New focus in business is giving, prof says

Plain Dealer, 11 October 2003 - Corporate scandals may have dominated the headlines for the past few years, but a Harvard Business School professor said yesterday that the most significant shift in American business may have been the other way: toward an unprecedented sense of social responsibility.

Think Ben & Jerry's. Or of IBM's Reinventing Education initiative, which has contributed more than $70 million to urban schools since 1994. Or of the drug company Novartis with its annual day of service, in which all of its 70,000 employees perform volunteer work.

"Social responsibility is now on the agenda - it's a strategy," said Rosabeth Moss Kanter, a Cleveland Heights native who is the author or co-author of 15 books, including, "Evolve!: Succeeding in the Digital Culture of Tomorrow."


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