Can corporate citizenship measures be culturally transferable ?

Abstract

Regulatory pressures are increasingly being placed on the behaviour of corporations worldwide. In the new millennium, a major challenge will be to achieve a lawful profit whilst maintaining the moral standards and contributing to the welfare of the communities. The question that arises is how can corporate citizenship be measured and applied in a way that is culturally sensitive as well as transferable. This paper tests an existing scale (validated in the US and France) in two culturally distinct environments in different stages of economic and political development – Australia and Turkey. It demonstrates that it is possible to measure corporate citizenship through the degree to which corporations maintain common ethical standards, respect the law whilst being profitable and assume discretionary activities for the welfare of their members and their communities. A fifth dimension is proposed to accommodate cultural variations without compromising the universal applicability of the construct.