the impact of corporate social responsibility about the environment issue of vietnamese limited companies

THE IMPACT OF CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY ABOUT THE ENVIRONMENT ISSUE OF VIETNAMESE LIMITED... THE IMPACT OF CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITIES ABOUT THE ENVIRONMENT ISSUE OF VIETNAME

THE IMPACT OF CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY ABOUT THE ENVIRONMENT ISSUE OF VIETNAMESE LIMITED

DECLARATION OF ORIGINALITY AND WORD COUNT

I hereby declare that the graduation project is based on my original work except for

quotations and citations which have been duly acknowledged I also declare that it has not been previously or concurrently submitted for any other course/degree at Help University College or other institutions The word count is 9397 words

TRAN BAO NGOC

28 March, 2011

Next, I would like to acknowledge to two managers who join in my interview: Mr Tran Thanh Hai- Direct Manager of Thach Bich Mineral Water company and Mr Nghuyen Van Thuan- Manager of Human Resouces in Banh mut Keo Ha Noi spent their precious time

to help me to conduct the interview In adition, I also would like to extend my special thanks to managers, Government Staffs, my friends, and other people who have help me

to carry out the survey because they gave me their support, interest and valuable hints Without them, I can not complete my project

Lastly, I would also like to extend my heartfelt gratitude to my family who always are on

my side for loving me, supporting me and beliving in me

TRAN BAO NGOC

THE IMPACT OF CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITIES ABOUT THE ENVIRONMENT ISSUE OF VIETNAMESE LIMITED COMPANIES

compay, and the attitude of Vietnam Governemtn staff toward them After we can see that, there is strong support for CSR and its component: environment from managers and

a growing awareness among citizens and Government staffs Nevertheless, there is

expectation gap between how manager think and how they act because there are lack of honesty CSR disclosure from firm or manager, inactive support actions from consumers due to the barriers in living expenses, and the way company chose to communicate CSR

In contrast, with highly positive attitude toward the important impact of CSR and

environment duties and the strong belive finding from the survey have drawing potential

TABLE OF CONTENTS

DECLARATION OF ORIGINALITY AND WORD COUNT 2

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT 3

ABSTRACT 4

TABLE OF CONTENTS 5

LIST OF FIGURES 7

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS 8

1 INTRODUCTION 9

1.1 CSR and CSR about environment issue in the world 9

1.2 CSR and CSR about environment issue in Vietnam 9

1.3 Government actions 10

1.4 CSR practice and challenges 11

2 LITERATURE REVIEW 12

2.1 Definition and conceptualization of CSR 12

2.1.1 Carroll's 1979-1991 conceptualization 13

2.2 Responsibility of the firm 15

2.3 Limited companies 16

2.4 CSR reporting 17

2.5 Hypothesis 17

2.5.1 Management‟s attitude toward CSR and environment duties 17

2.5.2 Citizen‟s attitude toward CSR information and environment duties 18

2.5.3 Government staffs‟ attitude toward CSR and environment duties 19

3 RESEARCH METHODOLOGY 20

3.1 Research objective 20

3.2 Problem statement 21

3.3 Reasearch methodology 21

3.4 Data source 21

3.4.1 Primary data 21

3.4.2 Secondary data 22

3.5 Research method 23

3.6 Research tool 23

3.6.2 Personal interview 23

3.6.3 Annual report ………23

3.7 Data collection 24

3.8 Sampling 24

3.8.1 Sample population 24

3.8.2 Sample frame 24

3.8.3 Sample size 24

3.8.4 Sample technique 24

3.9 Limitation 24

4 FINDINGS AND ANALYSIS 26

4.1 Management 27

4.1.1 Findings from questionnaire survey 27

4.1.2 Actual CSR disclosures by firms 31

4.1.3 Findings from managers interview 33

4.1.4 Overall evaluation of management‟s responses 34

4.2 Citizens 35

4.2.1 Findings from questionnaire survey 35

4.2.2 Overall evaluation of citizen‟s responses 37

4.3 Government staff 40

4.3.1 Findings from questionnaire survey 40

4.3.2 Overall evaluation of Government staff‟s responses 43

4.4 Overall discussion 44

5 CONCLUSION 47

REFERENCES 51

APPENDIX A: QUESTIONNAIRE 55

APPENDIX B: STATISTICAL TEST 60

LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 2.1 CSR basic knowledge ……….13

Figure 2.2 A hierarchy of CSR (adapted from Carroll, 1991) 13

Figure 2.3 The CSP Model (adapted from Wood, 1991) 16

Figure 4.1 Respondents 26

Figure 4.2 Citizens and Government staff categories 26

Figure 4.3 Distribution of responses from management survey 27

Figure 4.4 Distribution of responses from management survey (percentage) 29

Figure 4.5 Descriptive statistics 1 (management survey) 30

Figure 4.6 Descriptive statistics 2 (management survey) 31

Figure 4.7 Distribution of responses from citizen survey 35

Figure 4.8 Distribution of responses from citizen survey (percentage) 37

Figure 4.9 Descriptive statistics 1 (citizen survey) 38

Figure 4.10 Descriptive statistics 2 (citizen survey) 39

Figure 4.11 Distribution of responses from Government staff 40

Figure 4.12 Distribution of responses from Government staff (percentage) 41

Figure 4.13 Descriptive statistics 1 (Government staff survey) 42

Figure 4.14 Descriptive statistics 2 (Government staff survey) 42

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

CSR Corporate Social Responsibility

IQR Inter-Quartile Range

VSA Vietnamese Accounting Standard

1 INTRODUCTION

1.1 CSR and CSR about environment issue in the world

Nowadays with the booming of Internet and Information Technology (IT), the world become closer and the economy in over the world also become more global As the result,

to gain advantages of this chance all companies in the world need to have the perfect image to the society to ensure that they can run their business well with the support of public As the result, they spend a lot of money to achieve that and responsible for society that means a huge number of money are used to complete their Corporate Social

Responsibility For example, General Electrics uses more than two billion USD per year for ensure its CSR In addition the most important aspect need to consider when talking about CSR is environment aspect It can not be denied that nowadays the environment of the world become more and more polluted by the human harm thus to have better imagine

in society all companies need also protect our environment Typically, Uno one of the biggest company in Japan has applied recycled goods program The other example is Coca- cola the biggest beverage company has many activities for community: recycling bottle, distributing its product in environment friendly water bottled

1.2 CSR and CSR about the environment issue in Vietnam

In contrast, Vietnam is a developing country and it has a potential economy with the growth rate is high thus this country also try its best to join in the world‟s economy to have more advantages and privilege After a lot of negotiation and efforts, now it has

already been formal members of Word Trade Organization (WTO) which open a new gate for all companies in this country try their best to do efficiently and effectively to take part

in the global economy and make their development better with more profitable chances With this global trend, and the rapidly development in this harmony of economy,

Vietnamese companies need to care about a lot of issues Among a lot of issue the main issue which they need to care most is CSR However in Vietnam, CSR is a new concept

It newly introduced by internal corporations sourcing in Vietnam under the form of Code

of Conduct or social standard requirements since Vietnam dos not have much experience about this filed Presently, a lot of events: Vedan polluted Thi Vai river, China milk contain minamin, conflict between parties inside company make this term especially environment aspect become more necessary for all sustainable economies in Vietnam

1.3 Govenrment action

Because of the above necessary, Vietnamese Government have already taken actions to ensure that all companies in over the country must to complete their CSR especially environment issue For example, Vietnamese Government use “Sustainable development and protecting the environment” which set in the national strategy SRV 1993:45, along with most nations in the world (O‟Rourke,1995) They also made new regulations,

“Environmental Protection Law and the Vietnam Agenda 21” for sustainable

development Besides, the Government also established Environmental Police and special fees levied on the emission of waste water to strengthen enforcement measures against companies that polluted

1.4 CSR practice and challenge

Vietnam had CSR Awards, which was organized by Vietnam Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Ministry of Labor-Invalids and Social Affairs, Vietnam Ministry of Industry and Trade since 2005, together with Vietnam Leather & Footwear Association, and The Vietnam National Textile and Garment Group, in order to honor enterprises and all

limited companies that effective done of CSR and environment duties In 2006, there are

50 Vietnamese companies in field: Leather & Footwear Association, Textile and Garment that join in that According to PhD Doan Duy Khuong - Vice-Director of Vietnam

Chamber of Commerce and Industry, “CSR and its component have become necessary

requirement for each company, if the company does not embrace CSR, they can not approach the global market” (Saga Vietnam, 2008)

However, in Vietnam, there are still a lot of difficulties in applying CSR and complete environment duties Firstly, there is not enough law and regulation to enforce limited companies and other kind of companies to complete their duties to the society The

evaluations of CSR effectuation are set in Code of Conduct and standards such as

SA8000, WRAP, ISO 14000, GRI, etc Furthermore, there are not common deal between Government and International department about the way to do those Thus, ties are only among export or import companies or companies' rules Secondly, there is also a lack of knowledge from limited companies' knowledge about CSR and environment duties The

do not have enough knowledge and experience Besides, we have some limited companies that have started to produce friendly environment goods such as: Thach Bich, Hai Ha tokobuki….however, those actions have mainly been based on company‟s nature rather than voluntary that complies with the business statement and company‟s image

2 LITERATURE REVIEW

2.1 Definition and conceptualization of CSR

In the fact, to define the content of CSR we have various way to do that but the following definition ifs one of the most common way to define it CSR “is also known as corporate conscience, corporate citizenship, responsible business, sustainable responsible business (SRS), or corporate social performance, is a form of corporate self- regulation integrated into a business model Ideally, CSR policy would function as a built-in, self-regulating mechanism whereby business would monitor and ensure its support to law, ethical

standards and international norms Consequently, business would embrace responsibility for the impact of its activities on the environment, consumers, employees, communities, stakeholders and all other members of the public sphere Furthermore, CSR- focused businesses would proactively promote the public interest by encouraging community growth and development and voluntarily eliminating practices that harm the public sphere, regardless of legality Essentially, CSR is the deliberate inclusion of public interest into corporate decision making and the honoring of a triple bottom line: people, planet, profit.” The following figure represent this idea

responsibilities which represents the principal roles of business organizations is not only making goods and services but also making profit that means business organization was the basic economic unit before it was anything else

Secondly, legal responsibilities of the firm were talked, represents the expectation of society that all activities of company need to take care of law, and fulfill their economic target set by Government “Fair operation” was established by lawmakers is the basis for

the view of “codified ethics” affect legal responsibility (Carroll, 1979) In fact, companies

can take advantages of law and regulation but it is not easy to know whether it is fair or not Hence, the laws are used when the tolerable business behavior are limited, but they

neither define ethics nor do they “legislate morality” (Solomon, 1994)

In fact, to fulfill with the limitation of law, the ethical responsibility have been depended

on by the companies Thus, it is not necessary to make ethical responsibility that based on human principals and rights commitment become law, but the societal members want that (Novak, 1996) In contrast, the firms might face up with difficulties to deal with the ethic because of various definitions

Lastly, when talk about model of Carroll we can not miss discretionary responsibility which includes activities that relates to the society‟s expectation of businesses to become good citizens The difference between ethical responsibility and that is that the public‟s expectation is not based on ethical or moral sense under this area The community need companies to join in the process of building and enhancing the society, however if it does not satisfy such desires, it will become unethical firm This responsibility is more

voluntary for the business even there is always expectation that the business provide it

For example: reduce the greenhouse effect, increase the literacy rates This responsibility may be conflict with the statement of company

While economic responsibility lays on the foundation, this category is the peak of the pyramid Under this opinion, economic and legal responsibilities are socially required, ethical responsibility is socially expected, and discretionary responsibility is socially desired (Windsor, 2001)

From up to now, this theory is useful and effective but it also has some limitations: three dimension are complex and not easy to test and it need to base on other theory to be better for all companies to apply Clarkson (1995)

2.2 CSR report:

Nowadays, with the booming of Internet and Information Technologythe world become closer as the result, the economy in the world also become lobal Thus the demand for implement CSR and Environment duties_ one way in which organizations use to

communicate information about social and environmental issues to different stakeholders CSR reports can be mandatory, solicited or voluntary (Van der Laan, 2004; Woodward et

al, 1996) is much higher than before as it can enhance the image and reputation of

companies in society However there are not consistent form or standard for all companies

in the world to follow thus all managers of companies try their best to enhance their reputation by misstating these report

2.3 Responsibility of the firm

Beside the normal activities of a firm, it needs to complete it social responsibility What is it? “Social responsibility is the principle that companies should contribute to the welfare

of society and not be solely devoted to maximizing profits This responsibility can be

“negative”, meaning there is exemption from lame or liability, or it can be “positive”, meaning there is a responsibility to act beneficently (proactive stance) Let‟s check the following diagram to see the relationship between companies and environment

Figure 2.3 : http://www.mallenbaker.net/csr/definition.php

2.4 Limited company

In addition, to complete this paper we must know what limited company is A limited company is a type of business entity In the United Kingdom or Republic of Ireland it is a corporation with shareholders whose liability is limited by share (Ltd), which is the most common form of privately held company Setting up as a limited company is an attractive opinion for many people as, unlike sole proprietorships, personal assets are distinct from company finances.”

2.5 Hypothesis:

2.5.1 Management‘s attitude toward CSR and Environment issue

It can not be denied that there are many different ways to define CSR and it component: environment by firms They can be the way to increase efficiency and effectiveness in operation and performance, or some companies commit to CSR and environment duties just because they simply believe that it is morally right However, according to a survey among corporate managers, there are none company have those It can not be denied that many companies focus mainly not on action only in saying about that Although there are some companies make good progress in implement CSR and environment duties, it is not easy CSR become fully adopted by business (Franklin, 2008) Thus, integrating CSR and environment duties in day-to-day operation is a key issue for management

However, there are also some challenges which can affect the attitude of manager We have inherent risk that may occur if social responsibility is not undertaken such as higher

borrowing costs, fines and public boycott on companies‟ products If social responsibility

is properly taken, there are not only future costs are saved but also the competitive

advantage and reputation can be gained through disclosing information on CSR

Besides, the general feelings in the society also influence managers‟ attitude toward The expectations society put on firm to be social responsible will influence the managers to have action toward CSR to meet those expectations So, there is reasonable to assert that manager have positive attitude toward CSR and CSR reporting in order to maintain the

“license to operate” Thus, the following hypothesis is developed:

: Managers’ attitude toward CSR and environment issue is positive

2.5.2 Citizen‘s attitude toward CSR and Environment issue

They are people in developing country thus they only care about how they can remain the stable budget in other word they only focus on price of goods not the moral issue That means their attitude toward CSR and environment duties are not strong as managers but they still know the important of them hence the following hypothesis is develop:

: Citizens’ attitude toward CSR and environment issue is positive

2.5.3 Government staff‘s attitude toward CSR and Environment issue

Government staff are agency of the Government they directly control the process of completing CSR and environment of all companies thus the realize clearly the important

of them Hwever they only are the agency of Government thus they do not have the right

to make the policies As a result, they show their neutral but positive trend attitude We might conclude that:

: Citizens’ attitude toward CSR and environment issue is positive

3 RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

3.1 Research objective

The first aim of this project is to provide a theoretical framework for understanding the completed concept of corporate social responsibilities and other relevant components under this area to build framework for all companies to have better understanding about it and they can avoid breaching any issue related to CSR

The second aim of this project is to evaluate the impact of CSR especially environment issue in Vietnamese companies mainly in limited companies In other word, when these firms do CSR, what they can achieve and what they can take advantage of

The last aim of this project is to obtain from the view of all Vietnamese companies within the industry that means it is designed to explore how the Vietnamese companies and limited companies relating to the corporate social responsibilities This project also tries to find out the components that impact on this awareness Many questions can rise: do all limited company respond to corporate social responsibilities or they try to avoid this to have more profit? If they respond to do it, how they do well or not?

III, When are the impact of corporate social responsibility to the limited company?

IV, How do those firms operating in Vietnam respond to CRS? Are they good, enough or not?

3.3 Research methodology

This study includes qualitative research The qualitative research is conducted through the interview with managers and reviewing the annual reports of companies as well as is carried out by the questionnaire survey on managers, citizen around limited companies and staff of Government department which have responsibility of CSR

primary data such as: questionnaires, interviews, focus group interviews, case-studies, diaries, observations, critical incidents, portfolio… This is the most reliable form of data

as with this kind of data researcher may have direct interaction with other parties Beside the advantages, there are also some disadvantages of primary data such as: expensive and

time consuming, false result when not conduct properly, demanding more skill and

expertise of researchers

3.4.2 Secondary data

The second source will be used is secondary data_ are those data that have already been collected for purposes other than the problem at hand This source of data will provide the overall picture about application Corporate Social Responsibilities in Vietnam and

example of implementing Corporate Social Responsibility in Vietnamese Limited

Companies The secondary data will be collected at the low cost and quickly from the relating sources such as: books, websites, newspaper, magazines and so on… Besides these advantages, this ways also contain disadvantage For example, the needed

information may not available It is very difficult for researcher to get all information they need in secondary data or when the data is available it may usefulness

3.6 Research tool

3.6.1 Questionnaire

There are three patterns of survey (Appendix A): managers, citizen around limited

companies and staff of Government department which have responsibility of CSR Survey pattern designed for managers include 7questions

The pattern for citizen around limited companies contains 7 questions

For staff of Government department which have responsibility of CSR, the pattern

including 8 questions

All of three survey patterns use three points Likert scales (1= “ strongly disagree”, 5=

“strongly agree”) to represent the extent to which the respondents think about CSR and its environment issue There is also the additional opinion part which is optional for people to write

3.6.2 Personal interview

In this paper I will conduct interview in managers from chosen companies and staff of Government department which have responsibility of CSR To complete this, I will use 6 questions for managers and Government staff to see how well those companies complete their CSR especially environment issue and the attitude of Government staff and

managers about this issue

The survey questions for management and interview requested letter for mnagers are sent

to ten companies in two sectors: beverage industry and food industry

In ten companies, six of them are Banh mut keo Ha Noi, Kinh Do, Haihakotobuki, Huu Nghi, Trung Thanh Co Ltd and Halong CanFood Co.Ltd There are four manufactures of beverage industry: Thach Bich, Quang Hanh, Kim Boi, and Lavie

80 management questionnaire patterns, 150 citizens questionnaire patterns and 80

Government staffs questionnaire pattern have been sent out There are also 10 requested letters for interviews are sent to managers of 10 limited companies

3.8.4 Sample techniques

The sampling was conducted based on two techniques: convenience sampling and

judgment sampling I will use convenience sampling for questionnaire survey and

judgment sampling for managers‟ interview

3.9 Limitation

When conducting a research, we will face with some following problems Firstly, the problem can be found in survey pattern Sometime, because people may not have enough knowledge, they can not answer the question Besides, although they do not know the issue or understand the question, they still answer the question to have better imagine which can cause the wrong result for conclude the research In addition, people may be unwilling to respond to unknown interviewer or about issues they consider sensitive And people may refuse to spend time to answer the questions (Amstrong & Kotler, 2007) Secondly, the problem also can be found in finding annual report of the chosen firms It can not be denied that all companies want to have perfect imagine in society thus they try their best to enhance their strength and decrease their weakness As the result, when

interview comes to ask them about needed information they will not willing to provide and interviewer can not be allowed to catch to those information to hide their weak Lastly, when I take sample I only focus on the small area (Dong Da district), thus my conclusion may be right for this area but not reflect the overall trend of whole country

4 FINDINGS AND ANALYSIS

The responds received after the questionnaires are sent out is summarized in Figure 4.1

This patern is divided into two categories: beverage industry and food industry The citizen pattern is divided based on the age of respondents and Government agency pattern

is divided into two categories based on sex, they are illustrated in figure 4.2

Figure 4.2 Citizens category

Age range No of people

- Phong Tai Nguyen Moi Truong quan

Government staff category

Ten interview requested letters are sent out; only two of them are accepted The

interviews are carried out with: Mr Tran Thanh Hai – Direct Manager of Thach Bich

miniral water company and Mr Nguyen Van Thuan- Manager of Human resource in Banh Mut Keo Ha Noi

The data from Likert scale surveey does not tell the differences between each response are equal in distance, in contrast, it has an inherent order or sequence That is why in this

study, the data from survey is treated as ordinal data rather than interval data Hence, the median, mode and inter- quartile range (IQR) of each question is calculated rather than mean and standard deviation The Chi- square test is use to test the hypothesis (the

calculations of the test are shown in Appendix B)

4.1 Management

4.1.1 Findings from questionnaire survey

The percentage of response distribution and descriptive statistics (including median,

mode, and IQR) are presented in figure 4.3, figure 4.5 and figure 4.6 respectively

Figure 4.3 Distribution of responses from management survey

Statements

1 Incurring costs to protect environment and solve

relating social issues is the social responsibility of

the company

# 8 16 8 3 0

% 22.5 46 23 8.5 0

2 Protecting environment companies should be

received prevail capital policies from Government

# 6 15 10 4 0

% 17 43 29 11 0

3 The image of companies and their stakeholder will

be better if they really care much about

# 7 14 12 2 0

% 20 40 34 6 0

environment issue

4 Customers will buy product of company which

have good reputation of protecting environment

# 3 8 10 12 2

% 9 23 28 34 6

5 The impact of CSR about environment issue in

Vietnamese limited company is stronger than ever

before

# 2 19 10 4 0

% 6 54 29 11 0

6 When using new system in producing, companies

need to take care of its impact on environment

# 0 8 13 8 6

% 0 23 37 23 17

7 Take care of environment is become more and more

important for companies in near future

# 9 11 2 13 0

% 26 31 6 37 0

5= strongly agree, 4=agree, 3=neutral, 2=disagree, 1= strongly disagree; #- number of choosing

From this chart, more than half of managers of those limited companies recognize that the impact of CSR and its component: environment is becoming stronger than in the from the table 60% of respondents believe the above statement while 40% managers do not think like that (statement 5) Further more, a majority of respondents (60%) think that CSR and environment issues would improve their companies‟ image within the public, whereas 34% of managers still question the impact of CSR about environment on the reputation of limited companies, 6% do not think like that (statement 3).Besides, managers express

strong feeling regarding to the issue of taking care of environment can become general practice in near future (statement 7) The dispersion of this question seems large

(IQR=2.75) show that there is controversy in this issues While 37% of managers do not agree with that, a huge respondents number (57%) in contrast believe in this statement, only 6% of respondent have no opinion on this issue and no managers indicate a strongly disagree to the statement

Figure 4.4 Distribution of responses from management survey (percentage)

Focus on the managers‟ right to the making processes, there is also a large dispersion among answers (IQR=2) represent a non-consistency in opinion of managers A large proportion of managers (68.5%) think that incurring costs to protect environment and to solve social problem is the firm especially limited firm„s social responsibility, while 8.5% respondents do not agree to the statement (statement 1) Because they think that when these companies protect environment they should be received prevail capital policies from Government We can easily see it from the propotion of questionnaire: there are 60% of managers have the same opinion with that however we only have 8.5% respondent

disagree with that It may reflect the fact that limited companies know exactly what their responsibilities to society and they always try to complete their duties to have advantages from Government even though they must to pay a lot of money to do them(statement 2) Beside the benefits from the Government, CSR and environment issues also bring the benefit for those companies from customers as buyers will buy more products of

companies which have good reputation in protecting environment Managers of all

companies above can see this potential advantage: representing 28% of respondents have

no opinion on whether customer will buy more products from companies which have good reputation in protecting environment (statement 4) Moreover, 32% of managers agree with this statement, in which 30% strongly disagree with that

The management responses are also analyzed based on different industry sectors (figure 4.6) The results represent that there is no big difference between the responses of

managers of different sectors However, managers in Food Industry seem to have higher positive attitude than the other sector, especially in question 7 (about the future of CSR and environment issue) with the IQR is 1 while the IQR of Beverage industry =2 The reason may be due to the nature of their business and the ways their business run which has direct effects on the environment, which can lead to the better social responsibility Beverage industry has higher IQR which show the controversy among this sector about the issue Even the mode of this industry in this question is 4, the median is 4 means that most of the answer is positive

Figure 4.5 Descriptive statistics 1 (management survey)

1 Incurring costs to protect environment and solve

relating social issues is the social responsibility of the

company

3 4 1

2 Protecting environment companies should be received

prevail capital policies from Government 4 4 1

3 The image of companies and their stakeholder will be 4 4 1

better if they really care much about environment issue

4 Customers will buy product of company which have

good reputation of protecting environment 3 2 2

5 The impact of CSR about environment issue in

Vietnamese limited company is stronger than ever

before

4 4 1

6 When using new system in producing, companies need

to take care of its impact on environment 3 3 1

7 Take care of environment is become more and more

important for companies in near future 4 2 2.75

IQR= Inter-quartile range

BI = Beverage industry; FI= Food industry

4.1.2 Findings from manager interview

“The managers show a clear support for CSR and environment duties during the

interview The first important thing when defining CSR is complying with the regulation and tax obligation in a strictly manner ” Besides, managers also see CSR and

environment issue as taking action that good for society and environment Hence,

nowadays, CSR and environment duties become more important and it is in line with the mission of nation Director manager says that after passing a lot of difficult periods in the past, Vietnamese Government has reformed the centrally planned economy into socialist- oriented market economy which lead to a change in the way of operation to promote the ability of each individual and creating motivation to develop the economy to increase the wealth and standard life of the society, however, the target of the nation mentioned above

is still kept the same as in the past: “ to bring happiness to all levels in society As a result,

to complete this statement, all activities of companies especially limited companies have been combined with CSR and environment duties Thus Government have strong effect

on companies Next, the driving forces behind embracing CSR is to follow the national mission statement, tmanagers mention the satisfactory of the general expectation of the community, to maintain the balance for all sustainable companies and also gain the good image in the market place In contrast, the managers cited that approximately only 52% of their customers care about CSR and environment issue, their awareness depend much on their educational background It can not be denied that Vietnam is a developing country thus its income is still not as high as other countries, hence to citizens, price of products and services seems to be more important than ethic in purchasing decision That is why

“many limited companies in Vietnam now care much about CSR in a commercial manner

to attract customers They use CSR and environmental activities as way to promote the company that means CSRand its components is have without its normal meaning” he said

“On the other hand, regarding to the impact CSR and environment issue has on investors‟ decision making; both managers said that the Vietnam stock market has just been joined global in recent years, it is still young A huge number of Vietnam investors do not have

hearsay rather than analyzing the information carefully, so the CSR and environment issues are not cared by those investors For long term investors, even CSR is taken into account as one of the risk management, CSR is not considered to be important factor in decision making “However, the managers showed positive attitude toward the future of CSR and environment issue since they think that the globalization is taken in over the world, Vietnam is one of highly potential market, so, to attract and fulfill requirements from international customers and investors as well as to prevent from being eliminated from the world development, Vietnamese limited companies have to change themselves to comply with the overall trend and CSR and environment issue are important parts Thus

we can see a bright future for CSR and environment duties But to do those, all above companies in Vietnam need to take more effective actions such as: improving machine system, enhance the standard of making product…

4.1.3 Actual CSR disclosures by firms

In this paper I chose 10 Vietnamese limited companies in food in dustry and beverage industry But there are no CSR reporting especially environment report in their annual reports Because they said that there is not any requirement from the government or from investors for independent CSR and environment reporting in annual report which can explain why companies do not prepare CSR and environment reporting with international standard In Vietnam we still do not know what expert reports are In contrast, CSR information is disclosed in descriptive nature; non-quantitative information is provided Also, there is no uniformity in the format In the annual reports of five food companies, CSR and environment information is disclosed in the normal section, also the mission for sustainable development can be found in Chairman and CEO message They were only