The Global Compact Network: An historic experiment in learning and action

Corporate Social Responsibility Practices and Environmentally Responsible Behavior: The Case of The United Nations Global Compact

“…During the preliminary literature review, it became evident that there was not much empirical evidence available on CSR initiatives, especially regarding the UN GC, which has practically not been investigated empirically at all (Kell and Levin, 2002;Welford, 2004). 4 One reason for this might be that it is a new initiative.…”

“…It should be evident that developing a global organization with participants from all regions, religions, cultures, ideologies and beliefs, business areas and scientific disciplines is a difficult and time-consuming task (Kell and Levin, 2002;Küskü and Zarkada-Fraser, 2004). When also taking into account the multi-stakeholder perspective -with the inherent need of meeting the expectations of a diverse set of actors such as NGOs, governments, businesses, intergovernmental organizations, and trade unions -it is clear that a significant amount of time for removing start-up problems and adjusting the path is to be expected.…”

“…The basic idea is that the voluntary involvement of companies within the areas of human rights, labor rights, environmental degradation, and anti-corruption can encourage private innovativeness and concern within these areas in a manner that regulation has not been able to do adequately, thereby hastening the emergence of a more sustainable and just future (Kell and Levin, 2002).…”

Learning from Multi-Stakeholder Networks: Issue-Focussed Stakeholder Management

“…A prominent example is the United Nations Global Compact that aims to ''to underpin the new global economy'' (Annan, 1999) with ten principles enhancing human and labour rights, addressing environmental concerns and combating corruption. The Global Compact is designed as a network that fosters learning, policy-making and collaboration in implementing the principles (Kell and Levin, 2003). The participants participate in local networks, at a learning forum, policy dialogues and UN-business partnerships.…”

Corporations as Political Actors – A Report on the First Swiss Master Class in Corporate Social Responsibility

“…Such a dialogue, stimulating creativity, is also envisioned by authors in multistakeholder collaboration literature (e.g., Hemmati, 2002;Kell and Levin, 2003;Waddell, 2002) studying large scale roundtable processes in which multiple companies, NGOs and governmental bodies are involved and thus take place outside the walls of a single company. From my explorative study on company-NGO dialogues taking place 'within a single companyÕs walls,Õ based on in-depth interviews with dialogue participants from businesses as well as NGOs, a different picture emerges.…”