ESSAY 1

As well as making money, business should have social responsibility. To what extent do you agree or disagree?

In a developing country such as Indonesia, there are so many ongoing development activities in most of the provinces. These activities can be done by the government-owned companies or the private companies. These companies create lots of revenue and gain considerable profit from their activities, however, most often than not it is only for their own advantage. It is argued that every business should share a certain percentage of their profit to help local citizens develop their economy. I agree with this statement as it can promote a sense of fairness and help to provide better economy which is crucial to improving the quality of life.

First of all, it is important to remember that these prestigious companies often create their plants and factories in the middle of the community. Since the factories need to be operated by experts in their fields, local citizens are rarely involved in the production process or as a high-level employee. It is quite common that the available jobs for the locals are low-level jobs such as security or manual laborers. This fact cannot be denied and unsurprisingly there will be some sense of unfair treatment to see that all the good positions are given to the “outsiders”. Therefore, I would say that social responsibility program is crucial especially to promote a sense of fairness among the local citizens.

Another perspective that can be helpful is to see that creating a good corporate social responsibility program may develop the economy of the locals. It is not actually an impossible thing to do, as most of the employees in top companies are experts in exploiting a business opportunity. For example, the company can set up a training for citizens to start a bee farm, or to have a batik workshop for the females. In addition, children can be encouraged to have additional useful lessons such as music lessons, vocal lessons or English course. The idea is quite simple; with more knowledge and education, people will be more skillful and will be more ready to seize available opportunities, and in the long-term it will provide better economy to most of them.

To sum up, there is certainly no harm in maintaining good corporate social responsibility programs. It can reduce the sense of inequality and it may even strengthen the economy. Moreover, if it is professionally done, the willingness to share some of the companies profit may be transformed into a mutual benefit for both parties involved.