UNHM: Saul O Sidore series focuses on corporate responsibility

A panel discussion on business ethics and corporate responsibility kicks off the UNHM Spring 2004 Saul O Sidore Lecture Series, The Business of Communication.

The Saul O Sidore Series 2003-2004 focuses on The Business of Communication. Business and communication have often been considered separate strands of American life, one dealing with private economic interests, the other with public cultural interests. Today, perhaps more than ever before, the worlds of business and communication deeply intersect.

Businesses recognize the importance of human communication and communication technology in the development of successful and socially responsible organizations. At the same time, patterns of relational and mass mediated communication are increasingly dependent on commercially developed technologies and subject to commercial pressures and concentrated private ownership.

For the upcoming year, the Sidore series explores the intersections of business and communication, private and public interests, as these cut across a range of controversial social, cultural, ethical, political and regulatory issues.

On Wednesday, April 28, Joseph Keefe, CEO of NewCircle Communications, and Elise Klysa, executive director of Innisfree Cancer Help will lead a panel discussion, “Business Ethics & Corporate Social Responsibility.” The discussion begins at 7 p.m.
The discussion will consider the variety of ways corporate social responsibility can be understood, how a company communicates an image and who benefits. Is it creating a workplace where employees are empowered or the business actively engaged with the community? Is it making informed decisions about investments based on human rights or production methods of a company? Is it being responsible to the stockholders’ investments? Is it an effective corporate communications strategy to design an image?

Keefe is founder and CEO of NewCircle Communications, a strategic consulting and communications firm with a specialty focus in corporate social responsibility and other public-policy related communications. He is also senior advisor for strategic social policy at Calvert Group, America’s largest family of socially responsible mutual funds. Prior to founding NewCircle, Keefe was executive vice president and general counsel of Citizens Funds, a New Hampshire-based socially responsible mutual funds firm.

Elise Klysa spent more than 10 years working at the Timberland Company where she developed the company’s social responsibility initiatives, which resulted in Timberland ranking on Fortune Magazine’s 100 Best Companies to Work For. She has served with a number of organizations, including New Hampshire Businesses for Social Responsibility Network, the New Hampshire Governor’s Council on Volunteerism, and the Corporate Volunteer Council of the Greater Seacoast. She also served on the advisory board of City Year New Hampshire.

Business Ethics & Corporate Social Responsibility will be held at UNHM’s University Center, 400 Commercial St., Manchester. Lectures are free and open to the public. For more information contact Paula Galvin at 641-4306 or paula.galvin@unh.edu.