Corporate Cultural Responsibility
How Business Can Support Art, Design, and Culture

By: Michael Bzdak, PhD, Global Director, Employee Engagement at Johnson & Johnson

Corporate Cultural Responsibility: How Business Can Support Art, Design, and Culture chronicles the evolution of business engagement with culture and provides a framework for a successful and sustainable Corporate Cultural Responsibility (CCR) practice. The case studies provide compelling evidence of both the limits and potential of CCR. Although companies such as Container Corporation of America, Cummins Engine, and Olivetti have received a great deal of scholarly attention, little of it has focused on the context of social responsibility. Corning Glass deserves more attention for its community enrichment. All of these companies integrated elements of Modernism into their management models to benefit key stakeholders through design, architecture, and a commitment to the creative spirit in the pursuit of CCR.

While the narrative around art and commerce since the 1950s is far from complete, this book attempts to offer a more holistic history of corporate interventions in art, design, and architecture. In the course of contributing to a new CCR narrative, it has become clear that the contributions of many individuals, communities, and companies are underappreciated and often excluded from the story. Hopefully, designers such as Anne Swainson, entrepreneurs such as Marie Cuttoli, and companies such as Jaipur Rugs will become better known and appreciated for their innovative contributions. In constructing this narrative, several critical texts from the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s are discussed as business support of the arts developed on a parallel path with the evolution of CSR. A reexamination of these texts reveals critical elements of CCR as well as basic motivations for business engagement with the arts. For example, while the Business Committee for the Arts (BCA), founded by David Rockefeller, was well known during the boom years of corporate collecting, there has been no critical study of its membership and influence. The material on the BCA is just as important for what it does not include. Its members included high-profile companies, but certainly not all of those embracing art and culture around the world.

While architecture is one of the most visible manifestations of corporate patronage in the world of design and culture, art collecting became a norm in the 1980s and 1990s. Many collections were created to enhance corporate campuses for employees and visitors; some rivaled museum collections and others enhanced a company’s identity. The most culturally responsible corporations acquired and displayed art as a strategic means to build stronger relationships with their communities.

The story of art and commerce intersects with that of social and cultural capital. The leadership role Philip Morris played in the art world, for example, reveals the questionable ethics of corporate influence over arts organizations, and the dominance of corporate representatives on museum boards has only recently been examined with a critical eye. As the following chapters demonstrate, cultural institutions have provided a platform for business and its leaders to build, enhance, and sometimes deplete social and cultural capital.

There is no magic formula for sustainable unions of art and commerce. However, this book concludes with five recommendations to elevate, enhance, and evaluate the potential value of business and arts alliances. Climate change, social justice, economic inequity, and global pandemics offer challenges on a whole new level of complexity. Many business leaders believe that art and culture are at the core of our humanity and help us to see the world in new ways. Hopefully this book offers paths for further investigation and research as interest in the global creative economy rises. It certainly seems to be the perfect time to revisit, reimagine, and reinvent the relationship of art and commerce.

Learn more about the book.  Corporate Cultural Responsibility: How Business Can Support Art, Desig (routledge.com)