Approximately three quarters of Australians think corporations have a responsibility to prioritise employees, the environment and the community as much as they prioritise delivering profits to shareholders, according to research from IBM.
Jade Moffat, corporate citizenship manager, IBM Australia
IBM has released its Global Purpose Study, Companies with purpose: the future of business. The study found that globally, 80% of respondents believe companies should prioritise employees, environment and the community whilst 8% believe that companies should maximise profit first. In Australia, 12% believe that corporations are solely responsible to shareholders.
Australia’s view that companies should have purpose as well as profit-seeking strategies has gained trajectory in recent years, noted Jade Moffat, corporate citizenship manager at IBM Australia.
“There is an upwards trajectory of business understanding how critical corporate social responsibility is,” Moffat said. “We’re up to about 75% in Australia, and I think it’s a promising trend.”
The IBM research noted that companies need to infuse purpose into their operations to generate long-term value and maintain economic relevance. The research highlighted that purpose-based brand value propositions drive consumer purchasing decisions. The survey found that 74% of Australians surveyed are more likely to favour companies if they support the communities in which they work within, and 71% of Australians were more likely to conduct business with a company working to promote quality jobs and skills, including investing in the future of the workforce.
IBM’s Global Purpose Study used an international sample of 7,020 adults in Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Russia, Spain, the United Kingdom and the United States.
Future of work and education questions also had prominence in the survey. In Australia, 77% of respondents said that promoting quality jobs and skills is most helpful to corporate favourability. Meanwhile, 71% of Australians said they are more likely to conduct business with companies that support local communities.
Moffat pointed to IBM’s support of a global education program, Pathways in Technology Early College High Schools (P-TECH), as an example of the company’s response to developing quality jobs and encouraging STEM skills. P-TECH is a school programs spanning grades 9 to 14 that teach the skills developing towards jobs in STEM.
“One of the things that people said [in the report] is important to them in terms of a.) working for a company, or b.) buying products from a company, is that company having a commitment to skills and education and the continuous development of staff, including in investing in the future of the workplace,” Moffat said. “That is something we have with P-TECH. We work with high schools to work with young people get them to consider technology as a career. We particularly focus on working with young people who are not necessarily thinking about technology in the early years of high school to grow the talent pool generally, not just for IBM, but for the technology sector in general.”
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