Motivations for Corporate Social Reporting and Non-Reporting in Malaysia: An Exploratory Study From a Public Relations Perspective

Corporate social reporting, embracing the triple bottom line reporting concept, entails the reporting of economic, social and environmental performance as opposed to the more narrow focus on conventional financial reporting. Many corporations are now engaging in environmental and social reporting in an effort to communicate the social and environmental effects of organisations‟ operations to particular interest groups within society. The main objective of this thesis is to examine corporate motivations and hesitations to undertake social reporting in Malaysia. Most studies have so far applied quantitative method on themes identification to determine rationales for corporate social reporting. Little attention has been given to in-depth primary and secondary data to understand rationales for corporate social reporting in a national context. In addition to motivation, this study fills the gap in the literature by investigating corporate reluctance for social reporting. A qualitative approach was adopted for this study. A mixed method of data collection, consisting of both semi-structured interviews and corporate social reports, was used. A total of 20 interviews were conducted with representatives of six reporting and six non-reporting corporations, and eight non-corporate respondents representing the Malaysian political and social sectors. In addition to primary data, corporate social information in annual reports and corporate websites of six reporting corporations was also collected to support the interviews. Thematic analysis was applied to identify salient themes to explain both corporate motivation and hesitation for social reporting. The analysis was divided into two levels: corporation and society. At the corporate level, results identify public relations as the central motivation for social reporting. More specifically, the concepts of image and identity, issues management, two-way symmetrical and asymmetrical communication, autocommunication, and publicity are used to explain the adoption of social reporting. Image and identity and issues management were also among the concepts applied to explain corporate hesitation for social reporting. However, the results also support stockholder theory and reveal the lack of public relations understanding to be the cause of the low acceptance of social reporting. In-depth analysis revealed organisational legitimacy as the main reason to explain both motivation and hesitation for social reporting. Corporations require stakeholder support for their continual existence. At the societal level analysis, the concept of political economy was applied to explain the limited social reporting practice in the Malaysian context. Finally, the implications for both practising as well as neglecting social reporting are discussed using the concept of the risk society

Corporate social reporting in Malaysia: a qualitative approach

This paper examines corporate social reporting in Malaysia from the public relations perspective of issues management. Data was derived from case studies of four relatively high impact companies in Malaysia, two owned by multinationals and two Malaysian-owned. An obvious continuum of corporate social reporting practice is apparent with one multinational adopting comprehensive corporate social reporting, the other minimal social reporting within Malaysia (though the parent company reports elsewhere), one Malaysian company engaging in selective disclosure, and the other expressing reservations about this so-called ‘new business’ concept of corporate social responsibility and reporting. Although company representatives interviewed were aware of trends toward increased disclosure, most reflected a desire to shun corporate social responsibility and reporting, in this case, of moral obligations. Our analysis affirms the possibility of the urge to push aside social reporting obligations re-emerging recently as a key aspect of corporate legitimation in Malaysia, as is occurring elsewhere

Editorial: HIV-1 genetic diversity, volume II

EditorialS

Institutional corporate social responsibility (CSR) practices: the influence of leadership styles and their perceived ethics and social responsibility role

This paper investigates leader's perceptions of ethics and social responsibility (PRESOR) on organisation's institutional CSR practices. The results indicate that while the managers in this study perceive that ethics and social responsibility play an important role in determining the organisation's long-term and short-term gains, they do not think that ethics and social responsibility are the only important factors in determining firm's profitability and survival, as indicated by the non-significant results of the PRESOR (social responsibility and profitability) dimension. Another objective was to determine the types of leadership style in influencing the adoption and practices of CSR. As oppose to many previous studies, the results indicate that among the leadership styles, transactional leadership influences institutional CSR practices, while transformational leadership does not. This finding implies that for CSR practices to be implemented, leaders need to use rewards, rules and regulations in a Malaysian context. In other words, in order to institutionalise CSR practices in Malaysia, corporations should start by introducing extrinsic incentives

Malaysians' willingness to support Japanese expatriates

Expatriates' success studies have always focused on the expatriates' home country preparation, cross cultural adjustment ability and host country environment. This study examined the host country nationals' perspective, particularly their willingness to support Japanese expatriates. Malaysians' openness to change, openness to linguistic diversity and perceived reciprocity were found to significantly explain their willingness to support Japanese expatriates. The outcome of this study provided information to companies on strategies they can use in improving host country nationals' willingness to support expatriates

Insights of biosurfactant producing Serratia marcescens strain W2.3 isolated from diseased tilapia fish: a draft genome analysis

Background Serratia marcescens is an opportunistic bacterial pathogen with broad range of host ranging from vertebrates, invertebrates and plants. S. marcescens strain W2.3 was isolated from a diseased tilapia fish and it was suspected to be the causal agent for the fish disease as virulence genes were found within its genome. In this study, for the first time, the genome sequences of S. marcescens strain W2.3 were sequenced using the Illumina MiSeq platform. Result Several virulent factors of S. marcescens such as serrawettin, a biosurfactant, has been reported to be regulated by N-acyl homoserine lactone (AHL)-based quorum sensing (QS). In our previous studies, an unusual AHL with long acyl side chain was detected from this isolate suggesting the possibility of novel virulence factors regulation. This evokes our interest in the genome of this bacterial strain and hereby we present the draft genome of S. marcescens W2.3, which carries the serrawettin production gene, swrA and the AHL-based QS transcriptional regulator gene, luxR which is an orphan luxR. Conclusion With the availability of the whole genome sequences of S. marcescens W2.3, this will pave the way for the study of the QS-mediated genes expression in this bacterium

Novel genetic variants of Hepatitis B Virus in fulminant hepatitis

Fulminant hepatitis (FH) is a life-threatening liver disease characterised by intense immune attack and massive liver cell death. The common precore stop codon mutation of hepatitis B virus (HBV), A1896, is frequently associated with FH, but lacks specificity. This study attempts to uncover all possible viral nucleotides that are specifically associated with FH through a compiled sequence analysis of FH and non-FH cases from acute infection. We retrieved 67 FH and 280 acute non-FH cases of hepatitis B from GenBank and applied support vector machine (SVM) model to seek candidate nucleotides highly predictive of FH. Six best candidates with top predictive accuracy, 92.5%, were used to build a SVM model; they are C2129 (85.3%), T720 (83.0%), Y2131 (82.4%), T2013 (82.1%),K2048 (82.1%), and A2512 (82.1%). This model gave a high specificity (99.3%), positive predictive value (95.6%), and negative predictive value (92.1%), but only moderate sensitivity (64.2%).We successfully built a SVM model comprising six variants that are highly predictive and specific for FH: four in the core region and one each in the polymerase and the surface regions. These variants indicate that intracellular virion/core retention could play an important role in the progression to FH

Roles performed by bank branch managers in Malaysia

This paper discusses managerial roles performed by bank branch managers in Malaysia basing on Mintzberg's model. In-depth understanding of managerial roles performed is significant to organization in at least two ways: improve managerial recruitment effectiveness and identify suitable training programs for existing managers. Data was collected from 143 bank branch managers across Peninsular Malaysia via interview survey. There were at least four implications worth noting here. First, Mintzberg's (1971) framework was indeed applicable in Malaysia although it has been developed more than 38 years ago. Second, there were indeed changes in role rankings, suggesting role emphasis changes over time. Third, roles more emphasized by today’s managers were interpersonal and informational roles while role less emphasized was decisional role. Fourth, male and female managers were found to perform all 10 roles in the same extent. Practical implications were then discussed

Making a case for informal participation in occupational safety and health management

A myriad of research have listed organisational commitment, reduced employee turnover, increased productivity amongst others, as some of the benefits of employee participation in management. Some studies on employee participation, however, indicates that, employees are generally reluctant to use formal avenues created for them to contribute to management. This is especially so because management mostly uses such formal avenues for a top-down information transfer. Also, employees have the fear of being victimised if they raise issues of concern that boarders on the use of finance or on something they assume may be offending to management during such meetings. In Ghana, the high annual accident and injury claims made by employees from the manufacturing industry requires urgent action by manufacturing organisations. Legislature on occupational safety and health (OSH) is scattered, with different over sight agencies, inadequate enforcement, and the absence of laws that require the establishment of a health and safety committee which is standard practice in most developed jurisdictions. In the light of the weak OSH legal and regulatory framework, coupled with the fact that employees feel reluctant to report their safety predicaments during formal meetings, it is important that management and employees create the necessary environment for employees to participate in safety management. Indeed, studies suggest that the existence of such informal avenues in organisations for employee participation in management decision making will enable open discussions on employee safety issues and therefore lead to the prioritisation of OSH in those organisations. Nevertheless, research indicates that informal participation has received little research attention especially with regards to Ghana. This study makes a case for the use of informal participation in ensuring safety in manufacturing companies in Ghana

Fight or flight: the importance of team work, leadership and human governance

This case discusses issues revolving around organization behavior within MAB & Co., a pharmaceutical company in Malaysia. The company experienced substantial staff turnover following the announcement of its acquisition by Marck. The issue was further aggravated with the resignation of the Senior Manager of the Research & Development (R&D) division, who had served the company for 10 years. The previous Manager of the Marketing division was then promoted to the vacancy. However, the new appointment was not well-received by the existing staff, and hence conflicts started to surface. This case highlights the potential organization structural change arising from the impending merger exercise, coupled with deteriorating employee morale as evidenced by increasing staff turnover, which could eventually lead to disorganization of the company