Community Participation as a Novel Marketing Strategy for Architectural Design Firms in Developing Countries: A Corporate Social Responsibility Perspective

Abstract

The Architectural Engineering Profession (AEP) is an ever-growing business that affects people lives' each day. Companies that merely operate as an isolated entity from its surrounding community encounter the risk of losing their customers. The escalating number of design firms led to a fierce competition between them which offered clients the opportunity to select between these firms based on their experience, management ability, cost, value services and community development. Architectural Design Firms (ADFs) that wish to remain in market and compete for the future have to adopt effective marketing strategies. Due to the limitation of the traditional marketing strategies, this paper aims to investigate the role of community participation as a novel marketing strategy for (ADFs) in developing countries from a Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) perspective. A research strategy is developed to achieving four objectives. Firstly, reviewing literature related to the research topic including, current marketing strategies in (ADFs) and their limitations, (CSR) and highlighting the relation between CSR, community participation and (AEP). Secondly, presenting 3 case studies to investigate their marketing tools and whether they adopt (CSR) as a marketing strategy. Thirdly, to investigate the perception and application of (ADFs) towards adopting (CSR) and community participation as a marketing strategy through conducting a survey questionnaire and semi-structured interviews with a representative sample of (ADFs) in Egypt. And finally, proposing a strategy to facilitate community participation as a novel approach for marketing (ADFs) in developing countries.