Qualitative Analysis

5. Survey Analysis

5.1. Qualitative Analysis

Financial Institutions

For financial institutions, international corporates know well about what corporate social responsibility means. Their mother companies, or what they regard as group level, offer high flexibility for them to localize the projects or activities in order to fit the needs of local beneficiaries or local regulations. In order to track the results of their activities or initiatives, key performance index are defined. For example, an auditing to human resources department on inclusive recruitment process, putting Equator Principle into consideration when they are working on the due diligence of a financing project, strict internal auditing and compliance to assure obligation to local and international regulations, or encouraging skill-based volunteering as the best way to optimize resources when rewarding the society. These companies know well that CSR is implemented via every person and department of the companies.

For local financial corporates, an associate admitted that “we are not as comprehensive as the international firms. For much management in my company, or other local financial institutions I have worked for, CSR is monitored by how much money we donated and how many CSR awards we have gained”. However, she said that the CSR initiatives are more external focused, which are mostly about on helping external stakeholders, such as supporting an NGO for a project or program. These program has to be more multi-purpose in order to better “leverage the resources” and “media exposure must be generated if senior managements participated in these event”. Another manager from a local financial holdings

‧

also said that when his company is donating money, tax deduction is one of the concerns as

“in many Taiwanese companies, the mindset of CSR is how they can best utilize the good cause. Tax deduction seems to be a must as they are listed and need to tell their shareholders why this money is on balance sheet.” Media exposure becomes an essential responsibility to the corporate communications team. He added “you can’t deny they are doing good cause, they are just leveraging this opportunity to gain positive media exposure. To gain media exposure, a photo call with cheque donation seems to be the best way.” As they wish to use the least resources to achieve both good cause and media exposures, routine money donations and senior management attending volunteering events are always highlighted. These companies also have other internal corporates initiatives but the focus is on external stakeholders.

Media

For media who covered news on financial holdings are always invited to the media event of CSR activities in financial industry. Though many of them don’t know who the beneficiaries are, they are still happy with how these companies are rewarding the society. From their points of view, local financial corporates are pushing hard on media exposure. “Sometimes I received called from the organizers asking why there was no reporting from me as I attended their event”, a senior journalist from local newspaper said. She also pointed out that she understands CSR is not only about philanthropy, it is also about how a company is doing business right, and other interviewees from media know that too. However, Taiwanese companies, or Taiwanese managements in international corporates “are so affected by the traditional mind set of Taiwanese culture about how they can best utilize resource to gain best results. Money donation seems to be the easiest way for them to achieve this purpose”. With a

‧

media event formulated with ceremony, or “photo-call”, they can donate money, show their good cause by just selecting beneficiary and then having ink on newspaper the next day.

In media perspectives, they receive loads of press release from various companies every day, covering a large array of news from products, business development and CSR. With loads of news reporting to handle on limited pages available on the newspapers, CSR event are always at lowest priority as they are less newsworthy and are with less importance to their readers.

They appreciate the good cause but not how the corporate communication officers push them for media coverage. “A local financial holding even buy spaces on newspaper to secure media coverage for their CSR event since their managements are so nervous about it”. Since these CSR events would help promote a positive image, some companies are inviting their management with scandal to attend these events in order to save their reputation, a journalist from general newspaper revealed.

PR agency

When receiving a request on proposal, the public relations consultants would help generate a media strategy for the CSR event. “These companies already have their own set of CSR principles and are just pitching a PR firm to generate a better media plan.” These financial institutions usually have good relations and connections with reporters covering financial industry. To reach greater array of audience, the PR agency is responsible to tailor news angles that fits the appetite of general news reporters or social welfare reporters. “Mostly it is the requirement from local companies or local managements about having extensive media exposure for the event. Foreign companies or management would rather spend the budget on the CSR initiative itself”. Some companies would event request “I want a CSR award this

‧ 國

立 政 治 大 學

‧

N a tio na

l C h engchi U ni ve rs it y

year and request us to design a CSR strategies for them”.

NGO/ NPO

These Non-government organizations or non-profit organizations welcome the contribution from financial institutions and their good cause, “but sometimes I feel stressful when they are pushing hard for media exposure”, all the interviewees revealed. The partnership with these financial corporates would help them for better visibility to public due to better publicity on media and this resulted in better donation received. “Sometimes it’s not easy to persuade public to donate for a special cause. Their donation would help on this. However, they are sometimes too focus on media values and may not be able to deliver the donation to the right person”. For example, the media sometimes reported a special social problem, such as insufficient lunch boxes for elementary schools in remote areas, these companies would allocated their donations to the item and neglect other needs.

Another example is volunteering. “They want to maximize the resources and would leverage volunteering events for their staff engagement. For some volunteering events such as the volunteer zoo keepers, mentally handicapped bakery helpers, you can see the ratio of volunteers is too high”. For the NGOs or NPOs, they appreciate the event initiated by financial institutional but would also appreciate a larger variety of good causes.