The Smalrus Web Site

on the london seminar…

lauren says:
but enjoying the work, which you do, it shouldnt be that bad

28-18-5 says:
yeah because i find global stuff interesting on virtually every subject but accounting

28-18-5 says:
which is the subject in the world that i could care least about

28-18-5 says:
except maybe anthropology

(more…)

Today I finished reading about the Finnish and Danish models of CSR and started reading about Norway. The Finnish model seems to be based more on a high societal level of trust in corporations and a corporate reliance on managers who genuinely believe that acting responsibly is in the company’s best interests. The Danes tend to have higher governmental regulations on social responsibility, leading to a greater obligation for its companies to act not socially responsible, but socially inclusive as well. Government has also had a hand in trying to prove its own social responsibility with better hiring practices and more integrated dialoguing with companies and trade unions.

So what does this mean for American businesses? Well for starters, the Scandinavian social welfare models tend to be rather integrated into businesses themselves. As I see it, that gives these countries an edge on the corporate social responsibility rankings. Perhaps most integral to this edge is the scope under which trade unions play a legitimate and effective bargaining role between enterprise and labour. This also would suggest an inherent commitment to practising business in responsible manners.

In another book that I am reading, a topic that I would like to discuss is the idea of companies and their core competencies. When related to the Finnish and Danish corporate structures, it seems as though companies that integrate social responsibility and sustainability into their core competencies seem to be among the most profitable and the most trusted. Compare this to American businesses, where the structure and flow of dialoguing power is typically from corporations to government (a.k.a., lobbying) as opposed to a government to corporation flow. If anything, this is rather disadvantageous if American businesses are going to compete on the basis of CSR.

Questions, comments, thoughts or ideas?

no copyright infringements intended, but this is the montreal canadiens bike designed by jason pohl at orange county choppers. its a basic occ production bike, and obviously i chose to pick this design (off of their adobe flash player) since its the habs version of the bike. according to the specs, theres a 124″ twin-v engine, and 6 speed transmission. id like to know how much it costs, but i think it can now be added to my list of lifelong tangible goals (along with building my own in house recording studio)