Multinationals in Their Communities: A Social Capital Approach to Corporate Citizenship Projects

Multinationals are increasingly important players in global economic development. They offer a rare ability to link local, national and global communities and have the capacity to impact significantly on the quality of social relations within the communities in which they operate. A key way they do this is through their corporate citizenship projects, funded as part of their corporate social responsibility programmes. Such projects may involve, for example, youth training, venture capital funding, free drug distribution or community healthcare. This book seeks to analyse the nature and effectiveness of these projects using the theoretical and empirical insights of recent social capital literature. It does so by examining multinationals operating in South Africa, Mexico and Poland and by detailed case studies of Diageo, Anglo-American, GlaxoSmithKline and Vodafone. The authors demonstrate how multinationals can leverage their community engagement activities to greater effect and play a more significant role in building socially successful communities in developing countries.

Table of Contents:
Multinationals in their Communities: A Social Capital Approach to Corporate Citizenship Projects Corporate Citizenship: Definitions and Expenditure Key Players in the Corporate Citizenship Debate: CSR's Rapidly Evolving Institutional Matrix Social Capital and Multinationals Multinationals and Community Engagement in South Africa and Mexico Multinationals and Community Engagement in Poland Diageo and its Corporate Citizenship Programme Anglo American plc and its Corporate Citizenship Programme GlaxoSmithKline and its Corporate Citizenship Programme Vodafone Group plc and its Corporate Citizenship Programme What Makes for Good Corporate Citizenship Projects and Programmes? Learning the Lessons: What Directions Should Corporate Citizenship Programmes Take in the Future?

About the Author :
IAN W. JONES is a Management Lecturer at Somerville College, University of Oxford, UK, a Fellow of St Andrews Management Institute, UK, and DBA Research Director at the Edinburgh Business School, UK. He, together with Michael Pollitt, leads the Ethics, Regulation and Globalisation project at the Centre for Business Research, University of Cambridge, UK. MICHAEL POLLITT is a Reader in Business Economics at the Judge Business School, University of Cambridge, UK. He is also Fellow and Director of Studies in Economics and Management at Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge, UK. DAVID BEK is a freelance research consultant specialising in economic, social and development geographies. Since 2004 he has conducted research on corporate citizenship at the Centre for Business Research, University of Cambridge, UK.