The social obligations of business

The future activity profile for Australian business will also include more partnerships with community groups and more opportunities for dialogue with the community. In order to gain greater benefits and impact this will mean a narrower spread of activities with fewer partners, and projects that are conducted over a longer period of time. There may not be a greater allocation of financial resources, but smarter use of resources, perhaps through intermediaries, and leveraging of existing infrastructure.

What is business not going to do

Business activity in the community will never be a substitute for a government role – firstly, the dollars aren’t there. Business is not the same as wealthy individuals and indeed there may be more dollars forthcoming from this segment of our community in the future.

Secondly, business would seem to be resistant to buying into the ‘mutual obligations’ paradigm. It is the wrong slant. They don’t mind the ‘mutual’ part and would be more comfortable with something like ‘mutual advantage’ where they are able to exercise business objectives and look for business outcomes – do what they do best.

Moreover, there isn’t the expertise in business to adopt a fully worked out new set of social obligations. Business can act in partnership with community organisations, make decisions about what suits their business logic but their activity has to stop short of taking charge of delivering activities – at least in the Australian context where we expect leadership from government.

What is possible, though, is to act on the current opportunity that exists for arriving at a new consensus on the values that we wish to nurture. Business believes it has an important role in working with other parts of the community to establish the values that we agree on for our community – social cohesion, fairness, creation of opportunities, respect for Indigenous communities. That is the basis from which we should be able to decide how responsibilities should be distributed.

Conclusion

Solutions are far from simple, especially in Australia. With high rates of personal taxation and the history of large government, a community consensus on where the boundaries of the responsibilities of the respective institutions should lie is by no means settled.

Business does recognise that there is an increasing call on its social as well as economic role and that it has to find new ways to bridge the widening gap of expectations. It does have an obligation to understand all the elements of social dislocation but it is only one player in identifying solutions.

Our work shows us that business is transforming in its recognition of the social dimensions of its role and that a more caring and responsive business sector may be emerging. It is however the business imperative, however broadened, that will ultimately drive us towards workable solutions.