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Corporate Civic Responsibility: Balancing Profitability with Ethical Business Practices
2015
Annual Roundtable Report
US
Congress man Hon. Kevin Yoder addresses attendees at the AACR conference held on May 8,
2015
The Association of
Americans for Civic Responsibility (AACR) organized its 2015 Annual Round table with co-sponsorship
by the Asian American Chamber of Commerce of Kansas City.The theme for 2015 was "Corporate Civic
Responsibility: Balancing Profitability with Ethical Business Practices." This event was well
attended by leaders including a US Congressman, a mayor, elected state officials, academic leaders,
CEOs of corporations from different parts of the country, and trade organization representatives It
was held in the banquet hall of the Overland Park Sheraton Hotel on May 8, 2015. AACR has held
similar conferences at the Kellogg School of Management at the North western University, Park
University, and Syracuse University among others. The 2015 event was a tremendous success in terms
of content, presenters' credentials, and key participants that represented a broad cross-section of
the target audience that the AACR reaches out to. A noteworthy feature of this event was that there
were more panelists and entrepreneurs engaging in highly productive deliberations. The panelists and
speakers included business leaders from the Kansas City area, Chicago, Washington DC,
Milwaukee,Tampa, and Miami, as well as various philanthropists and community service leaders.
Hon. Carl Gerlach, the
mayorof Overland Park, Kansas, welcomed the invited guests. He praised the effortsof the AACR and
the local Asian American Chamber to elevate consciousness onthe importance of balancing
profitability with ethical practices. Joseph Melookaran, Chairman of the AACR Advisory Board,
introduced the panels of the two round table discussions, 1. Balancing Profitability with Ethical
Practices, and 2. Corporate Civic Responsibility of Small and Medium-Size Businesses(SMEs) and
Enhanced Benefits to the Community.
Panels were moderated by
Yijing Bertrano, Managing Director of Green Tree Advisory and Young Sexton,President of Asian
American Chamber of Commerce. The presenters on Panel 1 included Dr. Sanjay Mishra, Professor of
Entrepreneurship & Marketing from Kansas University; Antonio Suave, Chairman of Capistrano
Global Advisory Services, and Dr. George Thomas, Former Chairman of the Florida Board of Medicine;
and Dr.Sid Gautam, Professor Emeritus of Methodist University in North Carolina. The speakers
represented various fields of expertise and the presentations addressed the history of corporate
ethics in business, learning from the past, ethical dilemmas in health services, and ethical
practices in conducting business in foreign countries as more and more small and medium-size
businesses expand their operations abroad.
The presenters on Panel 2
were Rev. Dr. Robert Lee Hill, Pastor of Community Church; Rudy Pamintuan, CEO of Sherman
Consulting; Dr. Piyush Agrawal, CEO of APS Technologies and VP of GOPIO; and Benny Lee, CEO of
Duracom and a Kansas City philanthropist. The speakers exhorted audience members to establish an
enhanced linkage with the community through "giving back" and closer engagement. While larger
corporations have better framework for civic involvement, small and medium-size businesses have less
of that. The community will be a great beneficiary if we unleash the potential for a higher level of
civic involvement by SMEs. Events like this are certainly impactful in respect of encouraging small
businesses to be civic minded, being generous as they become prosperous.
Congressman Yoder
(Kansas- 3rd District) was very impressed with the exemplary community involvement of
Asian American business leaders in the Kansas City area. He emphasized the fact that many of their
contributions, some of them in the millions of dollars, are voluntary initiatives of these
individuals with the objective of simply "doing good works." The Congressman said, "Had there been a
better framework and more structured approach to engage SMEs to 'give back' to the communities,that
would have really opened the floodgates of resources - financial and otherwise - in communities
around the country." He expressed openness to the idea that government and mainstream corporations
can boost the community involvement of SMEs by developing a civic responsibility evaluation
framework to apply invend or selection.
Followers
of Adam Smith staunchly believe that maximization of profit is the life blood of any successful
enterprise. It is undoubtedly true that the march of man kind from steam engines to search engines,
designer jeans to designer drugs, black rotary phones to iPhones and iPads, was made possible by the
creative processes of entrepreneurs. All successful enterprises have thrived and prospered becauseof
their high profitability. However, growth for the sake of growth has been compared to the
proliferation of cancer cells. Keeping in mind the wisdom of Gandhi, one should never forget that
all civic-minded responsible business enterprises must produce and distribute for the greater good
for a greater number of people.
Former
US President Theodore Roosevelt reinforced the importance of corporate civic responsibility when he
said "great corporations exist only because they are created and safeguarded by our institutions;
and it is therefore our right and our duty to see that they work in harmony with those
institutions." Dr. Thomas elaborated on ethics in the context of the medical profession. With the
Affordable Care Act being implemented, adding a large bureaucracy and a whole slew of new service
providers, it is high time to get to the right balance of profitability and ethics. In the absence
of that our new arrangement will not only create economic loss, but will cost many lives that are so
dear to all Americans.
According
to Dr. Sanjay Mishra, a business cannot rightly isolate itself from society. It is part of it; it is
accountable to and has to work with all the players in the society - e.g., local communities,
employees, consumers, suppliers,shareholders, and the society at large. He enumerated the shining
example of JRD Tata of Tata Steel for his exemplary head start on corporate civic responsibility
when he set apart 65% of his corporation's profits for community service. Lately business schools in
the US and abroad have adopted the new mantra of balancing ethical practices with profitability,
stepping up their course offerings related to civic responsibility.
Rudy
Pamintuan, CEO of Chicago-based Sherman Consulting Inc., emphasized that the traditional community
engagement model has transitioned into a new dynamic in community engagement. This new paradigm
focuses on more strategic and outcome-based community involvement. He observed that there is still a
long way to go in the integration of corporate civic responsibility in the small and medium-size
business community. There must be a conscious and deliberate attempt to engage and enhance corporate
giving because it is "good thing to do" and it also must be a "corporate value" for each entity to
cherish until it becomes ingrained inits DNA.
For
more information or to facilitate a similar event at a chosen location, please contact Joseph
Melookaran, National Program Chair, at 913-706-0759.
