Corporate Social Responsibility in the face of crisis
Businesses today are suffering big time due to the economic recession that is being felt by the world’s biggest economic power houses. And Asian countries are not spared. While some of the [countries] are not directly under fire, the pressure is like a heat wave that threatens to knock down those who are not prepared.
While business players are trying really hard to put out the fire and counter  the downturn by throwing in a bucket-full of measures from simple ones such as cost-cutting and diversification of services to extreme ones like laying-off workers, there is this one nagging question: Is there still a room for Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR)?
The battle today goes beyond corporate buoyancy and the ability to break the surface. Most companies today assert success comes as well in the fulfillment of social responsibilities.
Asian Quality conducted a survey among Philippine-based companies last October to identify how social accountability is affected by the bottom line as dictated by the current global economic situation. As they say, CSR does not come in cheap.
The objective of the survey is to know the degree of involvement of companies in CSR, the purpose that lies behind each undertaking and their perception on the importance of having CSR embedded in their corporate culture.
Respondents’ Demographics
Based on a response rate of 24%, this report will present some of the findings that would attempt to paint a picture depicting the current practice of CSR among Philippine-based companies. The 120 respondents represented various industries, majority of which came from the services industries including logistics and transportation, hospitality, insurance, real estate, oil and gas (55%); manufacturing industries like electronics and semiconductors and automotives (25%); and Information Technology / Software services industry (15%). There were also a number of respondents from not-for-profit organizations.
In terms of job title or designation, most of the respondents were senior managers or head of various divisions / departments (31.9%), followed by top-level executives like CEOs, COOs, VPs, managing directors, executive directors, presidents and general managers (23.2%). It was also notable how a fraction of respondents was concentrated on one very aggressive populace in the corporate setting – the Human Resource Managers (18.8%). Other respondents included business development officers, marketing and corporate communication officers (14.5%), consultants (5.8%) and the CSR / Sustainability managers themselves (4.3%).
Asian Quality formulated its questions in such a way that direct answers would be provided – if they have existing CSR programs, if this is included in the annual budget of the company, how much effort is the top management throwing in to realize their objectives and how successful these CSR programs are.