Abstract:
The study on Corporate Social Responsibility of Small and Medium Enterprises
(SMEs) in Industry Sector of Nakhon Si Thammarat aimed at studying the organizational
characteristic factors in terms of opinions toward the concepts of corporate social
responsibility, the activities reflecting the corporate social responsibility, the
discrepancy of the opinions toward the concepts and the factors, and the relation
between social responsibility activities and organization features. The study was
conducted through survey research questionnaires among 148 enterprises from the
industry sector. The collected data were analyzed by the SPSS with the statistics of
percentage, arithmetic mean, standard deviation, t-test, ANOVA and Chi-square test.
The results indicated that most of the SME enterprises in Nakhon Si
Thammarat attending the study were the construction industry, formed as partnership or
limited partnership of more than fifteen years. They were small enterprises, possessed
companys fix assess of less than 50 million baht, and employed 1-50 employees. In
general, these companies strongly agreed with the concepts regarding consumer
issues, organizational governance, environment, community involvement and
development, fair operating practices, and human rights, but moderately agreed on
issues regarding labour practices.
The enterprises activities reflect social responsibility in various ways. In
education and culture category, activities include making merits and other religious
(4)
practices. Regarding the community services, donations of tools and money were made
for public benefits, disaster relief, and in support of people in need. Regarding health
and welfare, most enterprises provided leisure activities to promote staffs living quality
such as occasional party, company sports event, and group excursion. The activities
regarding environment included plantation, and forest resource preservation.
The study found that difference in the sections of industry resulted in different
opinions on organizational governance. The wood and wooden product group had the
highest level of the belief on disciplinary, regulations, policy, rule and procedure, fair
treatment, non-discrimination, and equality. On the other hand, the food and beverage
group had the highest level of the opinions on respect for interests, demands, ability and
involvement of stakeholders. They also had the highest level of belief on environment,
consumer issues, community involvement and development. Additionally, the types of
enterprise reflected different opinions on organizational governance, in which
partnership or partnership limited type had higher level of the opinions than company or
company limited type.
The activities reflecting the corporate social responsibility related to the
organizational characteristic factors of Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) in Industry
Sector of Nakhon Si Thammarat were as follows: 1) the factors of industry sections were
related to the activities in health and welfares, regarding staff training and support,
self-directed-study, and leisure activities; and 2) the factors of the enterprises capital
were related to the communal activities such as donation for public benefit, disaster
relief, or for the need. The statistically significance was 0.05.
WALAILAK UNIVERSITY. CENTER FOR LIBRARY RESOURCES AND EDUCATIONAL MEDIA