Giving back takes a hip pocket hit
by Katrina Kalleske
Just
on the precipice of the global financial crisis, two UniSA
researchers began a series of interviews with some of the world’s
biggest credit unions.
Unbeknown to the researchers, the outcome of their work was going to take some dramatic turns as the reality of the global financial crisis hit and started to take its toll.
Dr Joy Chia (pictured) from the University’s School of Communication, International Studies and Languages, and Associate Professor Margaret Peters Dean of Research with the Division of Education, Arts and Social Sciences, started looking into the corporate social responsibility of credit unions in Canada and Australia in May last year. Credit unions date back about 100 years ago, and Canada now has some of the biggest of these institutions in the world.
"The ethos and philosophy of credit unions is quite different to banks," Dr Chia said. "They support people who don’t get bank loans and they have programs that are focused on putting back into the community.
"The 15 credit unions that we interviewed had a combined total of 150 community programs that they were committed to.
"It’s quite a big sector that is normally involved in the community. However, the financial crisis somewhat weakened their resolve to act as good corporate citizens. They had to re-think the whole idea of corporate social responsibility and think more about corporate economic responsibility.
"When the impact of the financial crisis hit about half-way through our interviews, it seemed that these community programs were one of the first things to be cut, and some of the study participants have now lost their jobs.
"To still be able to carry out their community work, they had to become more strategic and re-think how they ran these programs. For example, some of the credit unions implemented volunteer work programs that saw their staff volunteer time with community organisations instead of other methods of support such as financial sponsorship.
"The employees think that they have a lot to give back to the community. They don’t do the work just to look good, they do it because they actually want to be in there helping the community."
Dr Chia and Associate Professor Peters undertook the research supported by a grant from the Canada Asia-Pacific Awards. The awards program supports short-term research that contributes to relations between Canada and the Asia-Pacific. Only two Australian research proposals were accepted from Australia in 2008.
The research has focused on the employees’ perspective of social capital investment, and their views, ideas, suggestions and concerns about it.
"The Canadian and Australian credit unions have extensive community programs but they are functioning in an increasingly volatile environment where needs change and societies’ demands on financial institutions need to be constantly reviewed," Prof Peters said.
"Credit unions need to recognise that their business is affected by changing societal demands.
"Our findings also indicate that credit unions need to promote their programs through internal and external public relations initiatives. They need to further develop partnerships with other organisations so that their programs are integral to wider community engagement and they can continue despite economic and financial pressures.
"Credit unions also need to promote their business so that the Canadian and Australia public understands what they do, their distinctiveness and the significant contribution they make. The current understanding seems to be limited."
Dr Chia and Prof Peters hope to undertake an extension of this research project, this time focusing on social media and its role in communication engagement and building community capacity.