SMEs AND CSR

When the topic of corporate social responsibility (CSR) comes up, almost invariably, big companies come to mind.

- ONG XIANG HONG

CSR activities are high-profile, and attract media attention, resulting in (mostly) positive publicity. These corporations are also particularly concerned to protect and enhance their reputations with the broader public as well as key stakeholders. Most of all, they often have more resources and are more able to invest in CSR.

But that does not mean CSR is the exclusive preserve of large corporations. SMEs too, can and should engage in CSR.

CSR ISN’T NEW

You might think that CSR is a new concept – after all, famed economist Milton Friedman famously claimed in 1970 that “the social responsibility of business is to increase its profits”.

But this idea doesn’t completely discount a company’s social impact. Friedman argues that it is in the long-run interest of a corporation to do good works, to “make it easier to attract desirable employees, reduce the wage bill or lessen losses from pilferage and sabotage or have other worthwhile effects.”

Nevertheless, the idea that business has societal obligations goes back to the Industrial Revolution, at the dawn of the corporate age. Visionary business leaders built factory towns, which provided workers and their families with housing and other amenities when many parts of the newly industrialised cities were slums.