assessment and self-assessment of corporate social ... - Mihajlo Pupin

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12 NikitinaTable 1: The annual social reports preparation (% оf respondents)Compilation of reports of socialYears2007 2009Yes 10,0 6,0No, but plan 23.3 2,0No 66,7 92,0Table 2: Forms of social reporting (% оf companies that make up social reports)The form of social reportingYears2007 2009A separate report in accordance with international non-standard 0,0 0,0Appendix to the Annual Report 100,0 66.7Report to the board 0,0 0,0Speech in the Media 0,0 33.3Other 0,0 0,0Table 3: Reasons for not making social reports (% оf companies that do not make up social reports)ReasonsYears2007 2009Other tasks 48.1 29.8The company is not ready for dialogue with the public 14.8 4.3Lack of financial resources 11.1 10.6Necessity absence 26.0 46.8Other 0,0 2.1Do not call the cause of 0,0 6.4In 2007 “other tasks” and “the absence of thenecessity” were named as the most importantreasons for not drawing on the CSR reports. In 2009the same reasons were named, but their rankings arereversed. It is noteworthy that only 26.0% ofmanagers saw no need for social reporting in 2007and in 2009 there were 46.8%. We can assume thatthe worsening economic situation in the countryaffected the views of managers. But in general, thissituation is because the level of businessesmanagement relationship to corporate socialresponsibility is very unstable. Socially responsiblebehavior is seen as an attribute of a good life, whichcan be neglected for the deterioration of thesituation. That indicates that the level ofunderstanding of CSR as a strategy is not achieved.In this regard Russian federal and regionalgovernment authorities are taking steps to enhancesocially responsible behavior of Russian enterprises.METHOD OF "STANDARD OF CORPORATESOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY OFENTERPRISES OF VORONEZH REGION"It should be noted that at the present time in Russiathe unified social standard does not exist. Socompanies could not make up standardized andcomparable reporting. All national standards forcorporate social responsibility are developed basedon the documents of authoritative internationalorganizations: OECD Guidelines for MultinationalEnterprises (OECD, 2000); UN Human RightsNorms for Business; Global Compact; ILOConventions; Global Sullivan Principles. At theirbase the separate documents, which are advisory innature, and the fulfillment of their demands isvoluntary were formed: Standard "Socialresponsibility of the organization. Requirements"-CSR/2008 developed by Russian Organization forQuality (ROQ, 2007); Standard "Social reporting byenterprises and organizations registered in theRussian Federation. Guidelines", proposed byRussian Chamber of Commerce; "Basicperformance indicators. Recommendations for use inthe practice of management and corporate nonfinancialreporting", prepared by Russian Union ofIndustrialists and Entrepreneurs in order to promotethe ideas of the Social Charter of Russian Business(2005).The lack of clear quantitative indicators of CSR andmethodological basis for the interpretation of theresults are the main problems of the majority ofstandards. The use of the standards GRI and "Basicperformance indicators. Recommendations for use inthe practice of management and corporate nonfinancialreporting" (Russian adaptation of the GRI)can help to overcome these problems (Prokopov andFeoktistova, 2008). But first of all they do not allow
JOURNAL OF ENGINEERING MANAGEMENT AND COMPETITIVENESS (JEMC) 13evaluation of results of social activity without theinvolvement of experts, as they do not have specificguidelines for the indicators. Secondly, thecomposition of the proposed indicators of activityfits only to a large industrial enterprise. And thirdly,they give rise to only a formalization of the reportingprocess in the management of CSR. Also, thegeneral purpose of each standard is not reduced tothe common goal: one can assess the quality of thepreparation of social reports, while others aredesigned to improve the quality of reporting onsustainable development, the third are made forstakeholders.In the last 2-3 years in the Russian regions somesteps to enhance socially responsible behavior ofregional companies have been taken. This processwas developed by such tools as organization of thevarious competitions, building a rating of sociallyresponsible businesses, and developing their ownCSR standards and codes. In the Voronezh regionthe initiative in the introduction and development ofCSR has also been taken. We have developed"Standard of corporate social responsibility ofenterprises of Voronezh Region". It covers thegeneral theoretical position associated with theterminology, goals, principles of corporate socialresponsibility, and includes minimum requiredindicators to assess the level of social responsibility.The standard can be used by organizations of allsizes and types, regardless of affiliation to aparticular industry, the level of knowledge of therequirements of international standards for selfassessmentand provided information to keystakeholders (public authorities and managementbodies of local self-government, communityorganizations, made available to the public throughmedia, etc.).The Standard provides the use of both quantitativeand qualitative indicators. The use of quantitativevariables ensures comparability of data. Theprincipal feature of this standard is that the CSRindicators are grouped in three spheres ofresponsibility - technical-technological,organizational-economic and non-productive. Thisallows description of three areas of socio-economicrelations:− State of the productive forces, from which allother components of socially responsiblebehavior of the enterprise depend on;− The degree of organizational and economicrelations, which mediate the productive forces;− The nature and intensity of interaction ofcompanies with governments, local governments,civil society organizations in decision of a widerange of socially significant issues of nonproductiveactivities.For example, composition of the indicators in theorganizational-economic sphere is presented inTable 4.The structure of the indicators in the Standard showsnot only content elements of the specific areas ofCSR, but also evaluates the level of achievement inthis area.INTERPRETATION OF THE RESULTS OFCORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITYFOR THE COMPANY AND ITSSTAKEHOLDERSStandard’s indicators rank the activities of thecompany's corporate social responsibility at threelevels. Ranking done on the basis of theimplementation obligations of socially responsibleactivities: mandatory and voluntary. The minimumvalue of the indicator sets a limit of mandatory level.Failure to comply with mandatory actionsautomatically precludes the company from a numberof responsible, no matter what voluntary sociallyimportant transactions it may produce. In thepresence of at least one indicator with a value of"zero", the enterprise cannot be considered sociallyresponsible. This is due to the fact that in prescribingregulations the values that society considersunconditional are reflected. The company may notshare this value system, but has no right (either legalor moral) to consider their own values moresignificant than that prescribed by society. This doesnot exclude the possibility to initiate the introductionof changes to regulations aimed at improving thesocial responsibility of all society that can beconsidered as an element of socially responsiblebehavior on a higher - voluntary level.The Standard takes into account that the conditionsin which businesses operate are specific to eachregion. Achievement of at least average levelindicates that the enterprise-specific parameter of itsactivities is working "better than others." Therefore,the averages over sphere of activity in Voronezhregion were taken as the first level of CSR.The first level is primary. It represents thecompany's activities aimed at the assimilation of theCSR provisions which are already developed,obtaining a sufficiently common for companies inthe region results and the adaptation to the generatedrules. So it can be treated as a voluntary adaptive.
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