CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY IN MALASIA
INTRODUCTION
Corporate social responsibility is becoming the mainstream activity in the global business community as the issues like increasing corruption, poverty, spread of infectious diseases, climate change and product production relating issues have gained importance and the need for the business houses to take a positive move towards implementing corporate social responsibilities in the paradigm of its day to day activities is increasing.CSR is basically how a business enterprise manages and improves it effects on the economy, society and environment. In today’s business community the expectations of a business enterprise to be socially responsible has increased and it can do it by improving the working conditions of the workers, taking care of the health of the employees, selling the product in accordance with the qualities it promises to have, try an conserve environment by not indulging in increasing pollution, etc.To sum up I can say that CSR is the company’s commitment to behave ethically and contribute towards the economic development and help in improving the quality of life of its workforce and their families. It is believed by that the business can only fully contribute to the development of the society only when it fulfils its social responsibility and is profitable and efficient (saadiyatul et.al. 2002a).
CSR has gained momentum in Malaysia due to the voice raised by non-governmental organisation such as Sahabat Alam Malaysia, federation of Malaysian consumer association, etc regarding environmental pollution, health hazards products, product safety, etc.All this has raised government interest in this regard and various legislation has been introduced for it. The government of Malaysia is continuingly taking steps in making the business enterprises socially responsible. It has laid down a new framework for the implementation of the CSR activities by the various business institutes. It contains guidelines for the government linked companies (GLCs). Khazanah Nasional Berhad manages the state investments and is responsible for monitoring whether the FLCs are implementing CSR measures as mentioned in the framework. In 2006 the country’s stock exchange Bursa Malaysia launched a framework for implementing and reporting CSR activities of listed companies. According to it every company listed in stock exchange needs to lay down the efforts it is making to implement it social responsibilities and the public can see and judge accordingly (Norway official website abroad, 2011).The step has increased the level of disclosure of the socially responsible activities done by the corporate. The environmental quality act was also passed by the government in 1974 to solve the issue of environmental pollution.
THEORITICAL DEVELOPMENT AND LITERARTURE REVIEW
Researches and studies have also being carried out to study the importance and extend of the implementation of CSR initiative by the business sector. The study done by Ford and Mc Laughlin (1984) relating to the attitude of US CEO’s and business school dean’s showed that the dean agreed more than the CEO’s that a balance needs to be created between corporate power and discouraging irresponsible consumer behaviour and as the businesses use a major part of the financial and managerial resources of the environment they should contribute to the social causes too. Dean’s were in more disagreement as compared to the CEO’s regarding the statement that business should be more socially responsible in the prosperous economic times than in recession and that the business should pass the cost of social involvement to the consumer through various pricing policies. They realized that both of them though still agreed on practicing social responsibility but were in disagreement on the perception of the resource costs for conducting these activities.
(Saadiyatul et.al. 2002b)
The above table shows that family upbringing has the greatest effect on the attitude of a person towards the corporate social responsibility whereas the next is the traditional beliefs and customs of a person and the common practices in the industry is third in rank to affect the attitude of the employee towards corporate social responsibility. It is clear that there are a large number of factors influencing the response of the firms towards CSR and varies between different business communities like employees of banking sector have a different response towards it as compared to employees of a advertising firm as for both the meaning and ways to be socially responsible is different. A banking sector firm needs to take care that the funds are available to the weaker section of the society and the small scale units or even lower rate of interest should be charged to firms which are taking loan to start up a project in economically underdeveloped area on the other hand advertising firm should take care the qualities which the product is promising to have in the advertisement are actually there in the product so that the consumer is not misguided. These firms should also try creating awareness regarding the various social issues present in the country.
EXAMPLES OF CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILTY IN MALAYSIA:
1) My nature photography contest
Sony (M) Sdn Bhd held its 3rd Annual photography camp in Cameron Highlands, in conjunction with the Sony Nature Photography Contest for secondary school students. The project is part of the company’s on-going community relations effort to promote environmental conservation activities to the public. (Sony, 2007)
2) Recycling Week 2011 (December 2011)
Canon organized a “Paper Recycling Week” at Canon’s Customer Care Center from 13 to 16 December 2011. The objective was to generate awareness among staff and customers on the importance of recycling used paper.(Canon Malaysia,2011)
CONCLUSION
Adopting corporate social responsibility by small business enterprise is not feasible for small scale enterprises so to encourage the adoption of CSR the government should take initiatives like the companies commission of Malaysia and SME corp. should provide incentives to the organisations for conducting programmes providing training on social responsibility. The government should try to introduce tax incentives, corporate grants and other kinds of monetary benefit to the small scale enterprises to offset the initial cost associated with adopting the CSR standards (Amran, 2010)
Efforts need to be made by the government to increase the awareness of the code of conduct.
The efforts made by the firms to conduct its social responsibility can annoy the employees of the firm like if the firm indulges in providing free health check up of the poor and does not take care of the health of the employees and their family members they might get de motivated.
Malaysian government effort to implement the CSR in business communities is to realize its Malaysian vision 2020 where it wants to place its country in the category of developed nations. Implementation of CSR has long term benefits as it lowers the cost of product in future and makes production technologically advanced like if the business enterprises currently help in promoting higher education they will later on get more skilled labour and better educated and efficient higher level executives.
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CSR IS THE KEY TO SUSTAINABILITY(Bursa) |
Corporate sustainability has to things attached to it than just recycling, reducing waste and protecting wildlife. It can be called a process or even a business approach which helps in creation of value by utilising the opportunities that come by economic, environmental and social development and also helps in managing risks. Organisation should keep in mind the environmental issues and should take care of the effects the man’s processes will have on the balance of nature. To obtain sustainability one should be aware of how everything which is done, everything which is taken, everything which is made and the waste which is produced during the process of operation of business will affect the nature’s balance and the future of our children and all the other things in future.CSR helps the organisation to take corrective measures so that the damage caused by the organisation through the process of business operation can be rectified.
REFERENCES:
Amran A, 2010. ‘Is CSR a threat to companies?’ viewed on 18 May 2012.
<http://gsb.usm.my/index.php/news-archive/121-is-csr-a-threat-to-companies>
Bursa Malaysia, ‘CSR key to sustainability’, viewed on 22 May 2012.
< http://www.bursamalaysia.com/website/bm/about_us/the_organisation/csr/>
Conan Malaysia, 2011. ‘Corporate social responsibility’, viewed on 22 May 2012.
< http://www.canon.com.my/business/web/company/about/csr>
Norway official website abroad, 2011. ‘Corporate social responsibility in Malaysia’ viewed on 18 May 2012.
< http://www.norway.org.my/News_and_events/Business/Bedriftenes-Samfunnsansvar/>
Saadiatul, Ibrahim, Rashid M, 2002. ‘Corporate governance’, Executive and management attitude towards corporate social responsibility in Malaysia, p.10-16.
Sony, 2007. ‘Corporate social responsibility community’ viewed on 18 May 2012.
<http://www.sony.com.my/section/community>
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