Page 184 - Performance Leadership

Chapter 10 The Social Role of Organizations • 173

and closing the call center could be interpreted by unions, press, and cus-
tomers as a tactical retreat from the market, affecting consumer trust neg-
atively. Going for the bigger investment of call center virtualization by
connecting the various call centers, there is actually a slight improvement
in the social and environmental performance. The call center agents are
encouraged to speak multiple languages, which improves their position
on the market. The Islamic banking option still has considerable risk in
terms of competencies. When the organization decides to invest in it, it
will take a while before the organization starts benefiting from it. But
when it has built the competencies, the business impact can be huge.
CSR and business performance are not opposites if you manage
CSR as a business. That means CSR is an integral part of our per-
formance management practices as well. If you use a balanced score-
card, it is part of that as well. There are various ways in which to
integrate CSR into balanced scorecards. 14

• Traditional balanced scorecards could contain a few indicators
aimed at social and environmental factors
• A fifth dimension, the social and environmental perspective,
could be added. Initiatives aimed at improving the bottom line
should be balanced by, for instance, avoiding environmental
pollution and child labor.
• A balanced scorecard approach, specifically and only aimed at a
company’s CSR program, perhaps as a special scorecard, could
be cascaded from the organization’s overall scorecard.
• An organization could choose to integrate elements of the social
dimension in all other perspectives of the balanced scorecard.

When CSR is part of the business model itself, it makes sense to inte-
grate the social dimension in the other perspectives of performance.
CSR serves as a catalyst for improving performance in all areas of the
business. See Table 10.1.

The Customer Perspective
Corporate philanthropy and sponsorship have a place in an organiza-
tion’s business model. It positively affects public relations, and it should
have a role in aligning self-perception (wanting to do good) and