Fifth Annual Forum on Business Ethics and
Corporate
Social Responsibility in a Global Economy
Corporate Social Responsibility:
the role of Private-Public Partnership
Giovanna Bottani
I-CSR Foundation
Senior Researcher
Fondazione per la Diffusione della Responsabilità Sociale delle Imprese (I-CSR)
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The Foundation
Founded by Financial act in 2005 - Art.1, paragraph 160
The Italian Centre for Social Responsibility (I-CSR) is an independent think
tank established by the Italian Government with the following promoting
founders:
Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs;
INAIL (Italian Workers' Compensation Authority);
Unioncamere (Italian Union of Chambers of Commerce);
Bocconi University.
I-CSR aims at:
Promoting the diffusion of social responsibility in the relationships with the different
stakeholders;
Developing basic and applied research on social responsibility to support Italy's
contributions to the national and international scientific communities working on this
theme;
Fostering the dialogue between public and private institutions, businesses,
universities and various stakeholders interested in social responsibility.
Fondazione per la Diffusione della Responsabilità Sociale delle Imprese (I-CSR)
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The research and its major targets
 To study the trend of research “ the new social partnership”, that is
spreading throughout Europe and more recently across Italy ;
 To verify and compare partnerships’ processes in Italy;
 To contribute to the spread of the new social partnership as a possible tool
for the implementation of CSR.
Fondazione per la Diffusione della Responsabilità Sociale delle Imprese (I-CSR)
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Methodology
The methodology is composed of three steps
 Documental Analysis
 Focus on the PPP phenomenon in Europe and in Italy.
 Definition of: “ the new social partnership”
 The “new social partnership” of Simon Zadek as role model.
 Facts’ Analysis
 Selection of the Italian companies that communicated through Sustainable
Development Reports their engagement in partnerships with public
administrations and civil society in the last two years ( 58 SD Reports out of
115 were regarded as useful )
 On line form to the 22 companies supporting the research
 Direct interviews with MNEs operating in Italy
 On line form to the local authorities of the 106 Italian provinces and of the 15
metropolis
Fondazione per la Diffusione della Responsabilità Sociale delle Imprese (I-CSR)
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What is a Partnership: our definition
Multisector formal agreement that combines
synergically resources and skills in order to reach a social
common goal whose benefits fall back on the partners
and their Stakeholders.
For multisector agreement we mean an agreement among
the Public Sector, Companies and Civil Society.
For synergic combination of resources and skills we
mean the union of partners' abilities and tools that are
merged together in order to reach a common goal.
Fondazione per la Diffusione della Responsabilità Sociale delle Imprese (I-CSR)
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Interviewed companies
•
Allianz
•
Edison
•
ABB
•
Eni
•
Banca Credito Cooperativo del
Garda
•
Gruppo Hera
•
Intesa San Paolo
Banca Credito Cooperativo
Ravennate e Imolese
•
Italcementi
•
Microsoft
Banca Credito Cooperativo di
Roma
•
Monte dei Paschi di Siena
•
Snamretegas
•
Telecom
•
•
•
Banca Etica
•
Banca Popolare di Milano
Fondazione per la Diffusione della Responsabilità Sociale delle Imprese (I-CSR)
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Details of interviewed companies
Large Scale Retail
trade
5%
CSR Manager
55%
Utility
Industry
21%
16%
Services
5%
Insurance
5%
Other 22%
HR Manager
6%
Corporate Communication
17%
Banks
48%
Who answered the on-line survey
Economic Sector
Dimension
Location
Above 250
Employees
84%
North
68%
Up to 50
Employees 0% From 50 to 250
Employees 16%
South 0%
Fondazione per la Diffusione della Responsabilità Sociale delle Imprese (I-CSR)
Centre
32%
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Reasons why companies start a partnership
Strategic choice more than answers to particular requests
Negative externalities
16%
CSR Strategy
100%
Socio-economic
critical states
Internal Stakeholders
External Stakeholders
84%
35%
59%
Fondazione per la Diffusione della Responsabilità Sociale delle Imprese (I-CSR)
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Stakeholders involved in the process
… The shareholders too…
External
Universities 11%
Others 7%
Internal
Civil Society 25%
25%
Shareholders
27%
Clients 4%
Public Administration
28%
Non Profit
25%
Employees
15%
Fondazione per la Diffusione della Responsabilità Sociale delle Imprese (I-CSR)
Management
58%
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Why the Public sector?
Know-how and better understanding of local issues
New Skills
Network
To respond to
stakeholders' expectations
Multisectorial approach
32%
58%
58%
63%
Better local efficacy
Credibility
Better understanding of
local criticalities
Fondazione per la Diffusione della Responsabilità Sociale delle Imprese (I-CSR)
84%
84%
89%
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Why the Third Sector ?
Stakeholder Expectations + Know-how and better understanding of local issues
42%
New Skills
53%
Network
To respond to
stakeholders' expectations
Multisectorial approach
84%
58%
79%
Better local efficacy
Credibility
63%
Better understanding of
local criticalities
Fondazione per la Diffusione della Responsabilità Sociale delle Imprese (I-CSR)
79%
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Who is the driver ?
Diffused balance among the partners
Company
36%
Third Sector
32%
Public sector
32%
Fondazione per la Diffusione della Responsabilità Sociale delle Imprese (I-CSR)
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Partnership’s process
Planning
Resources
Economic
Know How
IMPLEM
Follow-up
Infrastructure
Partners' contributions
Infrastructures
Know How
Economic
Resources
Monitoring
Implementation
Planning
0%
20%
40%
P.A.
Company
60%
80%
100%
Third Sector
Fondazione per la Diffusione della Responsabilità Sociale delle Imprese (I-CSR)
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Problems and solutions
Recurrent problems:
Differences of approach
Political issues
Difficult social and
economic context
Unsuited economic
resources
Planning's problems
32%
5%
16%
16%
21%
53%
Organizational problems
Lack of Communication
32%
The cited solutions are: Planning, dialogue, knowledge’s improvement, pilot
projects and medium-long term relations (68%).
Fondazione per la Diffusione della Responsabilità Sociale delle Imprese (I-CSR)
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Results: Internal Stakeholders
Better work atmosphere among the
company staff, employees retention, access
to more complete pieces of information.
89%
Brand improvement
53%
Access to others' knowledge
Better access to economic
resources
11%
Organizational improvement
47%
Human capital's improvement
47%
Fondazione per la Diffusione della Responsabilità Sociale delle Imprese (I-CSR)
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External stakeholders
Economic, social and cultural development, accompanied by a
general improvement in the quality of business products and
services
Other
5%
47%
Promotion in research and development
68%
Cultural promotion
74%
Improvement in the social dialogue
42%
Improvement in the environmental quality
95%
Improvement in the quality of life
58%
Improvement in the educational offers
32%
Improvements in medical services
63%
Improvements in companies' services
Improvement in the infrastructural supply
Improvement in job offers
21%
53%
Local economic development
Fondazione per la Diffusione della Responsabilità Sociale delle Imprese (I-CSR)
84%
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The process
Better social awareness: partnerships
seem to catch up with the goals but they
do not go further
Stronger social
awareness
79%
63%
Better effectiveness
Better efficiency
42%
Fondazione per la Diffusione della Responsabilità Sociale delle Imprese (I-CSR)
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The public partner
Difficulties and obstacles to a full comprehension of the issue :
 Indifference toward the CSR theme (7 answers
out of the 605 council departments we contacted )
 Difficulties of communication : words such as
public, or private some times are not clear and do
not have the same meaning for every subject
 Internal Communication: there is no dialogue
among the different council departments and
information sharing.
 Lack in coordination
There is not a common negotiating table !
Fondazione per la Diffusione della Responsabilità Sociale delle Imprese (I-CSR)
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Conclusions: “The keys of success”
 Understand contexts: Detailed analysis, map of the key issues determining
the roles of the different constituencies.
 Common purpose: The individual goals should be turned into a common
scope toward which all the partners devote their resources
 Synergy among partners: Individual skills and capacities should become
tools to meet partnerships’ scope
 Governance: Based on the evaluation of the context + bidirectional
communication + common language; Duties and rights based on the
different roles
 Qualitative and quantitative measurement and evaluation of the results
Fondazione per la Diffusione della Responsabilità Sociale delle Imprese (I-CSR)
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