Contest ISO 26000:
What does social responsibility mean to you?

Anticipating social responsibility

by Shahla Seifi and David Crowther

As individuals, social responsibility is expected of us; increasingly it is also expected of organisations. That much is certain. But what is less certain is exactly what is meant by social responsibility – certainly as far as organisations are concerned. We all claim to be able to recognise irresponsible behaviour – but mostly it is behaviour which we do not agree with – and so obviously claim to be able to recognise socially responsible behaviour in the same way. But if we say that for each of us socially responsible behaviour is behaviour with which we agree then we are stating that there are no universal standards. Thus standards must be set by the majority or, as is more likely, determined by the most powerful. Then such standards need to be adhered to by everyone whether agreed with or not.

It might seem intuitively reasonable to determine social responsibility in this manner. After all democracy is based upon the will of the majority, and all societies, whether democratic or not, are based upon the need for each citizen to accept the norms of their civil society. So all must function in an agreed upon manner in that society. This is the basis of Rousseau’s social contract philosophy and probably necessary in all societies with large populations. The downside of course is that all members of a society must adhere to the norms whether they believe in them or not – or run the risk of being criminalised. For many aspects of life this is not a problem and helps society to function much better, but when we consider social responsibility it starts to become a problem. Our conceptions of social responsibility are based upon our ethical understanding and are different for each of us. They are formed by such things as family background, education, religious belief, cultural experiences and the behaviour of friends and significant people. So they are different for all of us and this difference is one source of conflict in society and in the world as different ethical positions and beliefs collide and promote different behaviours.

Again often this is not a problem but when we are considering social responsibility there are many positions which are right – or can be considered as right by different people. And one of the features of social responsibility is that there are conflicting expectations, all of which are reasonable. But not all are possible so we need to prioritise them: and each of us will prioritise differently. So one of us might prefer the protection of human rights in the workforce of a less developed country while another of us might prefer the conservation of the environmental resources for future benefit.

Both decisions are socially responsible but both are often not possible – we must choose one or the other. And a socially responsible environment must let us choose and must let us accept the choice of others. We must make choices and this is the nature of ethical dilemmas when we are considering socially responsible behaviour. This raises the big question of how to manage social responsibility when it can (and should) be defined differently and enacted differently by different people – but must be acceptable to all.

This is the essential dilemma regarding social responsibility. And if it applies to each of us as individuals it is very apparent that it applies also to organisations which are trying to behave in a socially responsible way. So what is needed is a mechanism to give guidance concerning social responsibility and its reporting but it must be a system which is flexible and not prescriptive. It must be able to adapt to different priorities for different organisations and flexible enough to change over time if it is going to be robust and long lasting. ISO 26000 seems to be just such a mechanism to achieve this purpose. It is intended to give guidance and to be flexible. Most certainly it has been designed to not be prescriptive.

This is exactly what is needed for this kind of standard so that it can appeal to all organisations and all differing priorities. It is of course a voluntary standard and some might see this as a weakness – we see it as a strength. People – and organisations – behave in a socially responsible way because they want to and believe that it is the right thing to do or they behave in a socially responsible way because of peer pressure. For an organisation peer pressure can be interpreted as social expectation stemming from customers, employees and investors as well as from society as a whole.

Most certainly people do not behave in a socially responsible way just because regulations force them to. So we cannot expect organisations to behave socially responsible because they are regulated into do so. Regulations do not lead to good behaviour – rather they lead to effort being expended in seeking ways to achieve minimal compliance – compliance with the letter of the regulation rather than its spirit. Social responsibility however is concerned with the spirit of behaviour – how it becomes manifest is variable for different organisations, different cultures and different times.

In short therefore we have high hopes of this standard as having popular appeal so that it will be picked up and used in many different environments around the world. Its strength is its flexibility and lack of prescription – an ethos which fits social responsibility perfectly.