SK Group Chairman Chey Tae-won said, “Companies will have to create financial and social values down the road to co-exist with society.”
Chairman Chey made the remarks about companies’ social roles at a commemorative speech at the opening ceremony of the Shanghai Forum 2017 at the Shanghai International Convention Center on May 27.
“Corporate concern, which has so far been on financial values focusing on profits, needs to be shifting weight to social values designed to determine what benefits to solve social problems,” he said. Chairman Chey went on to say, “SK is also concentrating on creating social values beyond simple social contribution activities.”
Chairman Chey’s remarks may be construed as SK’s expression of willingness to spearhead the President Moon Jae-in government’s plans to solve social problems, like the changing of non-regular jobs into regular jobs. SK Broadband, the telecom service unit of SK Group, has become the first company to hire 5,200 non-regular employees from its cooperative subcontractors as regular employees.
Chey also introduced a “social achievement incentive” system designed to compensation social values produced by social enterprises with cash. Chey paid a keen attention to social values as he published the book, titled “New Attempts, Social Enterprises.” Social Enterprises take intermediate form between for-profit companies and non-profit companies, and they are engaged in production and sales, providing services and jobs to the underprivileged. Under the stewardship of Chey, SK awards prizes for social achievement incentives every year.
Chairman Chey opened an MBA course on social enterprise businessmen at KAIST for the first time in Korea. SK Group provided support to the establishment of Happy Nare, one of the nation’s biggest social enterprises. Happy Nare and 13 other social enterprises, including Hapy Dosirak, created a combined 2,500 jobs.
Chairman Chey said SK companies’ business performances will be evaluated by reflecting on financial values and social values. The group’s major subsidiaries, including SK Innovation and SK Telecom, held their respective shareholders’ meetings in March to put co-prosperity through the creation of social values on articles of association.
The Shanghai Forum is an academic forum jointly hosted by Fudan University and the Korea Foundation for Advanced Studies (KFAS), chaired by SK Chairman Chey. Chey attends the forum every year in the capacity of the KFAS chairman.
About 1,000 Global notables, including businessmen, participated in the Shanghai Form 2017 Asia and the World that took place under the theme “New Impetus, New Structure and New Order.” Among those on hand at the forum were Prof. Christopher Pissarides of London School of Economics, the 2010 Novel laureate in economics; former Turkish president Abudullah Gul; ex-Kyrgyz prime minister Temir Sariev; Richard Bush, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and director of its Center for Northeast Asian Policy Studies.
Prior to his participation on the forum, Chey met with SK China President Jerry Wu. They discussed ways of breaking the impasse caused by China’s retaliation against the installation of the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) in Korea designed to combat North Korea’s missiles.
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