Giving your organisation SPIRIT: an overview and call to action for directors on issues of corporate governance, corporate reputation and corporate responsibility

Abstract

This paper links Corporate Governance, Corporate Reputation and Corporate Responsibility through an examination of stakeholder relationships. It argues that a focus on relationships will allow directors to manage the issues relating to these complex areas in a practical way. Definitions are as follows: governance is seen to be concerned with the mechanism by which businesses’ relationships are directed and controlled. Reputation is concerned with stakeholder views of a business in key relationships and in terms of key relationship issues. Responsibility is concerned with the way a business conducts its activities and in particular how it relates to its primary and secondary stakeholders. A tool to analyse relationships in these three ways is then presented. The tool is known as a Stakeholder Performance Indicator, Relationship Improvement Tool or SPIRIT, for short.