Business Sustainability in Asia

CHAPTER 3Institutional Settings in Asia Relevant to Business Sustainability

1. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Business organizations play important roles in society by interacting with a variety of constituencies in serving and creating values for all stakeholders. Public companies are increasingly focusing on business sustainability, as highlighted in chapter 1, and making progress on setting expectations for their suppliers to integrate sustainability into their strategies and practices. Proper communication of sustainability performance is important in disclosing commitments to create stakeholder value. Business organizations worldwide and in Asia produce financial and non-financial information to satisfy the needs and demands of all their stakeholders including investors, creditors, customers, employees, suppliers, government and society. This chapter presents Asian institutional settings relevant to business sustainability.

2. INTRODUCTION

The past decade has witnessed widening attention to accountability and social responsibilities of corporations caused by a wave of global financial scandals at the turn of the twenty-first century. This has led to the growing demand for corporate accountability on issues ranging from economic to social responsibilities. The demand for more transparent corporate reporting reflecting economic, governance, social, ethical and environmental (EGSEE) sustainable performance is increasing in the context of sustainability reporting. Corporate sustainability ...