Chapter 1:“Blessed
are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”
I have been a member
of the Corporate Social Responsibility Committee for two different Fortune 500 companies. In my role as operations executive,
I have managed thousands of people in the global marketplace and have come to realize that companies succeed if they have
a vision, a lot of passion and energy, and the right combination of people, process, and technology. Success certainly doesn’t
happen spontaneously.
Chapter 2: “Blessed
are they who mourn, for they shall be comforted.”
John XXIII teaches us that it is a reality that all
human beings could have enough to eat, basic education, and basic health if men would just start following God’s will;
this teaching is important and its application urgent. “Today the peoples in hunger are making a dramatic appeal to
the peoples blessed with abundance”.
Chapter
3: “Blessed are the meek,
for they shall inherit the earth.”
In this chapter we will learn about the different
theories that form the basis of Corporate Social Responsibility. The concept of social responsibility is so critical to the guaranteed
future performance of a corporation that I wanted to go beyond what has already been written and find the foundation of all
those strategies that are now being implemented, understand how they connect with each other, and predict the evolution of
CSR policies. And it is very evident that what the CSR charters are looking for now is for a complete answer to the question:
How can corporations participate actively and lead the real integral development of men as members of society and invaluable
assets of any company?
Chapter
4: "Blessed are they who hunger and thirst for righteousness,
for they shall be satisfied.”
I found a parallelism between the development of
CSR charters and the effort carried out by the popes of the Catholic Church to develop a doctrine for all humans to deal with
the social problems. During the research, it was very evident that what we today know as a Corporate Social Responsibility
Charter is a subset of a more complete moral code. The popes had already seen this analogy and, pressured by many Catholics
who were “hungry and thirsty of righteousness,” have since Leo XIII steadily defined a doctrine that was summarized
and published in the Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church (Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, 29 June, 2004).
Chapter
5: “Blessed
are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy.”
We get to the essence of this book. We are going
to walk together along a path surveying all social responsibility aspects of any given company, comparing what is now happening
with the approach that the Catholic Church has advocated since 1891.
Chapter
6: “Blessed
are the pure of heart, for they shall see God.”
Corporate Social Responsibility opened the window
of fresh, pure, air into business management. Ethical behavior, sustainable development, climate change and energy conservation
activities, increase of employee participation, diversity―are all concepts developed under the umbrella of Corporate
Social Responsibility.
Chapter
7: “Blessed
are the peacemakers, for they shall be called children of God.”
There is a moral reason for work. “Man must
work, both because the Creator has commanded it and because of his own humanity, which requires work in order to be maintained
and developed. Man must work out of regard for others, especially his own family, but also for the society he belongs to,
the country of which he is a child, and the whole human family of which he is a member, since he is the heir to the work of
generations and at the same time a sharer in building the future of those who will come after him in the succession of history.
All this constitutes the moral obligation of work” .
Chapter
8: “Blessed
are they who are persecuted for the sake of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”
The “social question” has evolved from
a class issue (East-West conflict) to a world issue (North-South) and seemingly affects the entire globe. Economic globalization
is acting as an equalizer in different aspects of human development.
Chapter
9:
CONCLUSION. The Thundering Voice claimed in the desert.
Paul VI deals with the heart of the problem by declaring
that “the economy is at the service of man.” What does this mean exactly and how do corporations that have a responsibility
to increase shareholder value deal with this fact?
