Q26- Information: another Force for Democratization (Trans-Societal Megatrend #2?)

What is common among these three events: (i) the Fall of Bastille in 1789, (ii) the invention of the microprocessor in 1971, and (iii) adoption in 1992 by 118 national governments of Agenda 21?

Here are more hints.

Can you discern what is common among these six trends?

• Political: the break-up of the Soviet Union and democratization of Eastern Europe; replacement of military dictatorships with elected leaders in Latin America; fall of dictatorial regimes in Taiwan, South Korea, Philippines and Indonesia; end of apartheid in South Africa; recognition by Israel of the Palestinian Liberation Organization; “people power” revolutions in the Philippines, Chile, Poland, Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Indonesia and Serbia;
• Economic: the shift from socialist to market economies in Russia, China, Mongolia, Vietnam, and Eastern Europe where decision making by a few central planners was replaced by choices of millions of consumers; global shift of wealth creation from industry to services thereby a power shift from capital and machineries to knowledge and knowledge workers; global shift of market value from intangible (=mostly knowledge) assets than from tangible assets;
• Social: the growth of the voluntary, non-profit and non-government organizations, which mobilize civil society for causes such as human rights, rights of indigenous peoples, women’s rights, environmental protection, etc.; the adoption in the Rio Summit of 1992 of sustainable development as the new mainstream development paradigm; the growing adoption of corporate social responsibility and socially responsible investments;
• Technological: satellite TV, personal computer and WAP-enabled mobile phones which are placing tremendous information, computing power and choice in the hands of individuals and households;
• Religious: Protestant Reformation, Vatican II (“priesthood of the laity”), women in the priesthood, creation spirituality, personal spirituality replacing adherence to organized religions; and
• Organizational: the flattening of organizational hierarchies, growth of horizontal networks and virtual communities, emergence of autonomous intrapreneurial work teams and post-industrial empowerment of knowledge workers.

If you said “democratization” (or any of its synonym), then YOU ARE RIGHT!

Democratization is a trans-societal megatrend because it cuts across political, economic, social, technological, religious and organizational domains.

The people side of this megatrend picked up speed over the last three centuries, while the technological side jump-started about half a century ago (see diagram below). Indeed, the information revolution is another force for democratization. Together, the telephone, the personal computer and the Internet is a powerful and empowering combination.

Do you think that it is reasonable to expect that this global megatrend — democratization — will continue to permeate all aspects of life and society throughout the world for the next centuries?

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Photo credits to Wikimedia Commons for “The Storming of the Bastille” by Jean-Pierre Houël and the picture of a Hitachi HD6803P microprocessor; thanks to the UN Division for Sustainable Development for the cover page of Agenda 21.

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From Corporate Disregard to Corporate Embrace of Stakeholder Capital to Socially-Embedded Corporations

I flew to Singapore to read an invited paper on Monday April 13, 2009 for the Fifth International Research Workshop on Asian Business sponsored by the Singapore Management University. My paper is entitled “Corporate Social Responsibility and Emergent Models in Management of Stakeholder Capital in Philippine Conglomerates.” That’s a mouthful, so let me share with you the gist in bullet points:

• The 10 richest Filipinos are mostly Chinese-Filipinos with their own conglomerates and corporate social responsibility (CSR) programs.
• They are politically and economically influential; and the paper examines indications whether and how they are developmentally influential.
• Philippine corporations’ attitudes to stakeholder capital (the external component of relationship capital) have been evolving, from disregard in the 1970s to being committed in 2000s.
• Corporate attention to their stakeholders was basically government-driven in the earlier periods, but the growing CSR practice in the Philippines has been internally-driven; now, corporations better recognize stakeholder capital and its contribution to their value creation.
• One of the Chinese-Filipino patriarchs, John Gokongwei Jr. recently announced he will donate half of his personal wealth to various charities.
• CSR is a “retrofit” which leaves the fundamental corporate structure untouched.
• New models seem to be emerging which may be harbingers of new corporate models driven by socially-responsible goals.
• The new corporate characteristics are: more networking and partnerships with civil society, bridging leaderships, more innovative and socially-responsible investment (SRI), greater community engagement and reinvention of global supply chains towards “triple bottom line.” Corporations are less and less the enclaves they were.
• I call this emergent model the socially-embedded corporation.

I end my paper with a teaser question.

If, as many observe, (a) the global economic crisis is a “wake up call” to flaws in the US economic model, and (b) the global economic center of gravity has been moving towards East Asia, then the question is: what, if any, are the emergent economic models in East Asia, and in China in particular?

Click here to get: a copy of my paper (pre-publication draft) and a copy of my PowerPoint presentation.

Cheers!

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