1Fondazione per la Diffusione della Responsabilità Sociale delle Imprese (I-CSR)

Corporate Social Responsibility: the role of Private-Public Partnership

Giovanna BottaniI-CSR FoundationSenior Researcher

Fifth Annual Forum on Business Ethics and Corporate

Social Responsibility in a Global Economy

2Fondazione per la Diffusione della Responsabilità Sociale delle Imprese (I-CSR)

The Foundation

Founded by Financial act in 2005 - Art.1, paragraph 160

The Italian Centre for Social Responsibility (I-CSR) is an independent think tank established by the Italian Government with the following promoting founders:Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs;INAIL (Italian Workers' Compensation Authority);Unioncamere (Italian Union of Chambers of Commerce); Bocconi University.

I-CSR aims at:Promoting the diffusion of social responsibility in the relationships with the different stakeholders;Developing basic and applied research on social responsibility to support Italy's contributions to the national and international scientific communities working on this theme; Fostering the dialogue between public and private institutions, businesses, universities and various stakeholders interested in social responsibility.

3Fondazione per la Diffusione della Responsabilità Sociale delle Imprese (I-CSR)

The research and its major targets

To study the trend of research “ the new social partnership”, that is spreading throughout Europe and more recently across Italy ;

To verify and compare partnerships’ processes in Italy;

To contribute to the spread of the new social partnership as a possible tool for the implementation of CSR.

4Fondazione per la Diffusione della Responsabilità Sociale delle Imprese (I-CSR)

Methodology

The methodology is composed of three steps Documental Analysis

Focus on the PPP phenomenon in Europe and in Italy.

Definition of: “ the new social partnership” The “new social partnership” of Simon Zadek as role model.

Facts’ Analysis Selection of the Italian companies that communicated through Sustainable

Development Reports their engagement in partnerships with public administrations and civil society in the last two years ( 58 SD Reports out of 115 were regarded as useful )

On line form to the 22 companies supporting the research Direct interviews with MNEs operating in Italy On line form to the local authorities of the 106 Italian provinces and of the 15

metropolis

5Fondazione per la Diffusione della Responsabilità Sociale delle Imprese (I-CSR)

Multisector formal agreement that combines synergically resources and skills in order to reach a social common goal whose benefits fall back on the

partners and their Stakeholders.

For multisector agreement we mean an agreement among the Public Sector, Companies and Civil Society.

For synergic combination of resources and skills we mean the union of partners' abilities and tools that are

merged together in order to reach a common goal.

What is a Partnership: our definition

6Fondazione per la Diffusione della Responsabilità Sociale delle Imprese (I-CSR)

• Allianz

• ABB

• Banca Credito Cooperativo del Garda

• Banca Credito Cooperativo Ravennate e Imolese

• Banca Credito Cooperativo di Roma

• Banca Etica

• Banca Popolare di Milano

Interviewed companies

• Edison

• Eni

• Gruppo Hera

• Intesa San Paolo

• Italcementi

• Microsoft

• Monte dei Paschi di Siena

• Snamretegas

• Telecom

7Fondazione per la Diffusione della Responsabilità Sociale delle Imprese (I-CSR)

Details of interviewed companies

Who answered the on-line survey Economic Sector

Dimension Location

CSR Manager55%

Other 22%

HR Manager 6%

Corporate Communication17%

Insurance5%

Services 5%

Banks

48%

Utility16%Large Scale Retail

trade 5%

Industry 21%

Above 250 Employees

84%

Up to 50 Employees 0% From 50 to 250

Employees 16%

North 68%

South 0% Centre 32%

8Fondazione per la Diffusione della Responsabilità Sociale delle Imprese (I-CSR)

Reasons why companies start a partnership

Strategic choice more than answers to particular requests

59%

35%

84%

100%

16%

External Stakeholders

Internal Stakeholders

Socio-economiccritical states

CSR Strategy

Negative externalities

9Fondazione per la Diffusione della Responsabilità Sociale delle Imprese (I-CSR)

Stakeholders involved in the process

… The shareholders too…

External Internal

Others 7%Universities 11%

Clients 4%

Public Administration 28%

Non Profit 25%

Civil Society 25%

25%

Management 58%

Employees15%

Shareholders27%

10Fondazione per la Diffusione della Responsabilità Sociale delle Imprese (I-CSR)

Why the Public sector?

Know-how and better understanding of local issues

32%

58%

58%

63%

84%

84%

89%Better understanding oflocal criticalities

Credibility

Better local efficacy

Multisectorial approach

To respond tostakeholders' expectations

Network

New Skills

11Fondazione per la Diffusione della Responsabilità Sociale delle Imprese (I-CSR)

Why the Third Sector ?

Stakeholder Expectations + Know-how and better understanding of local issues

42%

53%

84%

58%

79%

63%

79%Better understanding of

local criticalities

Credibility

Better local efficacy

Multisectorial approach

To respond tostakeholders' expectations

Network

New Skills

12Fondazione per la Diffusione della Responsabilità Sociale delle Imprese (I-CSR)

Who is the driver ?

Diffused balance among the partners

Public sector

32%

Company36%

Third Sector32%

13Fondazione per la Diffusione della Responsabilità Sociale delle Imprese (I-CSR)

Partnership’s process

Planning

Economic

Resources IMPLEM Follow-up

Know How Infrastructure

Partners' contributions

0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100% Planning

Implementation

Monitoring

Economic Resources

Know How

Infrastructures

P.A. Company Third Sector

14Fondazione per la Diffusione della Responsabilità Sociale delle Imprese (I-CSR)

Problems and solutions

The cited solutions are: Planning, dialogue, knowledge’s improvement, pilot projects and medium-long term relations (68%).

Recurrent problems:

32%

53%

21%

16%

16%

5%

32%

Lack of Communication

Organizational problems

Planning's problems

Unsuited economicresources

Difficult social andeconomic context

Political issues

Differences of approach

15Fondazione per la Diffusione della Responsabilità Sociale delle Imprese (I-CSR)

Results: Internal Stakeholders

Better work atmosphere among the company staff, employees retention, access to more complete pieces of information.

89%

53%

11%

47%

47%Human capital's improvement

Organizational improvement

Better access to economicresources

Access to others' knowledge

Brand improvement

16Fondazione per la Diffusione della Responsabilità Sociale delle Imprese (I-CSR)

External stakeholdersEconomic, social and cultural development, accompanied by a general improvement in the quality of business products and services

5%

47%

68%

74%

95%

42%

58%

32%

63%

21%

53%

84%Local economic development

Improvement in job offers

Improvement in the infrastructural supply

Improvements in companies' services

Improvements in medical services

Improvement in the educational offers

Improvement in the quality of life

Improvement in the environmental quality

Improvement in the social dialogue

Cultural promotion

Promotion in research and development

Other

17Fondazione per la Diffusione della Responsabilità Sociale delle Imprese (I-CSR)

The process

Better social awareness: partnerships seem to catch up with the goals but they do not go further

42%

63%

79%

Better efficiency

Better effectiveness

Stronger socialawareness

18Fondazione per la Diffusione della Responsabilità Sociale delle Imprese (I-CSR)

The public partner

Difficulties and obstacles to a full comprehension of the issue :

Indifference toward the CSR theme (7 answers

out of the 605 council departments we contacted )

Difficulties of communication : words such as

public, or private some times are not clear and do

not have the same meaning for every subject

Internal Communication: there is no dialogue

among the different council departments and

information sharing.

Lack in coordination

There is not a common negotiating table !

19Fondazione per la Diffusione della Responsabilità Sociale delle Imprese (I-CSR)

Conclusions: “The keys of success”

Understand contexts: Detailed analysis, map of the key issues determining

the roles of the different constituencies.

Common purpose: The individual goals should be turned into a common

scope toward which all the partners devote their resources

Synergy among partners: Individual skills and capacities should become

tools to meet partnerships’ scope

Governance: Based on the evaluation of the context + bidirectional

communication + common language; Duties and rights based on the different

roles

Qualitative and quantitative measurement and evaluation of the results