Corporate and Community Interests Harmonised

While Vietnam’s economy is experiencing a tough time, burdened by prolonged inflation, corporate social responsibility (CSR) seems to be disregarded. To learn more about the implementation of corporate social responsibility and the Government’s and other agencies’ support for businesses to carry out this work, Reporter Do Ngoc interviews Mr Dang Duc Thanh, President of International Business Knowledge Joint Stock Company, Vice President of Ho Chi Minh City Business Association, and Member of the Executive Committee of the Vietnam Chamber of Commerce and Industry (VCCI).

 

CSR is a relatively new term, which is variably defined and interpreted. Simply put, CSR is the commitments and fulfilments of businesses to harmonise corporate and community interests; it encourages businesses to behave responsibly to improve social relations, environment, ethics and corporate culture. With the transition from a centrally planned economy to a market economy, Vietnam has strongly integrated with the global economy. The growing presence of foreign organisations and corporations in Vietnam and the increasing export of Vietnamese goods to the world have forced Vietnamese enterprises to respect international business conduct principles if they want to integrate and stand firmly on global markets. Sensible attitudes and behaviours of business leaders reflect their awareness of the importance and urgency of researching, popularising and applying corporate social responsibility in their organisations and enterprises. Definitely, when a company exercises corporate social responsibility, it will not bear any expense or loss but its image, brand prestige and value of intangible assets, as well as competitive advantages, bring much more to it.

 

First of all, the Vietnam Chamber of Commerce and Industry (VCCI), professional organisations and business associations in the country necessarily inform enterprises of the importance and role of CSR and provide them conduct principles and international business practices. They also need to organise many seminars and training courses and publish books to disseminate knowledge and experience of CSR implementation for businesses in general and sector-oriented businesses like seafood, apparel, footwear, agriculture, forestry, insurance and real estate.

 

It is necessary to broaden the participation of media agencies to disseminate knowledge, and convince people and communities to monitor the implementation of corporate social responsibility.

 

Ministries and other agencies should annually announce and praise companies with good CSR.

 

Enterprises are facing very harsh situations. Escalating inflation, rising lending rates, frozen real estate market and stock market slump are distressing business leaders. Downsizing and suspension are a general trend. Given this difficult circumstance, we – the International Business Knowledge Centre and the Vietnam Business Council for Sustainable Development – organised a seminar entitled "Corporate social responsibility in the context of international economic integration." In this context, this topic is actually less attractive to companies than other burning issues; thus, we emphasise the message: Current difficulty is short-lived; the basis for a business environment in the context of global economic integration is the very way to sustained and long-term development. It is high time we revised business strategies, which not only focus on corporate restructuring but also focus on equipping enterprises with new business thinking based on friendliness, tolerance and harmony with people, environment and other state and social institutions.

 

The objectives of the workshop are to provide right awareness and thought about business environment and sustainable development. After the seminar, we will publish books and open training courses on CSR to provide more options of CSR for business leaders.