Corporate Volunteering: an International Comparison

Abstract

Corporate volunteering has become increasingly widespread across the globe. While in some regions it has long been ‘business as usual’, other areas are just being introduced to it, often through international corporations that bring their own Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) programmes with them. Comparative statistics to quantify corporate volunteering around the globe are hard to come by; however, a lot can be learned from comparing strategies, trends and challenges from completely different regions. This chapter reviews available literature to give some insights into the conditions and frameworks of corporate volunteering and uses the United Kingdom, leading corporate volunteering in Europe, as a case study to go into more depth. It finds that companies globally engage much more directly with civil society and the public sector in addressing inequalities and also find more of an infrastructure to partner internationally to increase their impact. Similarly, civil society organisations have become much stronger and more emancipated partners. Consequentially, barriers to addressing inequalities are either better understood or broken down innovatively paving the way to win-win scenarios for business and civil society.