Cola, Nokia, UPS, Georgia-Pacific, FedEx and Merck.

Bradley K. Googins, executive director of The Center for Corporate Citizenship, provided the conference with its call to action. Referencing the conference theme, Googins referred to conference attendees as the “explorers” within companies that are seriously examining their role in society.

Corporate citizenship has become increasingly important in the business sector, he said, and even in the last three years, the jump in corporate citizenship in the United States and around the globe has been “amazing.”
 
Googins addressed the relevance of corporate citizenship work and trends in the field. In the face of corporate scandals and calls for increased transparency, he noted, a return to “values” has sprung up in the last few years. “The concept of values is making its way to the top of the agenda,” he said. “We can’t measure values, but the only sustainable anchor of corporate citizenship is its tie to values.”

Googins then spoke of the importance of involving employees in corporate citizenship endeavors. “The goodwill of the people involved is the only enduring thing in any business,” he stressed. “We need to bring employees into the heart of the operation and rethink the role of employees in corporate citizenship efforts.” In many companies, Googins noted, employees are an untapped resource who can bring a new face to corporate citizenship and help orient the business from the inside out. “Engaging employees is the only way to overcome the skepticism and distrust of business in society,” he said. “It’s the only way to authenticity in corporate citizenship. Engaging employees will unlock citizenship in a way never seen before.”

Googins encouraged conference attendees to shift the focus of corporate responsibility and begin by looking from the inside outward instead of the traditional method of capturing the outside environment and assessing how the company is managing those dynamics.

Googins concluded by reminding participants of the importance of their work. “We have such a unique opportunity in this world right now to make a difference,” he said.

» View presentations from conference sessions (members only)