CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY IN VIETNAM; A STUDY OF ITS IMPORTANCE

Abstract

CSR is currently an important and necessary issue for everyone and business organizations in the world, as well as in Viet Nam. CSR concept has been developed for several decades in the world, but in Viet Nam, it is not popular for all people and companies. Especially, Vietnamese economy has been integrated with global economy, and then CSR has become more important issues for business to develop sustainably and competition with internal and external partners. In order to develop CSR concept and disclosure further, perception on CSR of stakeholder groups is a unique factor. This study aims to discover how organization view CSR and CSR issues, whether behavior or attitude of manager’s business organization and consumers, as well as accounting students toward CSR. The results of the study suggest that there is strong support for CSR from managers and a growing awareness among consumers and accounting students. Nevertheless, there is expectation gap between how people perceive and how people act because there are lack of adequate CSR disclosure from firm, and not-so-enthusiastic support actions from consumers due to the barriers in living expenses, and low effective CSR communication tools that companies use. However, with highly positive attitude toward CSR and the willingness to learn about CSR of people, CSR concept and practice will be popular and developed further in the future.