Corporate Responsibility

Corporate Responsibility is a term that has come to characterize a family of professional disciplines that help a corporation stay competitive by maintaining accountability to its four main stakeholder groups: customers, employees, shareholders, and communities. The professional disciplines included in the Corporate Responsibility field include: legal and financial compliance, business ethics, corporate social responsibility, public and community affairs, investor relations, stakeholder communications, brand management, environmental affairs, sustainability, socially responsible investing, and corporate philanthropy.

Business Ethics Magazine (acquired in August, 2006 by The CRO, or Corporate Responsibility Officer) has helped to define the field with its 100 Best Corporate Citizens list, published since 1998. The Corporate Responsibility industry, which includes all professional services purchased by for-profit and not-for-profit companies to maintain their levels of corporate responsibility, has been pegged by The CRO Magazine at $20 billion in 2005.

In the USA, the term has been closely associated with the corporate scandals (Enron, Tyco, Citigroup) of the 2000-2004 period and the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 that evolved in reaction. In the UK and Europe, the term is more generally associated with the local and Europe-wide regulations holding companies accountable to stakeholders.

Major membership organizations and media in the Corporate Responsibility industry include Business in the Community (bitc.org.uk), BSR.org, Open Compliance and Ethics Group (OCEG.org), Ethics and Compliance Officers Association (TheECOA.org), Society for Corporate Compliance and Ethics (SCCE.org), WBCSD.org, TheCRO.com, SIF, CERES, National Investor Relations Institute [1], ComplianceWeek.com, EthicalCorporation.com. The National Investor Relations Institute, known as NIRI, is the professional association for investor relations professionals in the United States. ...