The following interview took place in conjunction with the “2009 Baden-Württemberg Sustainability Congress” and is imprinted in the Global Compact International Yearbook 2009 (published on August 1st 2009). The Yearbook can be ordered here. [http://www.macondo.de/macondo/de/bestellungen/index.php?script=/macondo/de/bestellungen/wScripts/produkt_details.php&article_id=GCYB_2009&top_product=1]
Ethics und business are often thought to be in tension und conflict with each other. How do you see the importance of ethics for the functioning of the social in market economy?
Ethics, in the form of a shared basic understanding of "right" values, such as dignity, freedom, justice, etc., are the foundation of the social market economy. Competition and legal foundations, both of which are essential for a market economy, lose their ability to function when people lose trust, and maintaining trust is always (also) a matter of the responsibility – or more generally: practiced values — of those active in the market economy. Tensions between ethics and business will always arise, but the goal is to find suitable investments that make ethics and business, responsibility and profit fruitful for each other.
With the current financial and economic crisis, trust in the market economy's advantages for society has reached an all-time low. How ca business and society come together again?
On the one hand, this is a problem of unfamiliarity: Many people understand too little about the market economy and what companies and managers achieve to have appropriate expectations; in other words, sometimes they have expectations that can't possibly be met. Here, education and communication are needed about what we can reasonably expect and what costs are associated with a market economy (for the market economy is still the best of all economic systems today, despite recent events).
On the other hand, it's also a question of the commitment of decision-makers and companies active in the economy to clearly recognise their responsibility and communicate this credibly. In this context, "credible" means ensuring that you don't make promises that you later can't keep, whether these are concrete promises to customers, suppliers or employees or general promises in the form of communicated values.
In many companies, a rediscovery of values has taken place in recent years. How can such a value system help companies responsibly flesh out the inadequate global order?
Here, too: Properly understood, values are the foundation for a company's ability to add value. Nobody wants to work for an irresponsible, unreliable company that Lacks integrity, nor does anyone want to buy its products. That also holds especially for global competition. And so it's no coincidence that a rediscovery of values is taking place at this time. Of course, it's critical that these values be pst into practice, and that requires investments in management training and development and in the governance structures. The values must be made consistent with the often challenging conditions of the company's daily work.
Implementation of values also demands mechanisms of guidance and control. These include, among other things, incentive systems, CSR management and compliance. Is this an important key for orienting innovation processes and company development on super ordinate, non financial goals?
I believe, yes! The previously mentioned task of integrating the values into day-to-day work has a lot to do with the mentioned compliance and incentive systems. What's important is to see both ofthem in context; in particular, employees must be made to understand why and how, for example, compliance measures nerve to implement values such as integrity.
CSR measures in the narrow Sense of corporate citizenship, that is, contributions, pro-bono activities, giving employees time off for social or ecological projects, etc., can also be an important component if professionally implemented. But such measures should not be equated with a company's responsibility; they're only part of it. Corporate responsibility involves first and foremost the core business — the way profits are earned.
Andreas Suchanek is the Dow Research Professor of Sustainability and Global Ethics at the Leipzig Graduale School of Management (HHL) and Chairman of the Wittenberg Center for Global Ethics.
