CSR Communication: The Case of the DMMMSU System

by Jesus Rafael B. Jarata

Noticeably, corporate social responsibility has become very popular amongst companies
and top corporations especially in the 21st century since environmental concerns, human rights,
labor rights, fair trade, and many other issues have become increasingly important to consumers,
stakeholders, and companies alike has been. Notwithstanding this notion, the exact definition
and measure of effectiveness of corporate social responsibility remains a very vague and
confusing to most people.
According to Stanislavsk, Kvasnika, Kuralov, and Margarisov (2014), CSR is a
continuous and long-term process guided by organizational and personal values concerned with
people (as stakeholders), the environment and organisational policies, and is influenced by
political concerns. The adoption of CSR is often associated with monetary gain or profit for the
initiator (Isa, 2012, p. 335).
Baron (2007) supported that corporate social responsibility has become an important part
in the business strategy of a growing number of companies worldwide, since the performance of
a business organization is affected by their strategies in the market, as well as non-market
environments.
This article shall endeavor to provide a definition of corporate social responsibility in the
DMMMSU system, how the institution (as an institution of higher learning) incorporates CSR
into its vision, mission, goals, and objectives, and what actions are being undertaken order to
become a socially responsible higher education institution.
As in all other institutions, DMMMSU is not required by law to implement CSR in its
functions. Nevertheless, the university opted to implement CSR strategies in an extension of
Jarata, J.R.B. (2016). CSR Communication: The Case of the DMMMSU System
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its mandate to contribute to the betterment of the society. It is for this reason, and probably in an
effort to improve its institutional image, that DMMMSU incorporated CSR in the form of
Extension Services as one of its three-fold functions: instruction, research, and extension. For
unlike other institutions which are profit-oriented, state universities like DMMMSU do not need
incorporate CSR into its non-existent business strategies because to improve financial
performance since these institutions are funded by the national budget. Their only task is to
deliver instruction the best way possible, and CSR efforts are intended only to improve the
company image.
In one of the previous activities, I introduced the flow of CSR communication in the
DMMMSU system by calling your attention to the universitys organizational structure where I
mentioned that it is divided into a number of different colleges and/or institutes strategically
distributed among three different campuses and a number of satellite campuses. These
colleges/institutes are divided into departments, each offering a number of relevant programs. I
also mentioned that this departmentalization meant that each department articulates their own
CSR goals and objectives (in their extension activities) which are congruent to the CSR goals of
the college and the university. Further, the university requires each college to formulate and
conduct its own CSR efforts and the college, in turn, delegates these efforts to each of the
departments. The CSR communication flow is illustrated in Figure 1 below.
University CSR goals (represented by its extension thrusts) are embedded in the
universitys VMGO. Consequently, it has become a silent ordinance or order to the colleges and
institutes to plan programs to carry out this thrust. The planned programs are delegated to the
respective departments who, within that level, design and implement CSR activities directed to

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the stakeholders (who are the people in the barangay which the department has chosen as its
beneficiary).

Jarata, J.R.B. (2016). CSR Communication: The Case of the DMMMSU System
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Jarata, J.R.B. (2016). CSR Communication: The Case of the DMMMSU System
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Figure 1 CSR Communication Flow in DMMMSU

The beneficiaries communicate their feedbacks (including their comments and
suggestions) directly to the department implementers through a Training/Program Evaluation
form. These feedbacks, comments, and suggestions are then used by the department to enhance
and improve the quality of CSR they provide. CSR communication from the beneficiaries
terminates at this point since the departments do not have to relay these feedbacks, comments,
and suggestions to the college level planners anymore. What the department does instead, is to
make progress or accomplishment reports to inform the college planners of the status of CSR
implementation. The college planners then consolidate all reports from the different departments
under the college and submit a summary of these reports to the central admin.

References:
Baron, D. (2007). Corporate social responsibility and social entrepreneurship.
economics and Management Strategy, 16(3), 683-717.

Journal of

Isa, S., M. (2012) Corporate Social Responsibility: What Can We Learn From Stakeholder.
Procedia Social and Behavioral Sciences, 65, 327-337.
Kan, W.P. (2012). Corporate Social Responsibility: A Profitable Alternative. Honors thesis.
University at Albany, State University of New York.
Mustafa, S.A., Othman, A.R. and Perumal, S. (2012). Corporate Social Responsibility and
Company Performance in the Malaysian Context. Procedia - Social and Behavioral
Sciences, 65, 897-905.
Stanislavsk, L., Kvasnika, R., Kuralov, K., and Margarisov, K. (2014). Social Responsibility
of Higher Educational Institutions - the Comparison of the View of Students and Potential
Students. Journal on Efficiency and Responsibility in Education and Science, 7(3-4), 9599. doi: 10.7160/eriesj.2014.070308.
Jarata, J.R.B. (2016). CSR Communication: The Case of the DMMMSU System
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