This is the first “Working Paper” from the Doughty Centre. It has been written by Dr Malcolm Arnold from Cranfield. Malcolm has not had any previous engagement with the Corporate Responsibility field. He completed his doctorate at Cranfield in summer 2007, on the impact of mergers and acquisitions on corporate value.
Malcolm kindly volunteered to produce a literature review paper, when we started last summer, to scope a new research project with the European Academy for Business in Society (EABIS) and the European CSR Alliance on non-financial performance metrics and their use by businesses and by the investment community.
We asked Malcolm to see what the academic literature was telling us about the use of non-financial metrics and Corporate Responsibility reporting. With minimal guidance and coming fresh to the subject, he has created an excellent synthesis – particularly of what is happening in the Anglo-Saxon world.
Inevitably, as discussions progressed last autumn between research funders, other business schools and stakeholders, the focus of the new research has been refined. Rather than try to modify Malcolm’s paper to reflect the refined research project, we are tabling it now as a working paper on which to build.
In the coming months, through a mix of further academic literature reviews; surveys of consultancy and practitioner publications; and through original research in the field with companies and the investment community, and those seeking to influence both on the development of new performance metrics, we will be developing the analysis.
In particular, we need to give much more coverage to non-UK developments; to understand the state of knowledge and the state of play in the investment community; and to focus more on how some companies are already proactively communicating their non- or extra-financial performance metrics, to the investment community.
Meantime, we hope Malcolm’s working paper will help colleagues to refine the research agenda.
