An Academic’s Perspective on the Role of Academics in Corporate Responsibility

This chapter begins by emphasising its personal nature. This is because my thoughts on this subject are necessarily based on personal experience, and because my work on corporate responsibility is premised on two disconcertingly questionable assumptions: first, that business can make a positive contribution to sustainable development, even in southern Africa (where I live and work), and second, that the academic practice of research and teaching assists to this end. This is in the context of opposing perspectives, also among academics, on whether business can, indeed, make a decisive difference. To some extent the tensions between these perspectives have led to important research and debates, but the chapter argues that there are significant constraints to the realisation of the academic ideal of open and informed debate. These constraints relate to the social and cultural context in which academics work and they pertain to the resource base of academic work, including access to finances and information, as well as the socialisation of researchers in peer groups and wider social networks. At the root of these challenges, are increasing cultural and economic pressures to perform according to particular standards, coupled to personal ambition driven by broader social trends. Hence, just as we academics are emphasising the development of business decision-makers as ‘whole persons’ – capable of transcending self-interest and instrumental rationality – it is questionable whether we are able to teach by example. The implication is that we, as academics, ought to revisit what whole personhood means and how we can foster it within ourselves, as we seek to foster it within the business community.