Significance of Corporate Social Responsibility for creating brand image and maintaining

the long-term relationship with customers:

“A context of Wal-Mart”

Assignment: Literature Review

1: Introduction to Literature Review:
As the development in the technology is occurring on higher level due to which the increase in
the social responsibilities for the management of companies have been occurred. There is very
high competition among the companies in respect off getting higher profit and more customers
and higher share in the market. The companies are considering the attraction towards the
globalization. It has been evaluated by market analysis that the social responsibilities are
consider as very important to be consider by the management of company enhance the success of
the company is directly depend on the fulfillment of the social responsibilities which the
customers expect form the company. when all aspect of the social responsibility is consider b eh
company than it give a sign to the customers that company is giving more value to the
satisfaction of the people of the customers rather to given only focus on the profit of company.
There are many aspects whc9h are included in the social responsibilities of any company in
which the company need to consider in respect off the corporate social responsibilities. The
commitment which the company shows to the customers for operating ethically is called as the
CSR. The company needs to contribute it important role in development of the economy of the
country, in fulfillment off the needs of people of local society and the living standards of the

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employees of company. In accordance with the King (2001), the CSR is basically the
responsibilities of company which relate with the success of company. Further asserts by Moon
(2002) that majority of the organizations are trying to include different financial and non
financial resources so as to form a good brand image.
This assignment is based on the Wal-Mart which is one of the well reputed retail companies and
it was established in 1969. The founder of the company was the Sam Walton. The company was
registered on the stock exchange in 1972. The company is currently operating in more than 27
countries of the world. The numbers of employees which are working on different assignments
are more than 2 million. There are different strategies and policies which the company has
implemented for giving greater services to the society Foote, et al. (2010).

It is very important to understand that there is greater difference in between the corporate social
responsibility and the brand image in respect of marketing of the products and services. The
main objective off this research study is to evaluate the importance of the corporate social
responsibilities and brand image for success of company.it has been evaluate din the research
that how much the consideration of corporate social responsibility is for the enhancement of the
market share of company and gaining competitive advantage over other companies in the market
and how the corporate social responsibility is dependent on the brand image of company.

Literature Review – The Main Body

The concept of the CSR has been cleared by majority of the organizations along with the
significance of eth success of the organization. Only due to its significance the organization
embraced the CSR over eth brand image and moreover it would help in managing the long term
relation with the customers.

It has been stated by to Carroll (1983), that CSR is the conduct of the business that leads towards
the economic profitability, law bidding, ethical support and the social support. The primary
condition for abiding the law for making the organization that is socially responsible. In this

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competitive and the modern environment it is not easy to adopt the social responsibilities as it is
the intention of the organization to directly engage with the profitable venture.

Organization can benefit by engaging itself in the activities of corporate social responsibilities as
CSR concentrates on improving the organization’s capabilities (Porter and Mark Kramer, 2003).
As per Visser (2005), corporate social responsibility is recognized as the umbrella which
comprises corporate sustainability & citizenship, environmental & stakeholder management,
corporate social performance and business ethics.

The human side of the organization and the leaders are being affected by the organizational
commitment for the objective of making the contribution in the community and the society.
Behind this the major reason was that the organizations are not the monolithic corporation but
govern, lead and operate by individuals who also live in the same society in which they are
performing eth business. By CSR the value of the organization could be reflected while when the
humanitarian challenges and the environmental challenges are being addressed as CSR is being
known as the technique that allows the organization to allocate and generate the worth of the
organization in the more efficient and the effective way for the improvement of the organization.

In the brad image there is huge increase which has been clearly represented by the CSR. The
relationship between the brand image and the CSR has been defined by ), Goi and Yong (2009),
Gounaris, (2004), and maintaining customer relationship is greatly dependent over the
organization familiarity in the market where it operate. According to Valor (2005), there is a
significant increase in the consumer behavior of buying goods and services from those
organizations whose role in society is better as customers are becoming more conscious
regarding CSR. Further stated by Enquist & Edvardsson (2009) long term strategies of
organization relates to social, economic and environmental responsibilities as these
responsibilities are the supporting concept of long term competitive advantage. Further explained
by Johnson (2009), if an organization have well recognised brand in the competitive market then
organization’s efforts for CSR will significantly appreciate & strengthen its brand image.

So if there is not nay brand awareness of the organization in the competitive market then the
brand image would be improved by the CSR. After 2009 the research of the Economic Time has

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been revealed and donation has been made from the listed companies that have been increased
by almost 8%.

It has been explained by Petrick and Quinn (2001) that the CSR is that technique which allows
the organization to allocate and generate the wealth of the organization in the more efficient and
the effective way for the society betterment. The valuables business techniques have been
threatened by the resourceful CSR activities and there is huge significance by the local
community and customers in which it is operating.

Without issuing on the triple bottom line it is not easy to known about the importance of the scr.
All; the economic, social, politic and the environmental factors are take in to account. All these
indicators are being represented by the following figure.

http://nbs.net/knowledge/strategy/primer/
Figure 1: Triple bottom line

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Economic: The economic factors have affected the world because all the organizations focus on
the earning profits and interest of stakeholders. However, this cannot be practiced anymore as the
success of the organization will be obstructed by ignoring the social and economic factors. Geya(
2008) has argued that customer satisfaction must be considered by the organization for economic
sustainability of the business organization, this can be done by offering fair rates, high-quality
products and services and reducing the environmental impact of the organization.
Environment: Organizations through pollution, water wastage and climate changes are
negatively affecting the external environment. The two key elementals for vital natural resources
are
 Balancing the ecosystem
 Substitute with the natural resource e.g. use solar energy to limit the use of fuel
Social: Social development is the most important element of CSR that can be affected by
economic and environment. Assessment of external environment and people that can affect the
organization in any manner is focused by social capital. This includes the training, education,
local community, health and safety of employees and charity of making world a better place.
(Karaibrahimoglu, 2010).

Assignment 2: Research Proposal

2.1. Introduction
In respect of the establishment of the good relationship among the company and the customers it
is very important for the company to consider the corporate social responsibility. as Chaffey,
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(2008) explained that CSR could induce the customers to buy the products of a specific
organization if that organization is bearing some social responsibility and contributing towards
the community. As per Hansen et al. (2008) CSR results in a good reputation of the organization
and also assist in countering the negative publicity if occurred. CSR build a level of trust through
which customer attracted toward brand and retained loyal to organization. Strong business values
come from organization’s culture in which customers and society’s value are developed so as to
drive the direction of business improvement.

2.2. Background
The managers of the company are giving great focus on the vision and mission of the company
because it is very important for the company to focus on the ethical requirements as company is
operating at well reputed company. the wastage of the food products is consider as the main
corporate social responsibility of company Human rights groups and labor perennially criticized
the Wal-Mart as it purchases renewable sources for more electricity derived so as to save energy.

2.3. Problem Statement

The design of research study was considerate and attentive so as to carry out the research in
exploratory manner. This research essentially focuses on both sources of information such as
primary and secondary. Qualitative research approach was carried out to conduct the research
analysis from primary and secondary collected information. The problem that might be faced
during conducting this research study is to assess the association among the corporate social
responisbility and organization’s brand image.

2.4. Research Objective

 To evaluate the excited relationship in between the brand image and CSR of company
 To evaluate the importance of CSR for maintaining strong relationship with the
customers of company.

2.5. Research Questions

Q: how will you relate the CSR of company with the brand image of company in today’s
business world?

Q: how the activities of company are operated by integration of management?

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2.6. Research Rational
This research though discusses a broad category of brand image topic which includes various
perspectives and scope. The main focus of this research study will be on the area of brand image
which is linked with corporate social responsibility. The research objectives and research
hypothesis are designed in such a way that they become most relevant to the research topic.
Moreover, the objectives and research question are designed in a way that it will depict the
problem of this research and will not deviate from the topic.

2.7. Research Methodologies

The research methodology that will be applied in this research is highly in accordance with the
theoretical framework. The research is a primary research and from the large population of
multinational organizations, this research has chosen a large multinational company as a sample.
To conduct a primary research, it is important to select a methodology for data collection (Kotler
and Lee, 2005). Random sampling method should be adopted from this research because it is
consider as suitable for the company.

2.9. Research Approach

The approach which will be adopted for this research is based on the collection of information
form the primary source of information which is those sources which includes the information
which will be collected by conducting survey sad n interviews. The effect of the CST of
company on the brand image of company could be evaluated by the primary data so this is the
reason that the researcher will give great focus on the primary data.

2.12. Data collection and analysis

The collection of the data is one of the important steps for conduction of the research. For this
research the data would be collected by the adoption of questionnaire technique by which the
questionnaire will be distributed among the respondent and then the information is valued by
using the charts and such as pie charts and Bar charts. Important thing regarding the corporate
social responsibility of the company is that the questionnaire will clearly described in order to
make turn easy for the respondents. After the conduction of survey, this research is going to use
simple mathematical analysis to figure out how much percentage believed that corporate social
responsibility does have positive effects on the brand image or not. Simple averages will be
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calculated and further analysis will be performed by using various graphs and charts for better
understanding of magnitude and direction of the effect of cultural diversity in international
business.

2.15. Reliability
The research will be conducted in the store of the company because of the importance of the
reliability of eh data and information which will be used in the research. For the collection of
reliable and accurate information it is very important that all general level must be consider by
the company. Two methods which will be use include the questionnaire and the surveys in
respect of the collection of information and data. In this way, the research will only incorporate
authentic and reliable respondents so that the results are significant and can contribute to the
theory.

Conclusion
It has been concluded that the relationship in between the corporate social responsibility and the
brand image will be established by the company and the consideration off the corporate social
responsibilities by the management is very important for the success of company because by
fulfilling all the aspects associated with the corporate social responsibilities help the company to
achieve the company’s targets.

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