鸭子脚蹼的作用:企业的社会责任？笑话！

自从上个世纪六十年代开始，企业的社会责任这个词就一直萦绕在我们周围。但是实际上，直到最近十几年才真正走上舞台，大型跨国企业开始采用这个词来表明它们在非常认真的在其所经营的社区内产生积极的社会影响。

Some cynics felt that CSR was simply a marketing exercise, an attempt to reassure employees, garner consumer favour and stave off government regulation. Other more hawkish economists such as Milton Friedman were uncomfortable with the notion that companies had any moral obligation to society, famously stating "the social responsibility of business is to increase its profits".

一些愤世嫉俗的人觉得，企业的社会责任只是一个营销的措辞，借以试图让雇员安心、争取消费者的青睐并规避政府的管理的手段而已。一些更为强硬的经济学家，比如米尔顿·弗里德曼对这个概念特别厌恶，他认为公司对社会没有任何道德义务，他的名言是：“企业的社会责任就是增加自己的利润。”

To communicate their efforts companies such as PepsiCo, Shell and Barclays began to produce CSR reports which laid out all their positive impacts from charity donations and employee volunteering to supporting renewable energy production and promoting diversity. CSR reporting became so popular that even much maligned companies such as British American Tobacco felt that they too needed to communicate the benefits of their operations to society.

为了显示它们在这方面的努力，一些公司，比如百事可乐、壳牌和巴莱克银行等公司开始发布企业社会责任报告，列出了它们所有的积极影响，从慈善捐款和员工志愿者到支持再生能源产品和促进多样化等等。企业社会责任报告如此流行，即使备受争议的公司，如英美烟草公司也觉得它们需要向外界传递其工作对社会的益处。

As climate change and the environment came to the fore, CSR reports quickly evolved into sustainability reports and their emphasis became more focused on driving low energy solutions and mitigating the environmental impact of a company's operations.

随着气候变化和环境问题走向前台，企业社会责任报告很快发展成为连续的报告，报告的重点更加关注推动低能源消耗的解决方案和减轻企业经营对环境造成的影响方面。

While the language and emphasis of CSR has changed, one key problem remains. The adoption of CSR has been and continues to be reactionary, a response to a growing concern from employees, customers, and to an increasing extent investors, about the conduct of businesses. The principal drivers have been largely external rather than internal, calling into question whether those principals are core to the companies DNA.

尽管企业责任报告的语言和重点发生了变化，一个关键的问题却保持依旧。企业社会责任的采用一直是并且继续是保守者，是对来自雇员、消费者不断增长的关注的一种反映，也是对投资者关于企业行为的反映。主要的推动因素在很大程度上一直是外部而不是内部的，对这些推动因素是否是企业DNA的核心一直是有疑问的。

The explosion in popularity of social enterprises recently is a direct consequence of the inability of existing companies to grasp the new reality that a company's core purpose must be to deliver positive social impact and not to simply minimise negative impacts while ultimately focusing on maximising profit in the short-term.

近来，社会企业（经营活动不是以挣钱为目的，企业的发展目标是为了解决某个社会问题，社会企业的发展理念是以产生社会效益为基础，与社区是自下而上和由内向外的发展运动相结合。译者注）的爆炸性发展就是现有的公司不能适应新的现实环境的一个直接结果，这种新的现实要求企业最终在短期内实现利润最大化的同时，其核心目的必须是传递积极的社会影响，而不仅仅是把负面影响最小化。

As esteemed Professor at Harvard Business School, Michael E Porter wrote corporations must "create economic value in a way that also creates value for society by addressing its needs and challenges".

正如哈佛大学商学院那位受人尊敬的教授，迈克尔·E·波特所写到的那样“企业必须用通过恰当的方式处理自己的需求和挑战，以能够为社会创造价值的方式来创造经济价值。”

The comments are taken from a remarkable article in the Harvard Business Review where Porter lays out his concept of "shared value". Companies are urged to "reconnect company success with social progress" and "take the lead in bringing business and society back together".

这段评论是从哈佛商业评论上一篇著名的文章里引用来的，在文章中，波特教授列出了他关于“共同的价值”的概念。鼓励公司“把企业的成功和社会的进步重新联系起来”并“在让商业和社会重新团聚方面其到带头作用。”

You could be forgiven for thinking that these words had been lifted from the speech of a social entrepreneur to describe their business philosophy. But Porter is the father of modern business strategy and his Five Forces model has been universally taught to students of business for the last 30 years.

如果你认为这些话是从社会企业家描述他们商业哲学的演讲中摘抄出来的话，也是可以被原谅的。但是，波特教授是现代企业战略之父，最近30年，他的“五力”模型一直是商学院学生的课程。

While Porter doesn't mention the term explicitly, he is in effect calling on all businesses large and small to reinvent themselves as social enterprises and redefine their operations beyond profit maximisation towards addressing societal needs.

在波特教授没有明确的提到这个术语时，他在实际上一直呼吁所有的企业把自己改造成社会企业并重新定义他们的业务，不再以利润最大化为目标，而是朝满足社会需要的方向发展。

Placed in this context, CSR initiatives appear hopelessly inadequate. Particularly, as they have tended to exist as peripheral activities connected to the marketing function of companies and leveraged as a means to enhance reputation.

在这种背景下，企业社会责任显得明显不足。特别是当他们已经倾向于作为与公司的影响功能相联系的外围活动并作为提高声誉的方式而改变的情况下更是如此。

The extent to which companies, particularly large corporations, are able to embrace the shared value concept will depend on the attitudes of those leading them and the foundation on which they were built. In some cases, they will be able to seek inspiration from their history. Companies such as General Electric, Johnson & Johnson and SC Johnson have delivered profound positive social impacts, raising people's quality of life, improving healthcare and helping to develop basic hygiene standards. What inspired these companies was a combination of the profit motive and the desire to innovate and improve people's lives.

公司，特别是大企业，能够在多大程度上接受共同价值的概念依赖于这些企业领导者的态度以及这些公司之所以成立的基础。某些情况下，他们会从自己的历史中寻找灵感。像通用电器、强生和庄臣这样的公司，已经表现出了深远的、积极的社会影响，提升了人们的生活品质，改善了医疗条件并帮助开了基本的卫生标准。激励这些公司的是对利润的追求和创新与改善人们生活的愿望。

For other companies whose motive and inspiration is profit above any explicit social purpose, it will be more difficult to adjust.

对那些动机和激励主要来源于利润而非任何明确的社会目的的公司来讲，是难以适应的。

As we move towards the shared value model, more questions will be asked of companies. The measure will not simply be profit, but to what end profit is pursued, how it is gained and what is its impact. Whether it's the pollution of the environment by energy companies pursuing fossil fuels or the effect on child obesity from food companies promoting unhealthy snacks to infants; companies will no longer be able to separate themselves from the consequences of their operations, with taxpayers and governments paying for the resulting negative outcomes.

正当我们朝向共享价值模型的方向发展时，更多的关于公司的问题出现了。方法不仅仅是简单的利润，而是应该追求什么样的最终利润，如何获得利润以及这种行为的影响是什么。从事石油燃料经营的能源公司是否污染了环境或者向婴儿推销不健康快餐的食品企业是否对儿童肥胖带来不良影响；企业将不能再把它们与自己的经营活动的后果分开界限，而让纳税人和政府来承担消极的结果。

Companies cannot continue to pretend to serve society while simultaneously acting against it. Neither can they continue to give shareholder's interest primacy above the interests of the public. No amount of investment in charitable causes or employee volunteering can change that fact. The purpose of a company will be to create shared value, where business and society achieve success together.

企业不能在假装服务社会的同时危害社会。它们也不能再继续牺牲公众的利益来给给股东分配利润。没有任何向慈善事业的投资或者雇员志愿老大能够改变那样的事实。公司的目的将是创造共同价值，只有在这一点上，企业和社会才能够共同获得成功。

CSR is dead, long live social enterprise.

企业社会责任已死，社会企业长存。