Antecedents of Corporate Social Responsibility in Indonesia, 1900s–1950s

Abstract

Chapter 12 will discuss how Indonesia’s 2007 company law made commitments to corporate social responsibility (CSR) compulsory for registered companies. Scholarships on CSR in Indonesia generally assume that the concept is entirely new to the country (see for example Waagstein 2011). However, until 1958, Dutch-owned companies were among the largest in Indonesia, and the findings of Sluyterman (2012) suggest that several Dutch entrepreneurs and companies perceived their obligations to society in the early 20th century in ways similar to what now motivates CSR. This chapter does not intend to argue that Dutch firms were motivated by CSR. Rather, it seeks...