CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITIES OF CONSTRUCTION FIRMS IN SINGAPORE

Abstract

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is gaining increasing attention globally. The successful adoption of CSR policies by many leading companies and the results they have achieved with these policies have led to increasing trend of adopting CSR by many companies. In contrast to the traditional business management concepts which focus on short term benefits like profits and sales, CSR introduces and brings long term benefits and sustainability of the company into the framework of business management. This aim of this study is to analyze the relationship between CSR performance and CSR practices by construction firms in Singapore. An industry wide survey of contractors was conducted and data were collected using a structured questionnaire. The results show that CSR performance of construction firms is significantly under-performed. It was found that there is significant association between CSR initiatives and CSR performance of construction firms. This study recommends that construction firms should require suppliers and subcontractors to agree targets for social and environmental performance; implement mentoring and coaching schemes to support employees and work with business partners to implement standards of acceptable social and environmental performance in order to improve their CSR performance.