Integrating Strategy and Corporate Community Involvement in a Balanced Scorecard; Results from Action Research at Merck Thailand Ltd

Increasingly large multinational corporations (MNCs) recognize the positive effects of Corporate Social Responsibly (CSR) on customers, employees, and talents. However, Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs) or local units of MNCs may not have the same spectrum of responsibilities, due to minor operations, with less scope, and fewer social and environmental issues. In these cases, we argue that a strategy which integrates Corporate Community Involvement (CCI) can be strong alternative to the broader concept of CSR. Still, to really make CCI accepted as a strategic approach amongst executives and employees, we argue that CCI should be integrated into strategic tools like the balanced scorecard. We thus develop a generic model for a Community-enabled Balanced Scorecard (CeBSC). Then, we apply this model in an actions research project in a subsidiary of a large chemical and pharmaceutical MNC. The paper ends with a discussion and conclusion