by Bert Alweiss

Created on: March 30, 2009   Last Updated: April 01, 2009

Businesses, particularly the big ones, are considered the prime resource-holders in society. They accumulate, grow or spread over fertile areas of opportunities the return of their investments after fulfilling their basic obligations to employees, creditors, suppliers and the government and as such serve as pillars to the growth of society.

Realities Some Companies Must Face

Nowadays there are new realities that a company must face and for which new strategies must be formulated in order to keep the business in pace with the changing times. In less developed countries where Trans-National Corporations are present, the most important realities are widespread poverty, government corruption, and environmental challenges. For example in some Asian countries where 80% of the people are poor, malnourished, and lack the basic social services, businesses cannot operate without encountering manpower problems, adverse community image or open people resistance in locations where the companies are involved in mining, quarrying and utilization of scarce natural resources.

Business in society exists because of Social Will. Society permits business to extract the resources that nature has given it since time immemorial, to market products and to provide necessary services to its members with the least side-effects on existing morality, social relationships, and the environment.

Community-at-Risk

A corporation must face the fact that it has a social responsibility to fulfill. In addition to the immediate public which is its stakeholders, it must recognize that it has the community-at-risk directly affected by its operations that needs help. This community-at-risk is the most proximate representation of the general public and reflects the sad plight of the rest of society. For example in some far-flung areas of less developed countries, the impact of Trans-National Corporations is being felt in the denudation of forests, pollution of rivers where small fishermen depend upon for survival, unnatural soil erosion, uprooting of communities, among others. We all have heard of adverse consequences to companies that pay less attention to their surroundings. Remember the Union Carbide Bhopal tragedy? We can cite litanies of examples, mostly occurring in Asia and Africa.

Social Conscience

A corporation must have a social conscience. It cannot selfishly exist by closing its eyes from the reality of the community around it. It should allow those who are within its sphere of influence a reasonable

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