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Expectations run high on corporate accountability
Although Indonesia is emerging robustly from the global financial crisis, firms are facing higher expectations on corporate accountability in its wake, a survey by Indopacific Edelman shows
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lthough Indonesia is emerging robustly from the global financial crisis, firms are facing higher expectations on corporate accountability in its wake, a survey by Indopacific Edelman shows.
More than half of respondents surveyed by the global public relation firm say companies have failed to build trust as they shy away from including employees and stakeholders in finding ways to benefit society while making money.
Approximately 68 percent of respondents believe that companies are partnering with government and non-government organizations to drive decision-making on major social issues, but only 46 percent say they listen to employees.
“Companies should pay more attention to their workers because 83 percent of Indonesian respondents judge a company’s characteristics by how it treats its employees,” Indopacific Edelman vice president Bambang Chriwanto said Tuesday.
In this year’s survey, Edelman, which has been studying the level of trust in corporations annually and worldwide for 11 years, found for the first time that the way companies treat their employees outranked other variables in what matters most in building corporate accountability instead of product and service quality as in previous surveys.
Indopacific Edelman director Mayang Schreiber said, “Second to the treatment of employees, 78 percent of the informed individuals wanted open and transparent business practices with frequent and honest communications.”
She added that companies needed to communicate with stakeholders by using various channels, including the printed media, broadcasting outlets and the Internet.
The survey, which questioned 200 Indonesians, shows that 48 percent of respondents believed business magazines as a credible sources of information about companies, while 42 percent and 38 percent respectively put their trust in television and newspapers. “There is an increase up to 34 percent of respondents, who used company websites to find information about their operations,” Bambang said, adding that many Indonesian companies did not have their own websites.
Informed individuals in Indonesia have higher expectations on corporate accountability issues than their counterparts in other countries in Asia-Pacific, the survey shows.
Besides Indonesia, the Edelman Trust Barometer also surveyed 4,875 informed individuals in 21 other countries, including 1,575 in six Asia Pacific countries — China, India, Japan, Korea, Australia and Singapore.
According to the study which was done from Sept. 29 to Dec. 6 last year, more than 80 percent of the respondents proposed three solutions to restore trust. First, Indonesian companies should quickly remove management executive teams that had bad performance reports.
Second companies needed to repay bailout or loan money received from the government as soon as possible. Third, the companies should reduce the gap in relationships between senior executives and ordinary workers.
The percentage of Indonesian respondents, demanding these solutions was higher than their counterparts in other countries, where the same study was conducted.
Almost 70 percent of the respondents agreed with the need for Indonesian companies to give more equal opportunities for opinion sharing when making decisions on major issues with stakeholders, including employees, customers and the society in general.
