The nature of global responsibility

Citation

Jones, G. (2010), "The nature of global responsibility", Journal of Global Responsibility, Vol. 1 No. 1. https://doi.org/10.1108/jgr.2010.46601aaa.001

The nature of global responsibility

Article Type: Editorial From: Journal of Global Responsibility, Volume 1, Issue 1

The title of the Journal of Global Responsibility was carefully chosen. There are many journals devoted to individual elements of a global responsibility interest, the titles of which include terms such as “corporate social responsibility” (CSR), “sustainability”, “governance”, “ethics”, “environment” and “leadership”. Global responsibility transcends all these terms. Pressing problems of globalised poverty, environmental decay and human rights require that all these elements and more need to be addressed in a holistic manner.

The problems are bigger than individuals and organisations, yet individuals and organisations are what we have to work with. The purpose of this journal is to harness the capacities of scholars to do what scholars do best: to develop the conceptual framework for a sense of global responsibility and to provide the research base that gives it credibility.

One meaning of “global” is inclusive. Global responsibility requires people in power to take account of a wider range of stakeholders when as they work through issues and arrive at decisions. It requires an enhanced ability to adopt multiple perspectives and appreciate multiple truths. To do this, we need a multi-disciplinary approach. We also need to bring to bear systems thinking and broad concepts such as equity and diversity. There is a place in the Journal of Global Responsibility for papers that apply both the disciplines that typically make up a business education – accounting and finance, operations, marketing and strategy and people and organisations – and the more fundamental disciplines, such as philosophy, sociology, psychology, economics, politics and history.

The Journal of Global Responsibility will not be the guardian of a particular approach. It is a place where scholars can make a positive impact on the problems that beset the world, regardless of whether those scholars operate qualitatively or quantitatively, whether they come from a positivist or phenomenological tradition or whether they have an appreciative or critical theoretic orientation.

The concept of global responsibility takes us beyond the CSR literature. CSR, by definition, pins responsibility on corporations and insists that they must address the rights of individuals. Global responsibility disrupts this simple connection, because it suggests that individuals also have responsibilities and corporations also have rights. Government and non-government agencies and social enterprises are also subject to global responsibility.

A global responsibility arises from enhanced capacity to act and an awareness that acts or omissions have consequences and secondary effects that can be felt beyond the immediate vicinity and across time. Singer (1972) once asked why a person would instinctively save a child drowning in a neighbour’s pool but not feel the same obligation to save a child starving in a far off country. Now, the person might respond that he/she has the capacity to save the child by direct action, whereas global responsibility would seem to suggest the need for a planetary reach. Money given to relief efforts might be siphoned by corrupt intermediaries or lost in poorly directed efforts. To change this is beyond the wit and power of the individual and leaves individuals feeling overwhelmed and helpless. However, responsibility can also be global in the sense that it is shared. Singer goes on to say that you would not excuse yourself and fail to save the child because others are standing in the same area and doing nothing. If institutions are weak they need to be strengthened. If vision is limited it needs to be broadened. This occurs through collective action and discourse.

The connection between the corporate embodied human and the privately embodied human is essential to the concept of global responsibility. There is no tolerance for the person who can go to church on Sunday and say “this is me” and then go to work on Monday and say I now act on behalf of the company. All action needs to be integrated if it is to be both sustainable and sustaining of people and their communities.

This issue provides a range of papers that contribute in their own way to the objectives of the journal. There are papers that rigorously examine fundamental concepts. Harald Bergsteiner and Gayle C. Avery develop a sophisticated and comprehensive model of responsibility and accountability. Dwayne Baraka’s paper brings the third sector into the discussion of global responsibility and also examines how concepts of responsibility operating on corporations and in non-governmental organizations (NGOs) colour the interactions and determine the sustainability of the partnership. Jonathan Smith and John Rayment provide a model that they call “globally fit leadership”, which is develops from their discussion of global responsibility as a paradigm. Their model includes the often missed or misunderstood spiritual dimension.

Carlos A. Rabasso and Javier Rabasso present a Chomskyan view of business education. Critical theory is especially important to a journal that seeks to expose the contradictions and ambiguities inherent in the capitalist project, and this particular journal wants to keep a weather eye on business education in particular.

In a more positivist vein, you will find Rosario Laratta’s identification of the factors that are associated with the adoption of electronic forms of advocacy. This is another paper which addresses the behaviour of NGOs and looks at them through a global responsibility lens. Papers that examine or improve the power of advocacy are important to the objective of getting stakeholders interests heard. Cynthia Clark Williams and Elies Seguí Mas examine the dilemma of central control and local variation as they evaluate the success of the European Union in regulating business ethics through its transparency directive. A paper that takes up the emancipation objective of critical theory, the interests in subjective perception of phenomenology and the analytic tools of science is Susan R. Madsen and Bradley J. Cook’s paper on transformative learning in the UAE. The paper will be of particular interest to those concerned with the status of women and who look to education to improve their position. Moving across to Canada, Tara Fenwick examines the concepts of responsibility from which small business people are operating. The Journal of Global Responsibility will publish studies such as these that are focused on regions to show how people on the ground are interpreting more universal themes.

The paper by Jorgen Randers and Paul Gilding is unorthodox for a scholarly journal in that it is written in an open style, even though it is based on sound scholarship. Its style will not be readily acceptable to some, but it meets this journal’s desire to provide challenging and thought provoking papers. It also overtly advances an agenda and seeks to build support behind a position. It is a writing partnership between a noted academic (Jorgen Randers) and a noted industrialist (Paul Gilding). It, therefore, represents the kind of partnership advocated by organisations such as the globally responsible leadership initiative as most likely to bring about positive global change.

Papers that appear in a globally responsible journal must be culturally intelligent. On some occasions, this will mean a mix of papers from individual cultures. On others, papers will have a cross-cultural focus. That said, the focus in selection of papers will be on the quality of each submission and its likely impact. It is a happy coincidence that the first issue contains nine papers from eight different countries.

Grant JonesEditor-in-Chief