2007-11-17

Regina Ip on YouTube

For those of you who may have missed her appearance, Regina Ip has put video of some of her comments in class on 31 October on YouTube - clip one and clip two.

2007-11-16

Questions on the Table

To make it easier for you to post comments, here are links to questions that have been posed so far - but please feel free to come up with a comment or question of your own; just e-mail it to me and I can post it on your behalf. Go crazy!

A Brief Controversy

This brief article that appeared in the South China Morning Post may be of interest to you.

Our Final Guest: Jimmy Lai Chee-ying

I am pleased to confirm that our final guest of the semester will be Jimmy Lai Chee-ying, the Chairman of Next Media and the founder of Giordano and Apple Daily, one of the best-selling newspapers in Hong Kong. He will be in class on Wednesday, 28 November. I strongly suggest that you read Mr Lai's recent essay in Time magazine reflecting on Hong Kong ten years after the handover.

We will begin class promptly at 9.30 am. PLEASE MAKE AN EFFORT TO COME ON TIME, as I will only have 20 minutes to wrap up the course and tee up Mr Lai's session. At 9.50 am, staff from the Politics and Public Administration Department will have you fill out a formal evaluation of the course. This will take about 15-20 minutes. I will start the session with Mr Lai at 10.10 am.

As I have mentioned, I will be giving an optional wrap-up lecture and review session-cum-discussion on Friday, 7 December, from 2 pm to 4 pm in Theatre 5. All are welcome!

Question of the Week: Is Corporate Social Responsibility for Real?

After this week's lecture and the excellent presentation by Ms Teresa Au of HSBC, it would be fair to ask: Is the CSR trend is for real - or is it driven by profits...or maybe both? If companies are motivated by profits to adopt responsible and sustainable business practices, is that so bad? This recent article summarizes the issues fairly well.

Some experts argue that the most successful examples of corporate engagement in society are those that align with the company's business proposition or business model, i.e. they create new opportunities to make money since consumers increasingly want products and services that are socially responsible. Consider such programs as Nike's decision to implement sustainable practices into the design and manufacture of all its products by its many contractors. Or Microsoft's offer of a suite of software for just US$3 to students in developing countries where governments provide schools with low-cost computers.

What do you think?

Submitting Your Editorials/Papers

POLI0019 students should submit their editorials (either as a team or individual) to the Politics and Public Administration Department office, 622 Meng Wah, by the close of business - 7 pm - on Friday, 23 November. Please hand your assignment to the staff at the counter.

POLI0068 students should submit their papers (either as a team or individual) to the same office by the close of business on Friday, 7 December. Please note that from 3 December the PPA office will be closing at 6 pm, an hour earlier than on teaching days.

Please look at the syllabus for guidelines on the format of your assignments and the policy for submitting papers/editorials late.

POLI0068 Research Papers

Many thanks to the IBGM students for staying late yesterday to get through all the presentations that were on hand. I appreciate that many of you had another class to go to and therefore had an abbreviated lunch period. I will be preparing more detailed reactions to each of your proposals over the next few days and will e-mail each team or individual. But please don't wait to hear from me. You should be proceeding with your research, particularly those of you who wish to interview sources. It can take time to set up meetings or to get e-mail replies to questions. Meanwhile, do send me an e-mail if you have any questions on your paper or anything else.

Any POLI0068 students that have not submitted a paper proposal, please do so immediately if you are in fact writing a paper, i.e. if you are at all concerned about the assessment you will receive at the end of the course. Without a proposal and certainly without a paper, I will have little alternative as to the assessment I will file.

POLI0019 Final Examination

I thought I would give POLI0019 students more information about the final exam.

As you know, it will run from 9.30 am to 11.30 am on 14 December. You will have to answer just two questions of equal weight from a selection of five. The best essays will be those that use specific references to readings, what specific guest speakers said, other authoritative sources and examples to support the line of argument. As I've mentioned before, consider the blog to be good practice for the exam. The difference is that you will have only about an hour for each question. Please try to write with your best grammar and spelling, but don't get too concerned about writing in perfect English (though I hope that those who feel they can improve their English will continue to do so). Finally, please write legibly. If I can't read it, then I won't be able to understand your answer.

Questions?

As editorial and paper deadlines loom, if you should have any questions about these assignments or anything else, please don't hesitate to contact either Mr Wong or me. I will respond as soon as possible by e-mail.

Lecture at the Faculty of Law: Anson Chan Fang On-sang

Since I was not in the end able to get Anson Chan to be a guest speaker, those of you who missed her previous appearances on campus including her recent debate with Regina Ip Lau Suk-yee may want to listen to her deliver on 19 November at 7 pm the inaugural public lecture of the Legal Exhibition Project of the Law Association. The title of her talk is "Legal Education: The Basic Law and Good Governance."The venue is the Wang Gungwu Lecture Hall, Graduate House. Details may be found here.

No Lecture on 21 November

This is a reminder that there is NO lecture on Wednesday, 21 November. But POLI0019 students should remember that there are tutorial meetings on that day. This will be the first round of the debates, with the second round on 28 November. POLI0019 students should contact Mr Wong with any questions.

POLI0068 IBGM students will have no tutorial on 21 November. Our next tutorial will be on 28 November.

2007-11-12

Corporate Social Responsibility

In our next class, we will be talking about corporate social responsibility. Now, what does this have to do with Hong Kong and the world, you might ask. We have been discussing the role of business in Hong Kong. Some of our speakers have been critical of the business sector for not supporting political development or cultural activities. The pollution problem has been linked to Hong Kong investment in factories in southern China. Because of the importance of business in Hong Kong and in society in general, we should be talking about what exactly the responsibilities of business are.

As I began to explain in my previous lecture - before we ran out of time - we have seen the power of corporations rise in recent decades. Many major companies have market capitalizations much larger than many countries. In the same way that the emergence of the modern nation state in the West undermined the power of the church, the rise of corporate power, it can be argued, has eclipsed that of national governments. Even the mighty military of the the United States depends in large part on private industry for supplies, weaponry and services.

As the pace of globalization has intensified, the ability of nation states to tackle global problems such as climate change, extremism and terrorism, public health health threats, and the growing income gap and poverty has weakened, particularly in the absence of any strong institutions of global governance. So as nation states have been confronted by the limits to their power, the influence of corporations on communities and the lives of citizens as well as on our environment has expanded considerably.

And so while citizens may still look to governments for solutions and leadership, they now also turn to corporations, perhaps even more so, given the enormous resources and the global presence that many companies have. There is growing acceptance among businesspeople around the world that the company must not just look after the interests of its owners and shareholders but must also be concerned with the welfare of its stakeholders, or any groups, communities, organizations or individuals that might be affected in any way by or have an interest in the corporation's activities.

As one would expect, corporations are often the targets of civil society activism, which has increased in recent years. In Hong Kong, the business sector has received its share of criticism from the public - some of it warranted, some of it undeserved. It is therefore very important for us as critical thinkers to consider CSR in Hong Kong, particularly in our major corporations such as HSBC. If Hong Kong is to secure and further develop its status as a global city, it stands to reason that the SAR should be at the forefront of promoting corporate social responsibility in the region and the world.

A major problem with any discussion of CSR, however, is that there is no single definition of the term. "Corporate social responsibility" is often used interchangeably with the concept of "corporate governance". And despite the more frequent use of the term "sustainability" and the increasing number of institutions that are appointing "sustainability officers", this concept too has remained somewhat ill defined. I look forward to hearing from Teresa Au of HSBC how she defines "corporate social responsibility" and "sustainability".

You might look at the website of the group CSR Asia for more information.

2007-11-11

Deadline for Blog Comments: 14 December

The deadline for posting blog comments is Friday, 14 December. Please remember that by the end of the course you should have contributed at least three times. Greater frequency will be rewarded, but quality is the main criterion for assessment. Postings need not be long. What counts most are the ideas and arguments and how original or thoughtful they are. Particularly good comments are those that react to the lectures, to tutorial discussions, to what guest speakers have said and to readings and other material. Consider this good practice for the final exam.

You may comment on anything on the blog - questions posed, articles linked to the site, comments by other students. If you wish to post an original comment to start a thread, please send it to me and I will upload it for you.

Please do not leave your blogging to the last minute. (We aren't even half way to our goal!) Spare a thought for the person (me!) who will have to read all the papers, editorials, exams and blog comments over the holidays...