Rethinking Corporate Social Engagement: Lessons from Latin America (review)

This Inter-American Foundation-nurtured project under the stewardship of Lester Salamon spans nearly 15 years of research about a new 'Alliance for Progress' in Latin America: Corporate Social Engagement (CSE, aka, corporate social responsibility). Readers may initially critique this as window-dressing for global capitalism and neo-liberal creep, or a new form of thinking among Latin American's national businesses and the multinational residents. Although the author is favorable about the quick gains CSE is making in the region, Latinamericanists should make this affordable tome a part of their personal libraries for a number reasons.

Benevolence in the region has been anchored historically in charitable organizations, church groups, and welfare-state functions. Large-scale Marshall Plan-like endeavors like John F. Kennedy's Alliance for Progress hurled nearly $10 billion at the region thinking that if Europe could be rebuilt, then Latin America could also be built up. Half a century later, Salamon has mustered up enough evidence -mostly from Mexico, Colombia, Argentina, and Chile—to demonstrate that the commonly held adage that CSE makes good businesses sense in the advanced capitalist nations of the industrial north, is also taking a toehold in Latin America and the Caribbean. The interface between the workings of capitalist operations and civil society will offer the reader of this thin volume examples drawn from corporate practices that will give pause, and perhaps even inspire. This is a book about the practice of new kinds of economic development and economic geographies that are ripe with research questions for graduate students and old hands alike.

Salamon aims to "assess the current reality of corporate social engagement "(p. 4) through a CSE pyramid that moves beyond the traditional business model of business philanthropy (narrow, ad hoc, individualist, paternalistic and external to the firm) to one that that is transformational. The latter constitutes the CSE pyramid, which from base to peak, consists of proliferation, professionalization, partnering, participation, and penetration. These "5 P's" form the substantive chapters (2 through 6) of the book. Although the author will surely be criticized for assuming that development is linear and these stages are mechanistic, the reality is that neither unfettered market capitalism nor centralized state planning have yielded the results that many governments desire. Accordingly, the CSE offers a 'third way' that will hopefully produce a Progressive Corporate Social model characterized as dispersed, strategic/institutionalized, collaborative, empowering, and internal to businesses.

Readers will not find a one-model-fits-all approach to firms' engagement with the downtrodden, vulnerable, indigent, homeless, or unemployed. Salamon is quick to side with David Vogel's interpretation about companies' reaching out to various stake-holders: "[CSE] is best understood as a niche rather than a generic strategy: it makes sense for some firms in some areas under some circumstances." Such (post-modern) relativism my disquiet readers, but the cases presented -whether for altruism or long-term market share—are compelling.

Mexico's BANMEX (social empowerment programs) and Bimbo Bakery Company (owner of Sara Lee and sponsor of Reforestamos México), Brazil's O Baticário (using natural rainforest products in cosmetics), Chile's Techo para un País (efforts to eradicate homelessness) and Minera Escondida (efforts to build schools) are just a few of the examples provided. Indeed, Salamon's book, drawing on 141 personal interviews with key players in the CSE forefront, and more than a hundred books, articles and reports, is a rich resource for exploring how CSE has faired across the hemisphere.

The most engaging reading might be the section on proliferation ("The Supply Side: Diffusion Agents") where cases are presented in more detail than most. This includes works done by Instituto Ethos, CEMEFI (Centro Mexicano para Filantropía), and Argentine and Chilean manufacturing associations. Engaging too is the section on 'backward linkages: engaging employees" (pp. 52-56) where solid outcome measures from the actions of Microsoft Colombia, Fundação Telefônica...