Research Proposal - Edited
Research Proposal - Edited
Research Proposal - Edited
Name - S.S.Jaan
Reg. No - 104075
1. Introduction…………………………………………………. 1-5
2. Literature review……………………………………………..5-8
3. Methodology…………………………………………………..9-10
3.1 Conceptualization
3.3 Operationalization
4. Study design……………………………………………………11
6. References………………………………………………………13
1. Introduction
Increased sales are often seen as the ultimate effect of corporate programs which include
sponsorships, promotions, advertising, and social responsibility. The basis of a purchase
intention is a positive and favorable attitude toward product.
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1.2 Problem Statement
In order to achieve long run growth in 21st century, companies face the challenge of
sustainability in competitive environment. Therefore every organization is not only focus
on earning profit but also take interest on social responsibility, because consumers are
increasingly makes purchase on the basis of a firm’s role in the society (Forte and
Lamont, 1991).
Social responsibility plays a central role in the business environment and as companies
have attempted to become more responsible in terms of the economic, environmental and
social wellbeing of the societies in which they operate. As a result, the concept of social
responsibility has grown and spread dramatically during the recent decade in the business
world (NilanthiRatnayake, 2007). A company which is socially responsible, research told
the 88% of consumers are more likely to buy from that company (Smith, 1996). Because
people or consumers like those company which fulfill the social need of people. Company
image come from the combination of a person’s trust, feelings and impressions about a
company (Van Rekom, 1997)
Some argue that CSR is merely window-dressing, or an attempt to pre-empt the role of
governments as a watchdog over powerful multinational corporations. Political
sociologists became interested in CSR in the context of theories of globalization, neo-
liberalism, and late capitalism. Corporate Social Responsibility or CSR has become the
buzz-word today among corporate circles, and several companies, chambers and
associations are racing to get their teeth into it. Even a new Society for CSR has been
launched. And in addition, a corporate citizenship awards contest. Environmental impact
of company activities, ethical sourcing and business practices, and managing reputational
risk are all now recognized as affecting the future plans and performance of a company.
Therefore this study will investigate the relationship between of Corporate Social
Responsibility and Customer purchase Intention
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1.3 Research Questions
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1.6 Significance of the study
The insights of the Corporate social Responsibility gained from this study will be
interests to practitioners and significantly useful for the management to justify on CSR
implementation in their organizations. Companies and their stakeholders can devote
attention to enforce and further direction of their CSR practices. Government also can
establish regulations or shaping supporting policies in area of sustainable development.
i. The sample size is not enough to give the complete picture of the customers
in the country.
ii. Limited time and budget in the research process
iii. It is difficult to gather clear and unbiased information from customers. (this
affects the accuracy of the information)
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iv. It is difficult to study all factors that influence the involvement in CSR
projects.
v. Sample results may not represent the whole population and the factors which
are not covered by the research may also affect to the overall conclusion.
vi. Specialized, knowledgeable human resource should be used in collecting data
so that, the data collection cost may increase.
2. Literature Review
Within a constantly evolving business era, firm have been investigating in different
alternatives to distinguish themselves as business leaders, increase profits, and improve
their overall standing in the community. These activities are undertaken for several
reasons, the most important of which is sustainable development. Sustainable
development has been defined as “growth that meets the needs of the present without
compromising the ability of future generations to meet their needs” (Sprungli, 2005).
While Reed (2001) define business sustainability as “business strategies that are intended
to add social and or environmental value to external stakeholders while increasing value
to shareholders”. Throughout the modern business development, corporation nowadays
has been devoted their understanding of business practice and the idea of businesses exist
for more than profit maximization. The general business trends nowadays, involve
economic and development and growth while maintaining health and functionality of
ecosystem, environment and community. The emergence principles of sustainable
development have an important impact on the concept of Corporate Social Responsibility
(CRS) resulting two significant contributions of sustainability concept: incorporating
environmental variable as one of the main social expectations to be covered under
sustainability and firm must satisfy not only the expectation of current society but also
those of future generation.
Companies are becoming more aware of the need to communicate who they are, what
they do, how what they do affects society and the environment, and their future intentions
and plans in not just generating profits but being more responsible to all stakeholders,
society and the environment. Stakeholder issues cover employee working conditions,
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maintaining policies of equality, diversity and human rights, protecting consumers as well
as the environment, and helping the local community.
Kotler and Lee (2005) assert that there are five C’s in CSR that corporations must fulfill.
The first C stands for “conviction” this a about real improvement in business
performance. The second C means Commitment, which means “when we commit, we
deliver”, Communication means “we have committed to open, honest, and direct
communication with all the stakeholders. This integrates new tools of communication that
are used by corporations thatreinforce reciprocity in communication. The communication
discussed by Kotler and Lee is a two way process of communication and all stakeholders
are respected and addressed. Consistency is a process of continuous improvement. The
fifth “C” stands for credibility; it should beknown that the corporation ability to trust
their performance depends on the credibility of theireffort. Corporation should regularly
review and consider new or modified business practices towill improve the quality of life
and, at the same time, provide some net benefit to thecorporation, ideally financial,
operational relationshipbuilding, or marketing in nature. Thiscapture the open system
concept, that asserts that corporations should interact with theenvironment in order for it
to survive.
In addition, Kotler (2004) says that there are ranges of options for giving by corporate
responsibilities to their publics as follows;
Providing cash donations
Offering grants
Awarding scholarships
Donating products
Donating services
Providing expertise
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Common Types of Corporate Social Responsibility Actions
2. Community Involvement: This can include raising money for local charities,
supporting community volunteerism, sponsoring local events, employing people from a
community, supporting a community's economic growth, engaging in fair trade practices,
etc.[54]Starbucks is an example of a company that focuses on community involvement and
engagement; since these programs began the company has seen higher profits and greater
employee engagement.
Companies that have traditionally excelled in the historical reporting of their business
performance are now being compelled to focus on the future. Companies are becoming
more aware of the need to communicate who they are, what they do, how what they do
affects society and the environment, and their future intentions and plans in not just
generating profits but being more responsible to all stakeholders, society and the
environment. Stakeholder issues cover employee working conditions, maintaining
policies of equality, diversity and human rights, protecting consumers as well as the
environment, and helping the local community.
Increased sales are often seen as the ultimate effect of corporate programs which include
sponsorship, promotions, advertising, and social responsibility. The basis of a purchase
intention is a positive and favorable attitude toward a product. According to Fishbein’s
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theory of reasoned action (Fishbein and Ajzen, 1975), a consumers’ purchase intention
serves as the mediator between their attitude toward a product and their actual purchasing
behavior. Consumer intentions have been used to investigate numerous variables
including satisfaction (LaBarbera and Mazursky, 1983; Oliva, Oliver and MacMillan,
1992; Oliver R.L., 1993), perceived value (e.g., Wood and Scheer, 1996), brand equity
(e.g., Keller, 1993; Srivastava and Shocker, 1991), and sponsorship recognition (Gwinner
and Swanson, 2003; Madrigal, 2001; Meenaghan, 1996, 1999).Gruber (1971) suggested
that intentions provide a link between consumers’ reactions to products and their
acquisition or use of the products. Thus, intention has been used in numerous studies as
an alternative measure to actual purchase behavior. Brown and Dacin (1997) found that
corporate associations, which include corporate ability and corporate social responsibility,
affected product evaluations through corporate evaluations. In their model, corporate
social responsibility (i.e. the character of a company with regard to social issues) has a
positive effect on corporate evaluation, and in turn, corporate evaluation positively
effected product/brand evaluation. They concluded that when a consumer identifies a
brand with a company, all the information stored in memory regarding the company may
influence the evaluation of the brand due to the association between the brand and the
company. Netemeyer et al. (2001) found that the organizational association of being a
“good corporate citizen” was related to willingness to pay a price premium for a brand
and brand purchase. Ricks (2005) using an experimental design noted that consumers
react positively to corporate philanthropy with no alternative intentions (e.g., reactive to a
negative corporate event). Bhattacharya and Sen (2003) argued that consumers who
identify with companies are more likely to be loyal to those companies, promote them to
others, and be resilient to negative information about them. They went on to propose that
consumers were likely to identify with a company that offers them a positive and
meaningful social identity. Mohr and Webb (2005) examined the influence of corporate
social responsibility and price on consumer responses. The authors created scenarios to
manipulate corporate social responsibility and price across two domains (environment
and philanthropy). Results from a national sample indicated that CSR in both domains
had a positive impact on evaluation of the company and purchase intent. Furthermore, in
the environmental domain corporate social responsibility affected purchase intent more
strongly than price did. The afore cited studies suggest an overall positive attitude toward
companies associating themselves with causes that benefit society, and companies using
their resources to benefit society is clearly related to the concept of CSR.
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3. Methodology
Economic
Responsibilities Customer
Satisfaction
Legal
Responsibilities
Customer’s Trust
Ethical
Responsibilities
Customer Loyalty
Philanthropic
responsibilities
H5: Advanced CSR programs cause to increase the customer purchase intention.
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3.3 Opertionalization
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4. Study Design
Inductive Approach
To approach CSR from social and management view, researcher chooses to conduct a
Qualitative inductive research.
The study will use the details from selected customers which are sampled based on the
random sampling. Also the study will use multiple case designs (Flick, 2002), and the
Purposive sampling (Silverman, 2005;Eisenhardt, 1989) was used to identify the case
study companies based on their CSR performance as indicated by awards won by the
companies and the reporting of CSR practices.
In this study, it will have to measure the customer purchase intention, so researcher has to
collect primary data from customers while collecting secondary data to collect
information about company profiles on the concept of CSR.
And data collects through questionnaire is designed to collect data on a five scale point
likert scale type measurement scale. These scales will enable the data to be converted in
to an interval scale for data analysis.
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5. Time Frame for Research
Steps Weeks
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18
Discussion with supervisor about
research topic and weaknesses of
research proposal
Collect and study more research
articles relates to topic
Analyze and take relevant exacts
Draft first chapter of
research(introduction)and
second chapter(Literature
Review)
Develop questionnaire
Fill questionnaire using data
Prepare data set
Draft third
chapter(Methodology)
Analyze the data set
Reach to conclusions,
recommendations and
suggestions
Complete the research
report(analyze,conclusion,recom
mendations,ane preferences)
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5. References
1. Lecture notes
2. Web sites
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki
www.businessdictionary.com
www.googlescolar.com
3. Books
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