CSR

Mr. China Boss Man, please be more responsible

The China Daily reports, “Bosses of State firms should be ‘more responsible’“

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) should be taken into consideration when appointing and appraising the heads of State-owned-enterprises (SOEs), a business leader said yesterday.

According to the article, Wang Jiming, executive vice-president of the China Enterprise Confederation, said neglecting CSR will only hurt China’s economy:

“A business leader who only cares about profit margins and neglects social responsibility will drive high consumption of energy and heavy pollution. Such behavior is a crime against society and its people.”

This statement comes in a timely fashion, as more than 80 Chinese businesspeople recently took part in the 2007 Global Compact Leaders Summit, “Facing Realities: Getting Down to Business,” which started on Thursday, July 5th in Geneva. (Click here for a list of participants, and here for a flyer about the summit in Chinese.)

The agenda included the following business leaders:

• Captain Wei Jiafu, President and Chief Executive Officer, China Ocean Shipping Group.
• Hu Deping, Vice President, All-China Federation of Industry & Commerce (ACFIC), Vice President, China Society for the Promotion of GuangCai Program (CSPGP), President, China-Africa Business Council (CABC)
• Mr. Li Hejun, Chairman, Farsighted Group
• Ms. Xie Qihua, Chairman, Shanghai Baosteel Group Corporation (tbc)
• Mr. Wang Junjin, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Junyao Group

Background on China’s SOEs:

Since China made the switch from a command economy to a market economy after Deng Xiaoping’s reforms in 1979, the private sector has dominated business. But new reforms and restructuring have helped state enterprises become more competitive in recent years.
The McKinsey Quarterly published a report in 2004 analyzing how China’s SOEs should manage performance in order to compete with its private foreign and domestic counterparts.

The McKinsey analysts concluded that managers in China must do the following “responsible” things:

• measure a company’s performance by how well it serves its customers and other important stakeholders
• build organizations that instill individual accountability in workers and persuade them to make the most of their talent and experience

And workers must do their part, too, by doing this:

• assume responsibility for their actions
• understand how they add value to the organization
• accept the consequences if they fail to perform as required

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