Martin Masse in Poland with PFS Program
Before starting the project, since I have now experiencing Warsaw for seven of the last 12 months, cultural shock and daily adaptation was history for me. Of course, it is one thing to experience a city as a student and another to live it as a worker. The capital of Poland will probably never receive any prize for its aesthetic, thanks (!) to the almost complete destruction during the 40’s, but nevertheless, the vibe here is quite exceptional. This mix of old-new, East-West, is in constant movement due, in part, to the profound desire of the younger generation to achieve big and be successful and the growth opportunities that foreigners are seeking here. New Poles are fully Europeans now. While the economy is growing and the salaries are slowly catching up, young Poles know how to live a good life!
The PSF Program is a small research institute with big mandate and ambitions. We are quite an international crew with 5 countries represented (Serbia, Ukraine, USA, Poland and Canada). Conversations are in English and in Polish. My main mandate was to document, report and compare the existing disclosure practices on CSR in the Top-10 corporations by market cap in the CEE countries as well as in the “BRIC” countries and Ukraine. The report was released on Tuesday, October 9. Over 1,200 people and organizations have received a copy. The report is available on the PSF website: http://www.pfsprogram.org/cimlap_news_2007.php .
In general, we have concluded of a generally higher level of online disclosure of corporate governance information, continuing the trend over the past four years. Slightly more information is also disclosed in the area of social policy, compared with the previous survey published in May 2007. Significant progress remains to be made in disclosing information on environmental policy.
Overall, companies in BRIC outperform CEE peers in terms of the availability of English-language websites and annual reports as well as specific disclosures in all three areas. With regards to corporate governance, the most significant difference concerns compliance with a corporate governance code and disclosure of a code of business conduct/code of ethics in both the website and annual report. In general, BRIC companies also provide more information on social policy and environmental policy. Due to the lack of a number of drivers, Ukrainian companies lag behind both BRIC and CEE peers in all areas.
The feedbacks are just incredible either from media, stock exchanges or firms themselves. I quickly understood that CEE countries have come a long way with regards to CSR during the last few years. Those semi-annual surveys seem to have a great impact on the field…