Rethinking Corporate Social Engagement: Lessons From Latin America

In 1961, President John F. Kennedy launched a bold Alliance for Progress seeking to enlist moderate governments in Latin America behind a program of progressive reforms. Within 12 years, however, this effort was disbanded as political priorities in both the U.S. and Latin America shifted.

More than three decades later, the Inter-American Foundation, a small U.S. government agency, launched a second alliance for progress in the Latin American region, this one seeking to forge ties between Latin American businesses and the region s growing civil society sector. Fifteen years later, this second alliance for progress has become a powerful force. In this new book, Lester M. Salamon, one of the foremost experts on civil society, assesses the reality behind the corporate social engagement (CSE) hype in Latin America. Rejecting the MBA approach that has dominated much of the thinking about CSE globally as inadequate for a region like Latin America, Salamon posits what he terms the corporate social engagement pyramid and finds that many advanced Latin American companies have moved fairly far up this pyramid in ways that hold lessons for corporations everywhere. Brief and highly readable, the book offers a constructive critique of received wisdom about CSE and a roadmap that companies and civil society organizations in other regions can follow.