The Multiple Bottom Lines of Corporate Citizenship: Social Investing, Reputation, and Responsibility Audits[Note 1. This article is adapted and excerpted from Chapter 6 ...]

Corporate citizenship, that is, company practice that impacts various stakeholders, is increasingly being assessed along multiple bottom lines. Increasingly, executives need to be aware of the ways in which their corporate practices are monitored externally, as well as undertaking internal reviews that can improve performance. This paper highlights the trends in assessing citizenship. There are, for example, four relevant types of social investing, which evaluate citizenship in multiple ways. In the most common, investment houses/researchers develop screens on company practices for interested social investors. Alternatively, activist shareholders monitor corporate practice in areas of concern and use shareholder resolutions to foster change. Some investors are willing to commit financial resources to development of disadvantaged areas with expectations of market or less than market rates of return. The fourth type of social investing involves funding either micro ventures or small-to-mid-sized ventures either in disadvantaged areas or for proactive social gains, sometimes using corporate philanthropic resources to do so. In addition, dimensions of reputation are rated by researchers and magazines for specific groups or for overall corporate reputation. Companies that wish to improve