ABOUT

Good governance has always been the object of anyone interested in the proper management of their organization, including their dealings with all their publics, particularly their students and parents, alumni, their employees, and the communities around them. For schools, on the main, this has meant providing scholarships and grants-in-aid for their faculty, staff and deserving students, philanthropy for various causes, and for many, a willingness to respond to situations which require their assistance or intervention.

An organized process of taking care of all their publics, which should somehow also redound to some benefit to their bottom line, but particularly involvement in projects and activities which go beyond their immediate area — this is the kind of CSR which we all hope to have, where likely out of our values and hopefully something more, we have decided that “doing good” is not only something we wish to do, but which was likely why our respective schools were started by their founders in the first place.

Now, there are norms and approaches which are available which can assist us do all these not only in a viable way, but in ways which are verifiable, and which become part and parcel of our organized, daily way of conducting our work.

CSR Research
Documenting all these various approaches, relying in more than just anecdotal evidence, finding out how to structure the ways of assessing how we have done in our CSR activities, and talking to the many from the corporate and NGO world who have much experience in CSR – – – all lead to the conclusion that “Research in CSR” is something that is truly timely and important.

The 1st Philippine CSR Research Conference
This Conference is an attempt (a) to acquaint those who may be less than familiar with the area of CSR through our 101 talk by Europe’s Dr. Wayne Visser, Founder of the think-tank CSR International and well known author in the field, (b) to review examples of local companies’ experiences in CSR and CSR Research through the sharing of Mr JJ Moreno and Ms. Lydia Sarmiento, and (c) to find out what research has been done in the field through speakers from two schools in the country who have undertaken significant research in CSR – Dr. Ben Teehankee of DLSU and Dr. Frankie Roman of the AIM RVR CSR Center.

A one-day Conference, 8:00am-5:00pm, on 1 September 2011, at the TARC Auditorium at the Graduate School of the University of Santo Tomas. This is a joint activity of the Graduate School of UST, the Saint Anthony College of Technology System of Pampanga, and the Catalino D. Yap, Sr. Foundation to celebrate UST’s quadricentennial, and the 100th birthday of Mr. Yap.

First discussed by the UST Graduate School, SACT and CDYF in 2009, two Roundtables were held on February 18 and March 18 this year at the Boardroom of the OCLP Holdings main office to discuss the need for a Conference on CSR Research resulting in positive feedback. Among the attendees were representatives from the Fair Trade movement, Ateneo, Adamson, League of Corporate Foundations, AIM RVR Center, DLSU, UA&P and MAP.