The world of corporate responsibility and sustainable development is – like all other management disciplines – populated with its own jargon. Whether we like it or not, some of this obscure terminology has passed into (relatively) common usage.
The concept of “glocal” neatly describes the need for a multinational company to operate to a set of global standards for its social and environmental performance; and at the same time respect the customs, cultures and norms of the local society in which it operates.
Perhaps less well known is the concept of “co-opetition”. However, there is every chance that this term will become increasingly familiar and relevant to corporate responsibility practitioners. Co-opetition is used to describe the process of collaboration that occurs when companies which are usually competitors work together for mutual benefit. A perfect example of co-opetition is the announcement by Nike to make hundreds of its patents freely available to others in a bid to drive environmental innovation.
The scale of today’s sustainable development challenge is such that it is often impossible for a single organisation to address the problems in isolation. Effective responses will only come from multinational, multilateral and multi-stakeholder initiatives. This does not absolve individual companies from their responsibilities for action. However, as Nike and other are demonstrating, co-opetition might be the way forward to develop collective thinking and joint action.