Corporate Social Responsibility Campaigns Research Articles

Social Marketing and Privately Held Companies: The Impact of Corporate Social Responsibility Activities on Romanian Consumers

The notion of corporate social responsibility has evolved into a fairly complex concept that can influence the very world we live in. Today's society is interested not only in companies' financial results but also in the way they conduct their businesses. Corporations everywhere try to respond to new environmental challenges by actively engaging in the life of the community and by developing relationships based on mutual trust with consumers. This article introduces the corporate social responsibility domain by underlining the importance of this concept to the later development of a company. The article denounces the results of research conducted on Romanian consumers regarding corporate social responsibility campaigns undergone by firms in Romania. Its purpose is to bring insight into Romanian consumers' perceptions of recent social campaigns, reviewing the extent to which these consumers are willing to become involved in society's well-being. The survey conducted here attempts to provide answers to issues that concern the companies' involvement type, their purview, the reasons for participating in society's welfare, as well as the social campaigns' most common action areas. The results gathered show that corporate social responsibility is not only a promotion method, but a method that implies the effective involvement in the life of the community and in its subsequent issues, therefore representing a real means of support for the economic development of the community in question. In conclusion, companies must put their social conscience into use when dealing with their clients and stakeholders, by offering solutions to environmental concerns, resource management, mutual aid, and welfare rising from corporate support.

The effect of CSR knowledge on customer liking, across cultures

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to investigate the efficacy of corporate social responsibility (CSR) knowledge on customer liking for the bank across two countries and cultural contexts.Design/methodology/approachThree CSR variables were tested for their comparative influence on customer liking under different cultural value conditions. Surveys were completed by 204 bank consumers in Australia and 219 bank customers in Thailand. ANOVA and regression were used to test hypotheses.FindingsPerceptions of existing CSR performance and new CSR initiative had significant effects on liking for the bank. However CSR orientation had no effect. These influences varied substantially depending upon the community orientation of the target customer.Research limitations/implicationsUnderstanding the differing roles of the two significant CSR variables provide insights into the complexities of CSR relationships. The successful introduction of a scale to measure a salient internal outcome measure, called liking for the bank, suggests future research opportunities.Practical implicationsThe differential impact of CSR information on customer responses highlights the importance of understanding different cultural contexts and suggests that careful segmentation strategies are required for particular CSR campaigns. In particular, new social‐cultural segmentation bases may be required.Originality/valueA combination of three CSR variables, together with new CSR information reflecting aspects of CSR not previously used in combination. A new affective customer response measure was used. The first cross‐cultural and country analysis to be conducted for CSR‐customer response relationships within the banking sector. Use of the cultural value of community orientation as a moderator.

Modern Neoliberal Philanthropy: motivations and impact of Pfizer Pharmaceutical’s corporate social responsibility campaign

One of Pfizer Pharmaceutical’s general corporate goals is that no person anywhere should be restricted from receiving essential and affordable medicines. From 2009 to 11 Pfizer’s internal corporate social responsibility (csr) programmes were private corporate efforts that were discretionary and limited in scope and impact. All Pfizer’s csr preferred public policy governmental positions encompassed neoliberal government requirements based on market and profit considerations, with no positions demonstrating, in detail, how universal provision of drugs for all would be provided. Currently Pfizer’s csr efforts represent a dichotomy when compared with the general corporate goal of not restricting essential and affordable medicines in order to provide medicines for all.

Do Corporate Social Responsibility Campaigns Really Work: Cases in Turkey

Improving a company‟s reputation and giving the public a positive impression are the main reasons for companies to take part in corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities. Corporations realized that social supports are becoming more important for continuity of their corporations. For this reason, the corporations have organized the activities beyond society and their needs. Within the context, corporate social responsibility activities have become more intensified in Turkey since 2000. Corporations are organizing social responsibility activities for publicity of their corporations as much as for social benefits. Therefore, it becomes more important to take a place in media with their social responsibility activities. In the present research, the awareness of CSR campaigns in Turkey is examined. The most popular five CSR campaigns, which were listed in Capital magazine in Turkey, will be discussed in the present study. The purpose of the study is to evaluate for recalling the company which owns the campaign, recalling the slogans, the feelings about the corporate reputation, the feelings about the campaign‟s success, and supporting the campaign. For this purpose, the questionnaire will be administered and analyzed to the university students.

Soda and tobacco industry corporate social responsibility campaigns: how do they compare?

In an article that forms part of the PLoS Medicine series on Big Food, Andrew Cheyne and colleagues compare soda companies' corporate social responsibility (CSR) campaigns - which are designed to bolster the image and popularity of their products and to prevent regulation - with the tobacco industry's CSR campaigning.

Corporation as climate ambassador: Transcending business sector boundaries in a Swedish CSR campaign

At a time when corporations are addressing increasingly complex, global corporate social responsibility (CSR) issues, this study examines and evaluates the strategies used in Vattenfall's challenging and innovative CSR campaign which aimed at establishing the energy company as a credible climate ambassador. Based on an analysis of the campaign outcomes in terms of the distinct interests and competencies of business, government and civil sector actors, I suggest that the company's credibility was weakened by its portrayal of Vattenfall as being more intent on organizing a public, collective action to fight climate change than on securing company-related business interests. Two ways to ensure greater credibility in similar cases are proposed: communicating explicitly about company motives for conducting CSR campaigns, and carrying out CSR campaigns in collaboration with non-profit organizations.

The vector of the tobacco epidemic: tobacco industry practices in low and middle-income countries

To understand transnational tobacco companies' (TTCs) practices in low and middle-income countries which serve to block tobacco-control policies and promote tobacco use. Systematic review of published research on tobacco industry activities to promote tobacco use and oppose tobacco-control policies in low and middle-income countries. TTCs' strategies used in low and middle-income countries followed four main themes-economic activity; marketing/promotion; political activity; and deceptive/manipulative activity. Economic activity, including foreign investment and smuggling, was used to enter new markets. Political activities included lobbying, offering voluntary self-regulatory codes, and mounting corporate social responsibility campaigns. Deceptive activities included manipulation of science and use of third-party allies to oppose smoke-free policies, delay other tobacco-control policies, and maintain support of policymakers and the public for a pro-tobacco industry policy environment. TTCs used tactics for marketing, advertising, and promoting their brands that were tailored to specific market environments. These activities included direct and indirect tactis, targeting particular populations, and introducing new tobacco products designed to limit marketing restrictions and taxes, maintain the social acceptability of tobacco use, and counter tobacco-control efforts. TTCs have used similar strategies in high-income countries as these being described in low and middle-income countries. As required by FCTC Article 5.3, to counter tobacco industry pressures and to implement effective tobacco-control policies, governments and health professionals in low and middle-income countries should fully understand TTCs practices and counter them.

Soda and Tobacco Industry Corporate Social Responsibility Campaigns: How Do They Compare?

Tobacco control’s unparalleled success comes partly from advocates broadening the focus of responsibility beyond the smoker to include industry and government. To learn how this might apply to other issues, we examined how early tobacco control events were framed in news, legislative testimony, and internal tobacco industry documents. Early debate about tobacco is stunning for its absence of the personal responsibility rhetoric prominent today, focused instead on the health harms from cigarettes. The accountability of government, rather than the industry or individual smokers, is mentioned often; solutions focused not on whether government had a responsibility to act, but on how to act. Tobacco lessons can guide advocates fighting the food and beverage industry, but must be reinterpreted in current political contexts.

Planting trees without leaving home: tobacco company direct-to-consumer CSR efforts

In developing countries tobacco and cigarette production involves the diversion of arable land from food to tobacco production. It also involves child labour (despite tobacco companies' corporate social responsibility (CSR)...

The Agenda-Setting Power of Stakeholder Media

This article considers how “stakeholder media” – media produced and controlled by stakeholders with the purpose of affecting public opinion or opinions of other actors toward issues or organisations – can exert powerful influences on firms by setting the public agenda and framing a company’s corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives in ways desirable for those stakeholders. We observe that research on agenda-setting, which is very largely based on studies of the traditional news media, generally ignores the increasingly powerful reach and impact of media controlled by stakeholders. Hence, based on a case study of BP’s CSR campaign “Beyond Petroleum”, we propose a new model that addresses agenda setting by stakeholder media. The model captures distinct agenda setting as well as framing techniques used by stakeholder media to put pressure on BP’s “Beyond Petroleum” rebranding campaign. We thus aim to advance extant agenda setting concepts, by demonstrating how stakeholder media ultimately exert different and in some ways stronger influence on firms than traditional news media.

Poor communities as corporate stakeholders: A bottom-up research approach

This article strives to provide an understanding of salient issues affecting the daily lives of participants from various developing communities in the country, and within the bigger picture, discuss some implications for organisations that affect or are affected by such communities. A key implication is that the process of constant connectivity and dialogue, including dissent, with communities as corporate stakeholders, may be more important in establishing trust and earning accountability, than the outcomes of well-planned corporate social responsibility campaigns. The study is based on qualitative research undertaken between 2006 and 2008 in 35 South African rural and township communities in Limpopo Province, North-West and Gauteng. A bottom-up research approach was proposed by the researchers, which, instead of evaluating the effects of corporate communication campaigns on communities, was to begin at a grassroots level with communities themselves, by exploring top-of-mind issues. From the findings it was apparent that a vicious cycle of extreme and endemic poverty was the focal area that occupied community members’ minds. This study provides a linkage between certain aspects of corporate social responsibility, normative stakeholder theory, strategic communication and stakeholder dialogue, in an attempt to provide organisations with guidelines to evaluate and respond to the challenges of poor communities, and offer a perspective on the way strategic communication with poor communities should take place.

THE ILLUSION OF CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY:COCA-COLA AND CORPORATE CITIZENSHIP

Under contemporary globalization, corporations have achieved a size and scope unparalleled to any other time in history (May 24). In response to growing corporate power,there have been contestations from unions, environmentalists, and anti-corporate activists stressing corporate reform. One result of social pressure has been the incorporation of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) campaigns into corporate branding strategies (May 201). On thesurface, these campaigns appear to address and integrate social concerns into regular business practices. Yet, I argue that CSR campaigns are one component of a broader strategy to improvethe management of market crises by incorporating criticisms into corporate managed social responsibility initiatives and can be understood using Foucault’s concept of governmentality. Instead of addressing critiques in a substantive manner, CSR initiatives “break off the sharp points of contention” to bolster legitimacy for free market policies (Hobsbawm). To further understand this process, I focus on the Coca-Cola Company’s CSR campaigns on two scales; theinternational and the national in Chile.

“Thugs” versus “Good Guys”: The Impact of NBA Cares on Player Image

In the current social landscape, the media concentrate on the lifestyle and behavior of certain sport celebrities, and they demand that professional athletes display high standards of moral behavior. In addition, growing media intrusion presents the professional athlete as a “damaged hero”. The wealth and star status of professional athletes make them primary targets for the media. In light of the 2004 brawl and the increased controversy surrounding the National Basketball Association (NBA), the purpose of this exploratory study was to examine individuals’ perceptions towards the NBA players’ image. These perceptions were assessed relative to the league's corporate social initiatives, such as the “NBA Cares” program, which are implemented in order to restore the credibility and image of the players. Results indicated an increased influence of the specific corporate social responsibility (CSR) campaign on participants’ opinions towards the image of NBA players.

REPRESENTASI NASIONALISME DALAM IKLAN KORPORAT PT. GUDANG GARAM TBK

Representation of Nationalism in Corporate Advertising of PT. Gudang Garam Tbk. Nationalism is a psychological condition in which somebody surrenders his loyalty to nation state in the name of a nation. While representation is something refers to message, by which reality is encoded in communication; by words, sound, image, or their combination. This thesis explains about how nationalism is represented in the corporate advertising of PT.Gudang Garam Tbk. version “Rumahku Indonesiaku” and “Rumahku Indonesiaku: Cahaya Asa”. This is a qualitative research using semiotics method, based on the codes of television theory by John Fiske, syntagm-paradigm concept by Saussure, and the grammar of film and television. The nationalism represented in the advertising consists of self-determination, solidarity, patriotism, social justice, and national identity. Although the advertising is a Corporate Social Responsibility campaign, it still contains particular symbol refers to usual symbol that represents Gudang Garam cigarette product.

The Influence of Corporate Social Responsibility Campaigns on Public Opinion

An experiment was conducted to examine the influence of corporate social responsibility campaigns on public opinion. It was anticipated that corporate social responsibility campaigns, which communicate corporate good deeds, exert considerable positive influence on public opinion. Results supported this expectation. Corporate social responsibility campaigns enhanced people's perceptions of sponsors' image, reputation and credibility.

Corporate social responsibility attribute rankings

This research presents the findings of a rank order evaluation of corporate social responsibility attributes by a target public ( N = 72) of a contemporary corporate social responsibility campaign. The results indicate that publics value corporate honesty above other corporate social responsibility behaviors.