Dear colleagues,
Please excuse the cross-posting.
The Research Network for Business Sustainability, in partnership with the Richard Ivey School of Business, recently held a dialogue forum on best practices in community engagement. The speakers and participants offered insights from both academic and practitioner perspectives.
A summary report is available at www.sustainabilityresearch.org/Docs/EngagingForumReport.pdf. Highlights include:
· Globalization is tipping the balance of power in favour of corporations; but this power is accompanied by increasing pressure on corporations to improve their social performance.
· Managers should engage stakeholders in project design early and often, and use stakeholder input to anticipate and avoid impacts.
· Increasingly, firms are shifting from supporting a non-profit organization to supporting a cause and the outcomes associated with it.
· Best practices in community engagement include: engage only if you are prepared to listen; get buy-in from senior management; have a community focal point; do not cherry-pick with whom you engage; do not change the rules mid-stream; use various communication methods and materials; be transparent, predictable, frank, reliable, available, responsive, and friendly.
· Engaging fringe stakeholders can lead to competitive imagination and innovation.
Interviews with the speakers and their presentation slides are available at www.ivey.ca/centres/building/engaging/Interview.htm.
Thanks to Dr. Tima Bansal and the Ivey Business School for funding and hosting the forum. Thanks to Dr. Robert Anderson (the report's lead author) and the Paul J. Hill School of Business for publishing the report. And thanks to Natural Resources Canada for financially supporting the forum.
Sincerely,
Tom Ewart, Managing Director
Research Network for Business Sustainability
www.SustainabilityResearch.org
Bridging Research in Business Sustainability with Practice
Richard Ivey School of Business, University of Western Ontario
1151 Richmond St., London, Ontario, Canada N6A 3K7
Tel: (519) 661-2111, x80094 Fax: (519) 661-3485