Global Corporate Citizenship Initiative:

The University of Michigan Stephen M. Ross School of Business, Global Corporate Citizenship Initiative (GCCI) represents a cutting-edge national model for a new generation, building strong and lasting partnerships between business and society -- differentiating skills, emphasizing free enterprise and operating on democratic principles.

The goal is to partner with a small group of world-class companies and business leaders to develop and spread global corporate citizenship actions in business schools and corporations, as represented in the book The Ethical Challenge: How to Lead with Unyielding Integrity. In the process, we will assist the next generation of MBA and BBA business leaders to clearly articulate a teachable point of view on global corporate citizenship and put actions behind their words.

Among other things, MBA students will compete for unique executive shadowing citizenship experiences in summer internships and, in for-credit independent studies. We also will engage students, faculty and business leaders in action learning experiences that expand global corporate citizenship. For the latter, our model is the Detroit human and community development organization Focus: HOPE, where we will conduct at least one project each year as we partner with business to help replicate the Focus: HOPE model in other parts of the world. Additionally, Focus: HOPE fellows will work with faculty and students for their own self-development.

In 2003, a case competition involving MBA students from all over the continent was held with the first two corporate partners, GE & Procter & Gamble focusing on improving healthcare globally. Students were given scenarios from the companies (insert link here) and competed for the opportunity to present their final analysis to the CEOs of GE & Procter & Gamble. Following the case competition, GE and the Global Business Partnership sponsored the winning MBA team to travel to Bangalore, India to further research their recommendations and provide some detailed plans of action for GE Healthcare Systems.

The Business School has established endowed "Clinical Fellowships" that are awarded annually to an executive from our partnering companies. These business leaders will engage in approximately 10 to 15 days of teaching and/or action learning project supervision with Michigan students and faculty during their 12 months as "Clinical Fellows." Each fellow and their company will partner with students and faculty to further global citizenship actions at the University of Michigan as well as in his or her corporation. Each partner company will sponsor at least one Michigan MBA intern dedicated to furthering its global citizenship agenda.

The 2004-2005 Clinical Fellows are Robert Corcoran, GE Foundation President and Corporate Citizenship Vice President at General Electric, Charlie Pierce, Global Family Care President at Procter & Gamble and Mike Kelly, Occupational Health & Environmental Safety Division Vice President at 3M. Each executive will develop an action agenda in collaboration with Professor Noel Tichy and the Dean of the Ross Business School, Robert J. Dolan.

The executive days will be spent at the Business School or in the field working with faculty and students. These will include activities such as:

• Teaching in the MBA Michigan Leadership Program Orientation Workshop (when all 450 MBA students will go into the community to do volunteer work).

• Workshops with MBA students, BBA students and faculty to further develop citizenship actions. (These could include for-credit courses for MBA students.)

• Symposia with executives and students from other Top 10 business schools.

• An action learning project with each company of a Senior Leadership Fellow to help improve its citizenship efforts (this could be in a developing country, in an inner city in the U.S., etc.).

• Work with global citizenship MBA interns during the academic year to help identify and share best practices and develop new teaching materials, case studies, etc.

• Help lead the annual "CEO Global Corporate Citizenship Summit" (CEOs of the partner companies have a once-a-year summit to share best practices, interact with students and prepare for activities for the coming year.).

• Work with Michigan Business School faculty and doctoral students to provide selective field sites for the conduct of their research.

Please click here for a visual representation of the process leading to the GCCI: Pathway to Citizenship.

Click here for an article on the Citizenship Initiative from the Detroit Free Press.