Coombs W. Timothy - 2012;2013;

Conceptualizing Corporate Social Responsibility

Home Depot, the worlds largest home improvement retailer, operates in the US, Canada, Mexico, and China. Home Depot supports Team Depot, a volunteer program led by store associates that participates in community programs.

Courtesy of Volunteer Canada

Apartheid is an historical artifact for many people reading this book rather than a current issue or reality. Apartheid was a severe, state-sanctioned racial segregation practiced in South Africa and what was then called Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe). A white minority used apartheid to oppress the indigenous black populations. In the 1970s, Dr. Leon Howard Sullivan, a US minister, plotted a corrective course of action that became known as the Sullivan Principles. The Sullivan Principles were designed to help end apartheid in South Africa by placing requirements on US corporations wanting to conduct business in South Africa. Box 1.1 lists the final seven points to the Sullivan Principles (Leon H. Sullivan Foundation, n.d.). The Sullivan Principles, along with the divestment campaign of the 1980s, did exert some pressure on the South African government. The divestment campaign worked in tandem with the Sullivan Principles. Investors were asked to divest (remove investments) from any US companies that did not adopt the Sullivan Principles. College campuses were a hotbed of activity for divestment pressures in the 1980s. Campus protests brought attention to the issue and pressured universities to cease investing in corporations doing business in South Africa. While the Sullivan Principles alone precipitated very little change, the divestment campaign is credited with having a significant effect on eradicating apartheid in South Africa.

Box 1.1 The Sullivan Principles

Non-segregation of the races in all eating, comfort, and work facilities.

Equal and fair employment practices for all employees.

Equal pay for all employees doing equal or comparable work for the same period of time.

Initiation of and development of training programs that will prepare, in substantial numbers, blacks and other nonwhites for supervisory, administrative, clerical, and technical jobs.

Increasing the number of blacks and other nonwhites in management and supervisory positions.

Improving the quality of life for blacks and other nonwhites outside the work environment in such areas as housing, transportation, school, recreation, and health facilities.

Working to eliminate laws and customs that impede social, economic, and political justice. (added in 1984)

Source : Leon H. Sullivan Foundation (n.d.).

The Sullivan Principles and related divestment efforts are indicators of corporate social responsibility (CSR) making a difference on a global scale. Fair treatment of workers and socially responsible investing are recognized today as CSR. The Sullivan Principles provide a foundation for socially responsible investing and, therefore, comprise a form of CSR as well. The focus of the Sullivan Principles was social improvement through the elimination of apartheid. The Sullivan Principles were not the first CSR effort or the first socially responsible investing guidelines to appear in the business world. However, the anti-apartheid efforts illustrated the potential power of CSR. Corporations were pressured to change their behavior not because their actions were illegal but because their actions failed to meet expectations for responsible behavior.