http://newsletter.eucck.org/site/view/view.htm?num=6921
EKF NEWS
The Europe-Korea Foundation and EUCCK PR & Marketing Committee organized their second CSR forum.
May / 2009
On April 14th of 2009, the Europe-Korea Foundation, in cooperation with the PR & Marketing of EUCCK, organized a special Luncheon on Corporate Social Responsibility. The topic was “10 reasons not to give up corporate community involvement in difficult times.”
Today, as businesses and the global economy experience historic periods of belt tightening, corporate community involvement is undergoing new challenges. To discuss about this topic, EKF and EUCCK invited Ms Angela Joo-Hyun Kang to talk about the topic, and to outline 10 reasons why corporate community involvement can still be powerful even during an economic recession. Dr. Seol Do-Won, Chairman of the PR & Marketing Committee of EUCCK, and Executive Director of Samsung Tesco Home Plus, was the moderator of the event.
Holding a master degree of public administration from Harvard Kennedy School, Ms Kang is the founder and CEO of GCEF (Global Competitiveness Empowerment Forum) based in Seoul. In addition, she works as a CSR advisor for the Community Relations Center and for the International Management Institute of the Federation of Korean Industries. She also translated the Korean version of “Beyond Good Company – Next Generation of Corporate Citizenship” by Goodgins, Mirvis and Rochlin, and each participant received a copy of the book.
According to a survey conducted in 2005 by CECP, 54% of the companies surveyed were involved in CSR activities as a purely charitable purpose and expected no benefit, 11% did so as in order only to satisfy their commercial needs, while 35% saw Corporate Community Involvement (CCI) as strategic, meaning they were expecting both business results and community benefits. Ms Kang detailed why she favors this third approach. CCI is beneficial because it can be considered as long term R&D, and it creates many opportunities - for example by creating new markets.
When planning and designing their CSR activities, companies may consider their know-how and ask primarily their own staff for their active contribution. Concerning HR, the importance of internal communication related to the company’s own CSR activities should not be dismissed. Finally, besides all the business benefits created by CSR activities, properly designed CCI will allow companies to narrow the gap between the corporate world and the society, beyond mere brand image improvement considerations.
The presentation was followed by a Q&A in which participants could express their opinion about the topic and raise the issue for their specific case, for example the case of CCI for small sized companies. EKF would like to thank warmly all the participants, Dr. Seol Do-Won, the sponsors, and Ms Angela for their great contribution.
HOME > News & Views > News )
