Collective Responsibility - in Business

In Business

As the business practices known as Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and sustainability mature and converge with the responsibilities of governments and citizens, the term "collective responsibility" is beginning to be more widely used.

Collective responsibility is widely applied in corporations, where the entire workforce is held responsible for failure to achieve corporate targets (for example, profit targets), irrespective of the performance of individuals or teams which may have achieved or overachieved within their area. Collective punishment, even including measures that actually further harm the prospect of achieving targets, is applied as a measure to 'teach' the workforce. Where corporate targets are achieved, however, rewards are carefully targeted to those perceived by management to have contributed, often disproportionately concentrated at senior management levels. The impact on morale of this practice is commonly ignored as it is not measurable on balance sheets.