Corporate Citizenship in Emerging Markets Conference

Posted by Tara Greco

I asked my colleague, Andrea Shatzman to write about her experience at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s Business Civic Leaders Center Conference – “Focus on Emerging Market Development” Conference. Check out her post below.

Last week, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s Business Civic Leaders Center held their “Focus on Emerging Market Development” Conference in D.C. The conference brought together corporate social responsibility (CSR) professionals, development NGO types and a few government employees.

While the conference touched on a broad range of CSR topics, with regard to emerging market development, a dominant theme emerged. As Mary Ryckman, assistant U.S. trade representative for trade and development explained during the opening session, international aid and corporate philanthropy are great at providing services. What they don’t do that well is provide jobs and long-term economic development. That’s what businesses are good at. Echoing her statements, Salvatore Pappalardo of the Grameen Foundation urged that what is needed in emerging markets is more economic actors. The more economic actors, the more jobs, the more opportunity there is to provide resources in-country, etc.

This sentiment takes the broad view of corporate citizenship – taking into account everything companies do and how their aggregate activity aligns with society, or in this case, how their actions align specifically with needs in emerging markets.

Microsoft had perhaps one of the most compelling stories to tell about job creation. Microsoft is a huge company with operations in more than 100 countries around the world – but its presence in each of these countries is dwarfed by the presence of their partners – small- and medium-sized companies that build products based on Microsoft software. According to numbers in a recent report commissioned by Microsoft, it has some 700,000 companies in their “ecosystem” that supply 14.9 million jobs and generate $537 billion annually. Of course on top of all of this Microsoft layers philanthropy, NGO partnerships, etc. – but this is definitely adding some economic actors to the world.  

It’s interesting to think about how multi-national corporations could reexamine their business models and consider how they operate in emerging markets. What kind of ripple effects could this have? Paired with philanthropy, sustainability, and other elements of CSR, what could the effects be on developing communities?  

Looking forward to hearing more stories like this and more “how tos” on operating in/strengthening developing economies.