Personal Values and Corporate Responsibility Adoption

As globalisation inevitably marches forward, organisations grow in scale and economic power drawing upon environmental and social resources that have implications on the sustainability and wellbeing of our planet. At the same time, sovereign governments become increasingly ineffective at protecting resources and maintaining environmental and social balance across national boundaries. Henceforth, not only do businesses play a critical role in helping solve many of our complex and global challenges, but businesses also bear the obligation to remediate many of the same challenges. Corporate responsibility (CR) requires firms to undertake actions that contribute to social or environmental good beyond self-interest and legal compliance. In this chapter, we contribute to the theme of this book—Values and Corporate Responsibility: CSR and the Sustainable Development Goals—by sharing our perspectives on the importance of executive values in shaping enterprises’ CR practices. Making use of a ‘values-theory’ lens and drawing on stories from Canadian executives, this chapter highlights how executives’ values have come to the fore and shaped their views concerning CR practice.Additionally, these stories highlight the vital link between executives’ values and CR adoption: the more robust the values, the stronger the individual’s belief in their ability to drive change without influence from external constraints. This chapter concludes by advocating for the need to emphasise and integrate management values into all levels of further and higher education. Personal reflexivity and immersive experiential learning should be championed to help strengthen and raise awareness of individuals’ values and that the personal growth process is an essential driver for positive change.