Editorial Announcement

From the Editor

March 2013 is a special issue on “The United Nations Global Compact: Retrospect and Prospect.” The guest editors are Andreas Rasche (Copenhagen Business School), Sandra Waddock (Boston College), and Malcolm McIntosh (Griffith University, Australia). This distinguished international editorial team, operating from three continents, organized the special issue process and selected three research articles for publication. The guest editors additionally commissioned an article by Georg Kell, Executive Director of the UN Global Compact Office at the United Nations in New York City, reflecting on the growth of the Global Compact since its establishment. There is also a commissioned article on the Global Compact as a CSR milestone by James E. Post (Boston University).

The introductory essay of the guest editors explains in greater detail the purpose and composition of the special issue, so the discussion here will be brief. The research article by Jean-Pascal Gond (City University London) and Valeria Piani (Head of Investor Engagement, Principles for Responsible Investment) examines the Principles for Responsible Investment (PRI) initiative. The research article by Maureen A. Kilgour (Université de Saint-Boniface, Canada) examines gender inequality in relationship to the Global Compact. The research article by Dirk Ulrich Gilbert (University of Hamburg) and Michael Behnam (Suffolk University) applies a network theory perspective to trust in the Global Compact. The special issue is completed by a review essay prepared by Arno Kourula (University of Amsterdam Business School, after completing a postdoctoral appointment at Stanford University) under the editor’s approval. The review essay assesses the book edited by Andreas Rasche and Georg Kell on The United Nations Global Compact: Achievements, Trends, and Challenges (Cambridge University Press, 2010). The editor felt that the review essay should appear with this special issue.

The introductory essay, the commissioned articles, the research articles, and the review essay constituting this special issue provide a good body of current information and scholarship on the Global Compact. The guest editors and authors form an internationally diversified set of contributors (with institutional affiliations in Australia, Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, and the United States). That diversity, while not fully global, is in keeping with the nature of the Global Compact.

The journal’s interest is in promoting scholarship concerning how the Global Compact advances and refines corporate social responsibility (CSR) and sustainability. This special issue is timely. The Global Compact is a matter of some continuing controversy concerning the role of business, the specificity and implementation feasibility of the ten principles, and the absence of verification mechanisms (see Rasche, 2009, for an analysis). In January 2008, the Global Compact initiated a procedure for delisting companies including for failure to submit in a timely fashion the required annual self-assessment report (Communication on Progress).

In this context, it is worth noting that Sandra Waddock and Andreas Rasche, two of the guest editors, have recently published a book on Building the Responsible Enterprise: Where Vision and Values Add Value (Stanford Business Books, 2012). The purpose is to provide an introduction to the state-of-the art concerning the theme of corporate responsibility for sustainable enterprise. The book provides a theoretical context for responsible enterprise, the role of vision and values in developing responsible enterprise, and the role of stakeholders in managing responsible enterprise. The authors propose a reinvention of CSR through a combining of stakeholders and natural environment to promote sustainable enterprise through long-term relationships.