Aligning Corporate and Community Interests: From Abominable to Symbiotic

"I believe in corporations. They are indispensable instruments of our modern civilization; but . . . they should . . . act for the interests of the community as a whole."1Theodore RooseveltINTRODUCTIONThe notion of corporations considering community interests is not new. As early as 1905, Roosevelt highlighted the need for corporations to align their interests with those of surrounding communities. Yet, despite his sound pronouncement, the misalignment present today between corporate and community interests continues to persist.A number of recent events highlight this ongoing conflict. It can be seen in the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, which contaminated the southern parts of the U.S.;2 in the continuing release of toxic sludge by Massey Energy Corporation into the water supply of eastern Kentucky and West Virginia;3 and in the environmental contamination of the rainforest by Texaco in Ecuador.4 However, one of the most compelling illustrations of a corporation explicitly choosing to disassociate itself from the interests of its operating community is that of Royal Dutch and Shell ("Shell") in Nigeria.Shell has conducted oil exploration activities in the Niger Delta region of Nigeria for many years, much to the discontent of the local community, the Ogoni.5 In the late 1990s, the Ogoni community formally organized its oppositional efforts against Shell and, shortly thereafter, the Nigerian government threatened to execute some of the Ogoni leaders.6 Despite mounting pressure on Shell to intervene in the execution, it chose instead to publicly dissociate itself from the interests of the Ogoni.7 As Shell stated, a "commercial organization such as ours cannot and should not sit in judgment on [these] matters."8Nevertheless, after the execution of the Ogoni leaders, Shell began to face international boycotts of its products9 and a host of lawsuits for its alleged participation in the executions.10 Even today, Shell's actions in the Ogoni community are under scrutiny as the Supreme Court decides liability in the highly publicized Kiobel case.11 Thus, despite a marked attempt to disassociate itself from the interests of its operating community, Shell's corporate interests remain, at least partially, linked to the community's fate.Shell's and other corporations' failures to align their interests with that of the community, in many ways, are indicative of the practice of separating issues of business from issues of the community. German scholar Ferdinand Tonnies has argued that the world is divided into a community or Gemeinschaft, as he terms it, and society or Gesellschaft, by which he means business or the commercial.12 For Tonnies, the separation of these two aspects of the world is so marked that he finds the notion of a corporate- Gemeinschaft "abominable."13 For Tonnies, corporations that ignore or discount community issues are seemingly unable or unwilling to view corporations and communities as complements.Yet, there are a small but growing number of corporations that have adopted a contrary view. These corporations contend that corporate and community interests are not distinct but can, in some cases, be united. Corporations adopting this approach cite several advantages to this approach, including increased public trust in the company, development of local talent, easier recruitment of new employees, and sustainability of their investments.14 At the same time, communities in which this approach has been adopted view the investments in their community as sustainable and responsive to their interests.Given the mutual benefits to both corporations and communities that corporate consideration of community interests can bring, this Article argues that corporations should adopt a proactive stance to community interests. In particular, it contends that corporations should leverage their core business capabilities to foster the sustainable interests of the community in consultation with the community. …