The Turkish leaders in social responsibility

“Social responsibility” has become an extremely important issue for companies. Last year Capital initiated the ‘Corporate Social Responsibility” survey in order to bring this subject into Turkey’s agenda. The survey, which has been conducted with support from the Metro Group, is now in its second year… The survey covered 1320 people from all over Turkey. This special study is the first in its field and contains critically important messages for companies and executives from every sector.

“Social responsibility” has become an integral part of business life. Increasing sensitivity on this subject has resulted in a large number of companies both in Turkey and in the rest of the world adopting a much more professional, pro-and active approach towards social issues. With this in mind, companies establish foundations, support their personnel in participating in voluntary work, and adopt a project approach towards managing their corporate social responsibilities. Companies and CEOs have virtually begun to compete with each other in order to turn in a good performance in this field.

SPECIAL SURVEY FOR TURKEY
In order to support these efforts and to encourage other companies, this year Capital has repeated the “Social Responsibility Survey” we began last year. Our goal is not to form a speculative list which ranks companies. Instead, the survey aims to discover public attitudes towards companies’ social responsibility efforts. We wanted to support companies by enabling them to use the results of the survey to determine strategies and communicate more effectively on this issue.

This is the reason why, with the support of the Metro group, we began to conduct the “Social Responsibility Survey” which reveals the attitude of the Turkish public to the issue. The field work and reporting for this survey, which was held this year for the second time, was conducted by the research company GfK Türkiye. The surveys were conducted in December 2005 in 20 provinces and covered a representative proportion of the Turkish urban population aged 15 or older. The survey use completely random sampling and face to face interviewing techniques and included 1,320 people.

AN EXPERT ANALYSIS OF THE RESULTS
GfK Türkiye Assistant General Manager Elvan Oktar and GfK Türkiye Corporate Research Director Semiha Kismen commented on the results of the survey as follows:

* “The most important difference compared with last year is that we see that the public has become more sensitive to corporate social responsibility projects and to the activities conducted by companies in this regard. In the survey which was published in 2005, 45 percent of the public were unable to name a company which was most successful in terms of social responsibility. This year the proportion fell to 30 percent.

* As was the case last year, addition to the support it gives to social issues, another reason for the success of Sabancı Holding – and for Sakip Sabancı again being named as the leading individual – was the fact that the holding was close to the public and was successful in communication.

* As happened last year, Sabancı Holding ranked first rank in virtually every subcategory when people were asked which firms were successful in terms of social responsibility. One should also attribute regular, consistent communication as the reason for Turkcell’s ‘support for sport’ being ranked first. Sabancı Holding was followed by Koç Holding in most of the social responsibility subcategories. The exceptions were Turkcell ranking second in the field of ‘support for education’ and Eczacıbaşı Holding in the field of ‘support for health’.

* Sakip Sabancı ranked first in terms of the most successful individual on the issue of social responsibility, both in terms of spontaneous responses and when the respondents were prompted. He was followed by Dilek Sabancı, Güler Sabancı and Rahmi Koç.

* One of the most striking results of the survey was that 52 percent of the public were unable to name an NGO which was successful terms of social responsibility. This shows that NGOs are relatively less successful in terms of communication. The NGO which the public regarded as most successful was Deniz Feneri. It was followed by AKUT, Kızılay, TEMA and AÇEV. Deniz Feneri and AÇEV were more popular compared with last year.

As happened last year, when asked to give a spontaneous response about social responsibility projects 72 percent of respondents said that they had ‘no idea’. In terms of total recollection the most successful projects were, in order: ‘Come On, Let’s Get The Girls To School’, “An End To Violence In The Family’, ‘Send Me To School, Daddy’, ‘Kardelenler-Modern Girls In A Modern Turkey’ and “Nurseries In 81 Provinces’.

TANJU’DA
 The 15 most successful companies on social responsibility issues
1 SABANCI HOLDING 
2 KOÇ HOLDING 
3 TURKCELL 
4 ARÇELİK 
5 ECZACIBAŞI GROUP 
6 ÜLKER 
7 SANKO HOLDING 
8 VESTEL 
9 BEKO 
10 EFES PİLSEN/ZORLU HOLDING
11 DOĞAN HOLDING 
12 MERİNOS 
13 COCA-COLA 
14 DOĞUŞ HOLDING 
15 BOSCH/AVEA 
  
The 10 most successful members of the business world in social responsibility and charitable works
 2004 2005
1 SAKIP SABANCI SAKIP SABANCI
2 KADİR HAS DİLEK SABANCI
3 VEHBİ KOÇ GÜLER SABANCI
4 ABDÜLKADİR KONUKOĞLU RAHMİ KOÇ
5 GÜLER SABANCI KADİR HAS
6 RAHMİ KOÇ ABDÜLKADİR KONUKOĞLU
7 TÜRKAN SABANCI AHMET NAZİF ZORLU
8 İZZET BAYSAL MUSTAFA KOÇ
9 DİLEK SABANCI BÜLENT ECZACIBAŞI
10 UĞUR ARSLAN SABRİ ÜLKER/NEJAT ECZACIBAŞI

SEDEF SECKİN BÜYÜK
[email protected]