Web exercises

Web exercises

Business and HIV/AIDS

Examine the corporate responsibility challenges facing companies in different industries by exploring the examples of how firms are addressing HIV/AIDS:

Business and poverty

The following websites offer useful information and links on the often complex relationship business has with poverty, especially in developing countries:

ELDIS – www.eldis.org

A rich resource of materials about social and economic development worldwide. There is a special section on corporate responsibility, but it is well worth spending time exploring the rest of the site.

Earth Institute - www.earth.columbia.edu

The home of influential development economist Jeffrey Sachs, author of The End of Poverty (his BBC Reith Lectures on global poverty are available from the BBC website). There is a heated debate between Sachs and fellow economist, William Easterly (author of The White Man’s Burden), that is partly about the role of private enterprise.

World Bank - www.worldbank.org

Not only is this the homepage of one of the most important (and argulably, most criticized) organizations in tackling poverty, it is a useful portal to what is happening to address poverty globally.

Skoll Foundation - skoll.org/

Social entrepreneurship has attracted a lot of attention from the business world. This is the foundation set up by eBay entrepreneur, Jeff Skoll, and is a useful starting point for anyone wanting to find out what is happening in this field.

Gender Pay Gap

How bad is the pay gap between men and women, and why is it taking so long to improve?

Ethics of Artificial Intelligence

What does AI mean for the future of work, the workforce and the social responsibility of companies?

The state of corporate responsibility in different countries

Explore national and regional differences in corporate responsibility issues and approaches:

Responsible investment and ownership

Examine the ways that notions of responsible investment are influencing the way companies are owned, governed, and valued:

Is social auditing effective?

Learn more about how company performance is being audited and verified, and the debate about the effectiveness of current approaches:

Ethical Trading Initiative - www.ethicaltrade.org

Contains an interesting selection of reports and other materials that document the evolution of social auditing based on the experience of ETI’s corporate, NGO, and trade union members.

Verite – www.verite.org

Information about the labour rights monitoring, consulting, training and certification organization.

Social Accountability International - www.sa-intl.org

One of the earliest voluntary labour standards.

Consumer Goods Forum - www.theconsumergoodsforum.com

A business-driven programme aimed to unify companies working to deliver sustainable environmental improvements to their supply chains.

Irresponsibility and the executive

Explore views on whether executive pay and other facets of executive behaviour should be considered part of corporate responsibility:

In search of the fortune at the bottom of the pyramid

Discover examples of the bottom of the pyramid approach, and examine the arguments for and against commercial solutions to poverty:

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