Aims And Objectives Used In A Study
The main purpose of this research is to investigate the impact of corporate social responsibility on the organizational performance case study of TESCO. Research and objectives are the back bone of the research. They give the direction to conduct the research affectively without this research seems to be useless. There are followings research objectives and aims
To understand the impact of corporate social responsibility on organizational performance.
To understand what are the derivers behind the implementation of Corporate social responsibilities
How CSR play important role for the success of the company
Find out the ways how company can perform CSR effectively and profitably
What are the benefits which company getting by performing CSR
1.3 RESEARCH QUESTION
As it been discussed above this study seeks to investigate into the impacts of corporate social responsibility on organizational performance as a case study of Tesco. To addressed the problems in research work some research question was really vital
To what extended does the corporate social responsibility impact the overall performance of the Tesco?
BACKGROUND INFORMATION
In 1960 the concept of corporate social responsibility was introduced. It is understandable from the word of corporate social responsibility that how organizations engage in environmental and social activities in their business and their operations and how they cooperate with their stack holders including employees, suppliers, and customers. Initially the main concerns of corporate social responsibility were employment equal opportunities, health and safety issues. Nowadays, corporate social responsibility is not just focusing the health and safety issues but it is also focusing on Environmental and Ethical matters. Now corporate social responsibility is the competitive tool for the organizations and it is the source to get the competitive advantages and corporate resources. The basic definition of corporate social responsibility was given by European Commission. It is the process of implementation of social and environmental activities in daily business operations.
Many experienced scholars and experts are trying hard to find the standard definition of corporate social responsibility but unfortunately they are not successful in this regard. Corporate social responsibility related activities and issues are controlled by various economic bodies. World Business Council for Sustainable Development explains corporate social responsibility; it is the responsibilities of the organizations to help the economic development by working together with workforce, national communities to improve the life style and standards. It is the duties of the corporations to perform activities which helpful for the organization as well for the society and community. It the obligation of corporations to do justice with their stakeholders as well their shareholders and also to take steps for the improvement of the society as well as the community. There are numbers of authors and scholars who have given their own ideas and views about the corporate social responsibility. They also explained what activities are good and what are bad. Different organizations commit that they are performing a lot corporate social responsibilities activities for the beneficial of the society and environment. If we study about the corporate social responsibility issues we will see there are number of companies who have committed that they are very responsible for the CSR but in real they were not doing this. Take the example of BP in 2007 BP promote their self that, they are very environment friendly and they promote their self as a green company. By violating the health and safety laws in USA BP image was very much disturbed.
NIKE is one of the famous and well known brand in the world. Most of the products of Nike manufactured in developing countries. In developing countries they were not following the standards they paid very low wages to the worked and the working environment and working place were very bad and below standards and poor health and safety conditions in the working place. Due to these issues their brand name and brand personality was really disturbed and it created a bad image on their brand. (Weatherly and Otter, 2008)
Porter and Kramer (2006) explained that corporate social responsibility is a source of getting competitive advantages .Corporate social responsibility plays a very vital role for marketing and it is very useful tool for attracting the customers. (Piercy and Lane, 2009) Corporate social responsibility is a source and tool to create strong brand awareness for the company. By practicing the CSR activities there are more chances of the organizational growth and it leads towards the profit. Corporate social responsibility is very helpful tool to create strong brand awareness as well as for the reputation of the organization.
Retailing is very vast and essential sector in the UK economy providing huge range of products, goods and services. There were 305,000 retail outlets in 2004 in UK and they helped to generate the turnover of £250B (ABI 2005). .Tesco is one of the largest store in the UK supermarket. According to the BBC News 24 (09.05.06), Tesco, Sainsbury, Asda, Morrison’s are the big giant in the super market of UK. There is a competition like war among these four companies. There is great competition among these by providing the good quality products and services. All these companies are performing corporate social responsibilities according to their strategies. BBC news stated that in 2007 £1 of£3 was spent in Tesco.(BBC News 24, 23.01.07). Tesco operating 2,482 stores in UK and there are 287,669 employees working for the Tesco .There are 287,669 stores in UK. They are performing a lot of CSR works in UK. According to the Tesco CSR2010 report they mentioned that they are working too much for the beneficial of the community, society and environment. Tesco is giving 100 percent diversion of waste by recycling and effective waste management system, and all the waste directly goes to landfill. Tesco donated £61.6M for noble causes and charities. Tesco is the first one in the world which opened zero carbon super markets in UK. Tesco create this thing in the mind of their customers that they are doing very well in CSR activities and they are serving a lot for their community society and environment. Tesco also highlights this slogan” Every little helps” means they are here to helping every on including customers, society, environment and communities. UK government allows companies to define corporate social responsibilities according to their own actions and standards. There is no fixed standards and rules for implementation of CSR in organizations. All organizations are freely performs CSR activities according to their resources and their corporate strategies. In UK most of the companies are serious to perform CSR activities. And they believe they can get competitive advantages by doing better CSR activities inside the organization as well outside the organization. Tesco is working hard for applying corporate social responsibilities as a vital part of their business. They believe that CSR activities are great opportunity for the growth of their business. (Tesco plc)
IMPORTANCE OF THE RESEARCH
Now a days the companies are responsible and serious about their activities and operation, how they are affecting the environment (Waddock and Graves, 1997a). Traditionally firms were engaged to plan strategies just for short term profit to invest in social and environmental activities with no direct payoff. Companies who will be socially responsible and their main focus in long- term objectives they will enjoy more profit in long-term (Kane, 2002).share holders and stake holders are interested to taking actions to encourage and promote CSR activities (c.f., Marens, 2002). There are a lot of theories which are focussing on CSR. CSR is a broad topic it covers many areas. The importance of this research is to find out the factors and derivers why the company are expending money for CSR what are the reasons behind this. How CSR play important role for the success of the organization. What practices are being following in the company which are the ethical and unethical activities in the organization and how they are affecting the organizational performance? This research will help how CSR is important for the organizational performance and what are the benefits Tesco is gaining from CSR activities. How much CSR is contributing for their success. There are many theories and models about CSR which explains CSR play very important role for the success of the organization. This study will help to understand how CSR create the important role for the brand loyalty and brand awareness. Girod and Michael (2003) arguing that CSR is just a tool to develop and create the brand awareness and brand differentiation. This study will help how much impact of CSR for the brand associations and brand awareness of the Tesco. CSR in business give the enormous benefits this include the long term customer relationships, reduce operating cost, increase the financial performance and profit as well. CSR in business help for sustainability of companies (Bevan et. al 2004). This study will help to understand how much CSR is helping to Tesco. There are some unethical practicing following in the organization and we will see how they impact on the organizational performance. This study will help to investigate that the organization is in winning position or loosing position when they are embraces CSR. It been noticed that some companies are not fairly performing CSR internally as well externally. This research will help to investigate that how Tesco is implementing CSR internally as well externally and what are the outcomes of those practices on the business. This research will help the reader to understand the importance of CSR. We can evaluate weather CSR practicing in the company and outside the company create good or bad impact on the organizational performance. If company does not perform CSR activities then what will be the impact of its on the organizational performance. This study will facilitate the readers to get the overall knowledge about the CSR and its importance for the organization. This study will help to get the knowledge about the CSR activities performed by Tesco. What the categories of CSR are being following in TESCO and how they are performing them and what they should do better in future by performing the CSR activities in the organization as well outside the organization