Global Corporate Citizenship Initiative
Global Business Partnership

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.

Multidisciplinary Action Projects (MAP)
In the Spring of 2010, a team of six MBA students spent seven weeks analyzing a new rural community in Chiapas, Mexico.  The resulting report contains video links showing the various aspects of the community (including housing, healthcare, education and governance). The purpose is to help others around the world learn from this experience as they wrestle with rural poverty.  In addition to the 2010 MAP, the Global Business Partnership has co-sponsored several MAP teams including projects assisting with the post-tsunami disaster in Southeast Asia, working with 3M in China, leveraging P&G's PUR Safe Water Program, and strengthening education systems and community organizations with General Electric.

Uplift Education and IDEA Public Schools are currently partnered with the Global Business Partnership to build a world class capability for leadership development.

In addition, we have partnered with the Boys & Girls Clubs of America, and are currently working with two world-class companies: General Electric and Procter & Gamble 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.

For the past four years, case competitions involving MBA students from all over the continent and within the University have been held on subjects related to citizenship as outlined by our corporate partners. Students were given scenarios from the companies and competed for the opportunity to present their final analysis to the CEOs of our partnered companies. The action learning cases over the past two years have included:

Help GE Healthcare Services utilize its commitment to corporate citizenship to (1) better serve the needs of and improve the level of healthcare in the geographic area near its work-class John F. Welch Research and Development Center in Bangalore, India (2) while building a long-term and sustainable base for GE Healthcare Services in the region, and (3) doing so profitably.

Help P&G with its PuR product: 1. how to market PuR, which offers a gigantic opportunity for improving health and hygiene in the world, by providing purified drinking water to the 1.2 billion people in the world who today lack portable water. 2. explore how they can build on the PuR business momentum to engage more employees in the effort to better partner with NGO’s and other institutions to enhance its building of PUR in the US. 3. Help to sustain business plans for PuR to be available in communities most in need around the world such as Haiti and Uganda where P&G currently is and up to twelve new markets that P&G will be in within the next year

Propose ways to leverage GE’s product/service portfolio to maximize the impact of corporate global citizenship

Help 3M articulate worker safety in China as an initial target using their occupational health and environmental systems by: (1) leveraging global competition and supply chains (2) impacting Chinese government regulation of worker safety and (3) working directly with Chinese companies.

Explore ways GE can approach emergency relief beyond immediate needs into sustainable long-term relief to disaster-hit communities around the world. (i.e. GE’s long term role post tsunami, Katrina, Pakistan earthquake, etc.)
Propose ways to extend GE’s ecomagination strategy into China and India (specific ideas for products, services and new ideas tailored to those markets).

Explore the best ways to leverage P&G’s Children's Safe Drinking Water program to build P&G's reputation, the best way to build the PUR Water Filtration business in the US, and importantly how to leverage selling the PUR sachets in the US to help both of these.

Help GE bring awareness of affordable medical equipment to rural underserved regions of India and China as part of their strategy to develop products “in country for country”.

Propose ways P&G will deliver their commitment to provide 2 billion liters of safe drinking water through their Children's Safe Drinking Water program which will mean saving 10,000 lives by 2012.

Following the case competitions, we have designed a variety of follow-up action learning projects to further the research and recommendations given at these competitions. The first of these was a GE and Global Business Partnership co-sponsored trip to Bangalore, India by the winning MBA team who provided some detailed plans of action for GE Healthcare Systems in the region. Last year, we also co-sponsored several MAP teams including another trip to India exploring how the University can leverage its resources to assist with the post-tsunami disaster in Southeast Asia. Additional MAP projects included:

3M: MBAs were sent to China to understand the best way to leverage OHES’s capabilities to advance overall worker safety in the country.
P&G: Students were challenged with how to leverage PUR’s Safe Water Program to build PUR brand equity, trial, and loyalty in the US. Recommendations were to be consumer and data driven and include cost estimates and ROI analysis.
GE: MBAs were asked to define the opportunity and scope the process for pro-bono capacity building volunteer activities for GE employees and retirees that would strengthen education systems and community organizations

The Business School has established “Clinical Fellowships” that are awarded annually to an executive from our partnering companies. These business leaders will engage in teaching and/or action learning project supervision with Michigan students and faculty during their 12 months as “Clinical Fellows.” We look forward to another year expanding and developing this Initiative.