Givers and takers
Polish businesses are taking to the idea of corporate social responsibility (CSR) rather slowly, according to experts in the field. The concept of giving back to society is still not the norm in Poland or other post-communist countries, says William Chasey, the president of the Foundation for Corporate Social Responsibility (of which WBJ is a member). "Our organization is finding it difficult to convince Polish businesses to adopt the idea of CSR," said Chasey, adding that out of 75 companies that are members of his foundation, only about 10 are Polish. It is also the very understanding of the idea that is problematic, he notes. "Many people think that CSR is about sharing a part of the profit only, while in fact this needs to be a carefully designed strategy," he says.
Other experts are more optimistic. "Many Polish companies do a huge amount of work on the local level, in their own communities," stresses Iwona Kuraszko, partnership program manager for the Responsible Business Forum (FOB). "Very often they are not aware of the fact that what they do is considered CSR," she says. However, she admits that Polish businesses do not possess as much know-how when it comes to CSR as large, international corporations do.
Dialog with society
Nick Tolhurst, the director of the Institute for Corporate Culture Affairs (ICCA) agrees that Polish companies do have the advantage of maintaining much closer ties with local communities than their counterparts in the UK or US. However, he stresses that it is high time for Polish businesses to catch up with the latest CSR trends and strike up a more intensive dialog with the society.
Such a dialog still meets with certain obstacles, such as a low level of trust towards businesses in Poland, says Kuraszko. "For a long time there was a preconception fed by the communist regime that private entrepreneurs were evil," she says. "Still, it has been changing as the free market is developing."
Inevitable change?
As that perception continues to change, Polish companies will be developing their CSR strategies, says Amanda Jordan, the founding director of Smart, a British strategic- advice company. This process is inevitable, since businesses are being monitored more and more closely, mostly thanks to the internet, she adds.
Inevitable as the development of CSR in Poland may seem, experts agree that popularizing the idea should be spurred by the national government. "[The government] should be the cheerleader of CSR," says Tolhurst.
