I live in Siem Reap, a cheerful and lively town, which offers stay and night time entertainment, when visiting the famous Angkor temples. Angkor is Cambodia’s national pride. After a dreadful period of the communistic and purging regime of the Khmer Rouge, the temples are a reminder for Cambodians of their great past. Discovering the temples feels mystical. The deeper you enter the Temple City, the more the temples merge into the jungle. A monk smiles at me as I admire the detailed carvings in a wall. Everything in Siem Reap breaths Angkor. Going from Angkor Mini Mart to Angkor Muscle Gym, Angkor hotels and, not to forget: Angkor Beer.

The Cambodians I interact with on daily basis have another big pride. They work for Pactics. The cloth and pouches manufacturer for eyewear design labels such as Prada, Ray Ban, Ralph Lauren and Bulgari. This organization manages to combine social and environmental responsibility with a healthy focus on making profit. The company offers its’ employees a safe and clean working environment, fair wages, training of all kinds, subsidized lunch, a daycare, helmets for motorbikes and a library. “Pactics is the factory with 400 smiles. Pactics teaches people to share kindness and to volunteer in society. This is what I found important”, says production manager Sony. My Bachelor’s thesis evaluates how Pactics succeeds in facilitating its employees to continuously improve themselves and the organization. Activities that are examined include trainings, process optimization and performance measurement.

It is interesting to live in a country that is in a healing process after a horrible genocide. The steps that are taken to create better education, offer decent work and reduce poverty are promising. If these initiatives will continue to be carried through, the pride of Angkor will be in the future too.