Following the trend of “let’s talk about CSR”, let’s talk about standardization.
What is a standard?
Managerial standards are created within different parties, through a cooperation and information exchange.
As we cannot say that in the field of CSR does exist a law, we can say that standard exist. We can identify two different kinds of standard : process standard and performance standard.
Nowadays on a European level, it can be found a series of guide lines issued by ILO, and directed by ISO (International Organization for Standardization) The result is “Guidelines on occupational safety and health management” , the ISO 9000, (a series of documents, issued in 1987, built up in ordere to establish quality standards which goes from the quality of the final product to the enterprise activity as a whole. Intersting might be also the standards issued by EFQM the European Foundation for Quality Management).
In this background we would highlight the AA 1000 (AccountAbility) , which is a stakeholder engagement framework.
The standard processed by ISO can be applied to SME as to MNE. One example of standardization is given by the Global Reporting Initiative, which establishes standards for the creation of accountability reports.
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