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by Bradley K. Googins, Ph.D., Center Executive Director
 September 2007
I’ve been quite taken by one of the sports columnist I slavishly follow who every so often has a feature he calls "emptying out my drawer." In that spirit, I thought as the academic year begins here at Boston College, it would be a great time to empty out my drawer and share a random set of interesting tidbits that have gathered — from scraps and clippings on my desk to bits of conversations and ideas.
- I was talking with a colleague who was recently posted to the Geneva (Switzerland) office of the United Nations. He told me that he was taken aback when he opened his first bill from the local electric company. The bill listed how many kilowatts of power he used that month and then provided five options for payment. The most expensive was a "green option" in which the power company would invest in alternative fuels; the least expensive stuck with fossil fuels.
It got me thinking about how distant and abstract corporate citizenship can seem, especially to customers. Sure, most of us know we can take our recyclables out to the curb, but just think if we could also influence the practices and investments of a company through something like an environmentally-friendly payment option. By the way, more than 80 percent of the residents in Geneva chose the green option!
- So I was trying to figure out what has fundamentally gone wrong with our society over the past 25 years. After looking at the inconsistencies and tragedies of our health care system in his film Sicko, Michael Moore keeps coming back to the same question: "Who are we?" It gives me pause to think: How could the United States, as a "developed" and wealthy country, allow such pain and suffering to occur among its citizens?
- I recently attended a day-long convening of the educational intelligentsia that focused on the role of business in education. I was struck that virtually every company is extremely concerned about the state of U.S. education and the declining standards, and so are devoting considerable resources, primarily on the local level, to address the problems. And after investing millions of corporate dollars, our educational system, by almost any measure, continues on a two-decade continuous slide downward. Like Michael Moore I want to ask our collective business community: "Why do we seem to be complicit in standing by watching this happen? Are companies throwing good and significant resources to the micro-issues (which are surely doing some good) while Rome burns? This would not be accepted behavior or performance in any other area of business — so why do we put up with this?"
- I was reading in a recent Barron's an interesting piece on corporate conscience and the issue of income inequality, which is showing up with some regularity in the media. Wages for non-management employees, adjusted for inflation, are 10 percent below 1970 levels, and average household income is barely above where it was in 1973. You have to wonder: At what point will the issues of inflated CEO compensation not tied to performance, and the backdating of options, take hold and bite the collective business community right where it hurts the most? Does this have the smell of an Enron-sized disruption, or build to the magnitude of the sub-prime lending practice now on our doorstep?
- The same Barron's article referenced Reginald Jones, who preceded Jack Welch as CEO of General Electric. In talks to the National Press Club and the Business Roundtable, he would propound his vision of the role of business in society in a manner we would never hear today. He viewed his responsibility as one that would be equally divided among shareholders, employees, American industry, and the nation. According to Barron's, by 1981 he had persuaded the entire Business Roundtable (arguably the premiere CEO organization) to look after the public policy interests of business and adopt his view that shareholder returns had to be balanced against other considerations. Wouldn't it be refreshing to have this type of corporate leadership in the 21st century?
- Finally, I wonder if the perfect storm is brewing with the impending 2008 Olympics in Beijing. With the almost monthly product recalls on toothpaste, dog food, textiles (pajamas that were not flame retardant), and more recently toys, the very brand of China is front and center. Add to that a parallel set of charges regarding human rights that continue to plague Chinese workplaces, and companies doing business with China (and who's not?) are collectively holding their breath as the spotlight of the Olympics gets stronger as the date approaches.
What is beginning to play out resembles the awkwardness of a pre-teen dance where each partner is uncomfortable, perhaps ill-suited, and extremely nervous. With this age of transparency and some very active NGOs salivating over the opportunity to make hay with the Olympics, this is going to be a very long year for both American business and the booming Chinese economy as the whole world watches. The supply chain relationship only seems to get more complex and difficult in China. Stay tuned.
- The professor in me always looks forward to September and what seems like the beginning of a new year. In that vein, I encourage you to take a look at our new Executive Education program. There are many new and challenging subjects being addressed as part of our improvement of the Certificate in Corporate Community Involvement program, and the introduction of the new Certificate in Advanced Corporate Community Involvement and the Certificate in Corporate Citizenship.
Until next month…
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