Jordan Times
Wednesday, March 28, 2007
Queen calls on companies to
bridge East-West divide through corporate multicultural responsibility
AMMAN (JT) — Her Majesty Queen Rania on Tuesday urged business leaders attending
the Skoll World Forum in Oxford, England, to reinvigorate a trend of corporate
multicultural responsibility (CMR).
Drawing on the development of corporate social responsibility in recent history,
the Queen called on corporations to take an active role in bridging the divide
between East and West.
“Our post-global society is poverty-stricken — with a new kind of poverty…
Today, we live in a world plagued by a poverty of multicultural knowledge, a
poverty of multicultural tolerance, a poverty of multicultural respect,” the
Queen told the business leaders.
“We have all come to recognise that social inequality is wrong; we must also
appreciate that social intolerance is wrong. Both hold us back. We all have a
role to play in promoting multicultural responsibility in our homes, schools,
neighbourhoods, universities, places of worship and places of work,” she added.
Citing statistics released by Gallop last year, the Queen said 22 per cent of
Americans did not want a Muslim as a neighbour and one-third said they would
feel nervous if they noticed a Muslim man on their flight.
“I am alarmed at the way in which the Muslim world and our Western counterparts
are looking at each other with suspicion, fear, prejudice then turning away.”
Such a growing trend of isolation is dangerous, Queen Rania noted, because “we
all belong in some sense to East and West… let us not forget that East and West
are neighbours. And good neighbours do more than live alongside each other —
they live together.”
One way to tackle the rift between cultures is for corporations to increase
cross-cultural awareness: “Companies must play a key role in bridging the
East-West divide, in making us better neighbours… I call it corporate
multicultural responsibility,” she said.
“CMR means insisting that all staff get as much time learning about global
diversity as time management and communication skills —ensuring a truly global
employee population. CMR means that company strategies must reflect cultural
challenges alongside market, distribution and pricing considerations. CMR means
taking the time to break down cultural barriers… [it] means reaffirming the
healing values of humanity within the company and encouraging employees to carry
them to their homes and communities,” Queen Rania added.
Warning that global firms “need to understand other cultures, or they risk
losing out in the scramble to tap enormous, lucrative new markets,” the Queen
said she plans to expand on these ideas “with the aim of championing a culture
of trust and respect between Islam and the West.”
The Skoll World Forum on Social Entrepreneurship this year brought together
international icons such as Muhammad Yunus, the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize laureate,
Grameen Bank founder and microfinance pioneer, who spoke of the importance of
“social businesses” where companies can create feasible economic models that do
good for people.
Among the more than 700 social entrepreneurs, opinion leaders, policy-makers,
corporate representatives, financiers, philanthropists and students attending
the forum was Jeffery Skoll, founder and chairman of the Skoll Foundation.
The foundation’s mission is to advance systemic change to benefit communities
around the world by investing in, connecting and celebrating social
entrepreneurs.
By identifying the people and programmes already bringing positive changes to
communities throughout the world, the foundation empowers them to extend their
reach, deepen their impact and fundamentally improve society.