The Academy of Management Annual Conference

The Global Compact is an initiative that has evolved rapidly and organically from the overwhelming response to Secretary-General Kofi Annan’s remarks at the Davos World Economic Forum in January 1999. His leadership has helped broaden the world’s understanding that as global interdependence accelerates in its pace and complexity, the need for cooperative responses to our common economic and social problems becomes ever more compelling. We discuss the historical context that shaped the initial vision and call to action in 1999 and recount how the Compact has evolved since then. Drawing from research on business and public policy networks, we classify the current network structure of the initiative and develop a model of dynamic change to explain how it functions. We argue for the viability of the Compact and discuss the principal accomplishments it has hitherto achieved. We also recognize the imperfections of the network in its current form and reveal how it intends to overcome the obstacles that lie ahead. To encourage academics to participate in addressing these challenges, we briefly outline several avenues of research through which they could contribute significantly