ABSTRACT
The above statement was made by the founder of a major corporation in Indonesia and became the company’s corporate aim. Over time, the virtues and the vision of the founder have inspired the next generations of the company’s leaders to take actions in enabling many Indonesians to prosper through their business presence, because they believe that the company can only be prosperous if the nation is prosperous. Established in 1957 as a family business, PT Astra International Tbk (Astra) became one of Indonesia’s largest public listed companies employing 221,046 permanent employees across its 198 subsidiary companies in 2015 (Astra International, 2015). From 2009 to 2014, Astra has always been selected as a responsible and sustainable investment (Kehati, 2015). Through its corporate social responsibility (CSR) programs, Astra empowered 8,106 micro and small businesses by 2013 (Widjaja, 2014) and 7,297 palm oil farmers by 2011 (Astra Agro Lestari, 2011) to become its business partners to fully fi nance one of Indonesia’s best manufacturing polytechnics, develop curriculums of secondary vocational schools and train high school dropouts to overcome skilled labour scarcity. With the United Nations’ ambitious plan to eradicate extreme poverty and achieve other sustainable development goals by 2030 (UN, 2015) and the demands that companies contribute to these goals, are there any management lessons that we can learn from Astra? It is this question that sets the tone for the rest of this book. This book captures the two main lessons from the company. First, through its strategic CSR programs, the company contributes to sustainable development goals by building social capital such as social relationships, capability building for the poor, and collective actions along the company’s supply chain. Second, the company’s experience in undertaking CSR for more than 30 years in a developing country has shown that the concepts of sustainable development, CSR programs, social capital and corporate sustainability are actually interlinked.
