A Framework of Perceived Corporate Social Responsibility Gaps between Internal and External Stakeholders: A Stakeholder Theory Approach

Abstract

Governments and consumer advocacy groups have placed considerable pressure on fashion companies to reduce their harmful impact on the environment and to make an effort toward improving social justice throughout the world. Consequently, many companies are striving to shift their business practices toward sustainability and to meet the requested standards of corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives to transform the fashion industry. Depending on the degree of deviation, employees may perceive sustainable corporations’ CSR initiatives inconsistently. This could also lead to negative effects on consumers’ perceptions of CSR efforts when there is a gap in perception between the stakeholders. Therefore, this study aimed to suggest a new framework of perceived CSR performance by exploring consumers’ and employees’ evaluations of CSR initiatives. To explore consumers’ and employees’ evaluations of CSR initiatives, H&M and Nike were selected. Given that Nike employees (internal) perceived a high CSR performance while consumers (external) perceived a lower CSR performance for Nike, it might be that Nike is successfully communicating and executing their CSR initiatives to their employees, but not as well to consumers, suggesting that Nike is under-marketing their CSR efforts.