Although corporate citizenship awareness is not high in Hong Kong, most companies support the principles, a survey of the Committee on the Promotion of Civic Education has found.

The survey showed 23% of respondents are aware of the corporate citizenship concept, and 9% have institutional mechanisms to implement, monitor and evaluate corporate citizenship programmes.

Large companies are more aware of and have corporate citizenship programmes, and companies which are aware of the concept have better corporate citizenship practices.

About 86% have policies to protect their customers and 88% believe they have an obligation to supply safe and quality goods and services. About 95% have environmental protection measures while 18% donated to charities in the last year.

Long-term benefits

Presenting the findings today, committee chairman Dr Pang King-chee said most companies believe corporate citizenship can benefit them in the long run.

They also feel they have responsibility to foster values and develop corporate culture, and that implementing corporate citizenship is the responsibility of every company.

"Results showed that companies' actions were mostly done in compliance with the basic ethical norms or legal measures," Dr Pang said. 

"Beyond that, they practised corporate citizenship only when it helped commercial interests. Thus they did rather well in the minimisation of negative impact and ethical business operation but not so well in positively contributing to employees' well-being or society where such actions were beyond duty."

Companies regarding corporate citizenship as bringing benefits or seeing corporate citizenship as part of the company culture are more likely to have related measures than those which said they will provide such measures only if they were required by law or if there was pressure from the market, Dr Pang said.

Gov't impetus

Respondents also expected the Government to take the lead in promoting and implementing the concept by providing training to companies, raising corporate citizenship incentives and developing relevant charters.

"The committee will carefully take into account the results of this survey in formulating future plans in promoting corporate citizenship in Hong Kong," Dr Pang said.

The survey was conducted last November to April with 20,417 business establishments drawn from the Register of Establishments maintained by the Census & Statistics Department and 10,094 of them completing the questionnaires. For more details, click here.