THE IMPACT OF COOPERATIVE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY ON IMAGE OF A FIRM A STUDY OF SELECTED TELECOMMUNICATION FIRMS IN PORT HARCOURT.
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THE IMPACT OF
COOPERATIVE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY ON IMAGE OF A FIRM
A STUDY OF
SELECTED TELECOMMUNICATION FIRMS IN PORT HARCOURT.
ABSTRACT
The study
examined the impact of cooperate social responsibilities on image of
telecommunication firms in Port Harcourt. The quasi-experimental research
design was utilized. The sample size of the study is 80 obtained from five
telecommunication firm in Port Harcourt, and the chi-square (X2)
statistical tool was used to test the postulated hypotheses. The study found
that there is no positive association between increased customers loyalty, and
CSR practices, and also that there is no positive and significant association
between firms image/reputation and practice of corporate social responsibility.
The study concludes that other factors like the importance services being
rendered to the customers, and the aggressive marketing tactics of the
telecommunication firms may have made people accept them irrespective of the
fact that many of them are lagging behind in what the society is expecting of
them as responsibilities. It is recommended that telecommunication firms adopt
measures that make it easy for the society to notice the CSR activities, which
will make them obtain competitive advantage by attracting and retaining
skillful and qualified manpower’s. Also to attract customers they should
improve on their service and reduce their tariff charges to present customers
switching loyalty.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Title Page i
Declaration ii
Certification iii
Dedication iv
Acknowledgment v
Abstract vi
Table of Contents vii
List of Table x
CHAPTER
ONE
1.1 Overview
of the study 1
1.2 Statement
of the problem 6
1.3 Objectives
of study 7
1.4 Research
questions 7
1.5 Research
hypotheses 8
1.6 Significant
of the study 8
1.7 Limitations
of the study 9
1.8 Definition
of terms 9
1.9 Organization
of the study 10
CHAPTER
TWO: LITERATURE REVIEW
2.1 Introduction 13
2.2 the
need for social responsibility 13
2.2.1 cases for social responsibility 15
2.2.2 cases against social
responsibility 17
2.4 corporate
social responsibility disclosure 17
2.5 rationale
for social responsibility 19
2.6 dimension
of social responsibility 20
2.7 social
responsibility of management 21
2.8 role
government in social responsibility 22
CHAPTER
THREE: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
3.1 Introduction 28
3.2 Research
design 28
3.3 Population
of the study 29
3.4 Sample
size determination/sampling techniques 29
3.5 Test
of validity 29
3.6 Data
collection techniques 30
3.7 Data
analysis techniques 31
CHAPTER
FOUR: DATA PRESENTATION AND ANALYSIS
4.1 Introduction 32
4.2 data
presentation and analysis 32
4.3 statistical
testing of hypotheses 40
4.3.1 Introduction 40
4.3.2 testing of hypotheses one 40
4.4 decision of findings 44
4.4.2 major corporate social
responsibility classifications 44
4.4.3 extent to which practice of CSR
increase customers
loyalty to
firms brand/products 46
4.4.4 extent to which practice of CSR
practices has on a firm
image/reputation 47
CHAPTER FIVE: SUMMARY OF FINDINGS, CONCLUSION AND
RECOMMENDATIONS
5.1 Introduction 48
5.2 Summary
of findings 48
5.3 Conclusion 48
5.4 Recommendations 49
Reference
Appendix A
Appendix B
LIST OF TABLES
Table 4.1: administration and collection of data
Questionnaire
for the study 32
Table 4.2: education qualification of respondents 33
Table 4.3: social responsibility
activities of firm 34
Table 4.4: extent to which practice of
social responsibility
Increase
customers loyalty to firms brands/products 34
Table4.5: extent to which CSR
practices increases telecommunication firms reputation/image in the eye
of the society 35
Table 4.6: extent to which practice of
corporate social responsibility
of telecommunication firms 36
Table 4.7: extent which the practice
of CSR among telecommunication firms will help attract and retain qualified and
skilled manpower among respondents 37
Table 4.8: obstacles to practice of
CSR activities in Nigeria as seen by respondent 39
Table 4.9: X2 computation
table from table 4.4 41
Table 4.10: X3computation
table from table 4.5 43
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1 OVERVIEW OF THE STUDY
The
competition for customers among telecommunication service providers in Nigeria
is very stiff. In this highly competitive marketing environment, the existing
customers as well as potential customers are heavily expose to various
advertising massages from the competing firms through all sorts of media communication.
The practice of corporate social responsibility becomes therefore important to
boost the images of the telecommunication firm in their quest to be seen as
community and society friendly organizations as to encourage patronages and god
will from the general and immediate business environment. Perhaps the most
important influence on the formation of business policy is the concept of
social responsibility and business ethics. The relationship between business
society, business and its environment, and business and its participants, is
very complex, yet dynamic. The notion of social responsibility and ethics of
business has emerged out of dynamism (frequent changes) of the relationship
between these parties. Corporate enterprises have growth in size, the level of
education has significantly increased and people now ask a lot of questions
about their rights, their privilege and their responsibilities. Related to this
is the fact that the awareness of the social impact of business activities on
the society as a whole is enormous, both overtly and covertly, directly and
indirectly. Aluko et al (2004) observed that the outer environment of business
has remain relevant in management writings, and one of the most publicized
aspects of the outer environment is the issue of social responsibility and
related codes of ethical conduct.
For
as long as the business system remains a subsystem of the organized society,
business firms has no choice other than to be concerned with societal
expectation, that is, to be socially responsible. Business firms of recent have
discovered the effect of corporate social responsibility on the image of their
firm. Realizing that no matter whatsoever they may have gained from the society
in the past that they stand to lose all at the long run if they fail to be
socially responsible to their business environment, since it has been
discovered that corporate reputation has some indirect impact on competitive
advantage through perceived value and quality of the service.
Beside
the use of various incentives and several advertising campaigns to get
customers loyalty by telecommunication firms in Nigeria, social responsibility
activities has become a major means by which these firms has used to project
their images as very good organizations. For instance, Glo-Mobile is sponsoring
Nigeria premier football league and other sporting activities, likewise, MTN
communication is also partnering with CAF and some national sporting bodies to
sponsor the African cup of Nations and some other athletic and field
championship. Others like Zain Network is involved in sponsoring of AMTV Award
and African University Challenge, an Academic Quiz Competition for Top African
Universities. At the same time various persuasive massages are being made to
encourage customers to switch their services to the competing firm by offering
services, and attractive package.
Certainly,
there are service providers which would feet threatened that their customer’s
base could be affected by the persuasive offer and social responsibility
activities of the other firms. These firms, in turn, would design their own
social responsibility programs in order to project their images and retain
their customer base at bay and at the same time their own CSR programme to
attract society good wills and customers of other service providers into their
service. In the end, the society is being exposed to various offers of
corporate social responsibility activities.
Coinciding
with some major corporate social responsibility an ethical disasters, many organizations
have been communicating information on their corporate governance, ethical
practices, and social responsibility. Companies can sue their website or the
annual report as communication tools for voluntary disclosure of some
information, such as ethical behaviour, and social responsibility activities to
their various stakeholders, including shareholders, employees, customers,
suppliers, media and the government, and to develop a particular brand image
for the organization.
(Berkey
1990; Hopwood 1996; Judd and Tims 1991, New, war-same and Pod-well 1998;
Stanton and Stanton 2002). Corporate social responsibility (CSR) disclosure, in
particular, has been of increasing interest as organizations recognized that
their actions have consequences that affect all their stakeholders. As a
research topic CSR has been the subject of great academic accounting research
(Gray, Owen and Mannudens 1987; Farook and Lanis 2005), and a growing topic in
marketing research (Luo and Bhattacharya 2006), and as reflected by special
issues in the journal of marketing communication journal of advertising, and
the journal of business ethics. Companies with a heavy use of marketing
activities like the telecommunication firms can particularly benefit from
undertaking and disclosing their CSR activities. Telecommunication
organizations, for example, are often criticized for unethical practices,
including exorbitant tariff charges and its effects on the more vulnerable
section of the society, such as poor and middleclass. Therefore, it is
important to see how these communication firms view their social responsibility
activities with regard to the image of their organizations.
It
makes sense therefore for all business concerns to respond to their
stakeholders and satisfy their needs by being socially responsible. In the
economic system as is practice in Nigeria, communication companies must try to
balance the needs of the various groups that have stake in the system. It is in
doing this that they will build a good corporate reputation and generates good
will from the society.
Business
literature define corporate reputation as the stakeholders overall impression
of an organization over time (Bailey, 2009), and it reflects the organizations
relative standing, internally with its employee, and externally with its other
stakeholders (Fombrum et al, 2000).
Some
sectors in the service industry, especially banks, hotels, hospitals,
consulting firms, and educational institutions rely heavily on their corporate
image to attract and retain their customers (Nguyen and Leblanc, 2001). It is
expected and important that organizations are committed to fulfilling
expectations and moral obligations at the level of society. This means that
right conducts takes into account the welfare of the large society
(Papasolomou-Doukakis et al).
Social
corporate responsibility activities of business firms have increasing become
the focus of research in recent years. It is quite clear that there has been
significant number of studies on social corporate responsibility, yet review of
work done on CSR reveal that there has been no significant effort to study the
impact of corporate social responsibility on image of telecommunication impart
in Port Harcourt. To fill this gap, this study aim to fill this need by
presenting a study of effect of CSR on image of communication Industry in Port
Harcourt.
1.2 STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM
The
concept of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) has emerged as a very ‘hot’
issue in the last ten years. The last few decades have seen an increase in
awareness on the part of corporate entities that they are morally obliged to
offer back to society. The corporate social responsibility reports which have
now become an annual report in addition to the traditions annual financial
reports is one of the vehicles used to demonstrate how caring they have been over
the financial period that has just ended and how they intend to continue even
more so in future periods (Idowu & Towler, 2004) Advocates of CSR reports
have put forward some perceived benefits, which an organization may derive from
its provision.
Example
are increased customer loyalty, more supportive communities, the recruitment
and retention of more talented employees, improved productivity and avoidance
of potential risks related to reputation or image which may arise from
environmental incidents. Nevertheless, practice of CSR is easily imagined then
done because of the over whelming importance place on profit taking, unethical
practices, and lack of concern for the general business community by some
communication firms in Port Harcourt.
Therefore,
it becomes imperative to evaluate these following issues of concern. Why has
some communication firms not actively involved in corporate social
responsibility activities? And what action or direction of CSR activities of
these firms could enhance their public image and help minimize potential risks
related to reputation among telecommunication firms in Port Harcourt? This
research will therefore investigate the effect corporate social responsibility
on image on Communication Industry in Port Harcourt.
1.3 OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY
The
general objectives of this study are therefore to determine the influence of
corporate social responsibility on the image of telecommunication service
providers in term of customers’ intention to subscribe for their services. The
specific objectives are therefore namely:
1. To
assess the direct effect of firms corporate social responsibility of a firm on
its competitive advantage in term of customers intention to subscribe its
services.
2. To
assess the indirect influence of CSR of a firm on its competitive advantage
through customers perceive value and firms acceptance.
3. To
show how the practice of CSR by telecommunication firms in Port Harcourt can
increase customers’ loyalty and also help the firm achieve organization goal.
1.4 RESEARCH QUESTIONS
In
the light of the stated problems above this research will be carried out
through a broad framework of research questions that will guide the focus of
the research in the proposed investigation.
1. What
are the major CSR activities that are available for telecommunication firms to
undertake?
2. To
what extent will the practice of social responsibility affect the increase
customer’s loyalty to the firm?
3. To
what extent will the practice of corporate social responsibility has on enhanced
of the firm social reputation/image?
4. What
are the roles of government in ensuring that business organizations are
socially responsible?
1.6 SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY
This
research will be of great contribution to the understanding of the effect of
corporate social responsibility practice on the perceived image of
telecommunication firms in Port Harcourt. It will also help the communication
firms know how their practice of CSR will enhance the acceptability of their
firms by their host communities and environment and help enhance profitability,
because good reputation would attract customers to products, attract investors
to securities and attract employees to do their jobs properly.
1.7 LIMITATION OF THE STUDY
There
are some limitations that were observed during the writing of this research.
Time prove to be a major limitation because this work was carried out
simultaneously with other academic work leading to the award of B.Sc. Degree.
It was also difficult to get some employees of some communication firm release
information about their feeling on the CSR practice of their organization. Some
top rank officers also felt that their opinion will get into the hands of their
competitors who will use it to strategies against then. Finance also proves to
be a great limitation. It is well known that a research of this nature cannot
be carried out successfully if the researcher did not involve much money that
will be used for purchase of books, journals transportation and printing of
questionnaire etc.
1.8 DEFINITION OF TERMS
Business
Environment: according to Baridan (2003), defined as a the total environment in
which business must function consistently with the goals, 12 convictions, and
aspiration of the society as a whole i.e. social cultural environment, economic
environment, legal and political environment technological and moral
environment.
Corporate
social responsibility, according to Bowen (1953) is defined as “the obligation
to pursue those policies, or to take those lines of actions which have economic
value to the society.
Telecommunication
industry are “industry whose function is to provide use technology to send
signals, images, and massages over long distance” by radio, telephone
television, satellite e.t.c
1.9 ORGANIZATION OF THE STUDY
Chapter
one of this work deals what the overview (context of the problem), statement of
the problem, objectives of the study, research questions, research hypotheses,
significance of the study limitation of the study, obligation of the study and
definition of terms. Chapter two, deals with the review of related and relevant
literature.
Chapter
three is concerned with the research methodology. Chapter four involves data
presentation, analysis and discussion of findings.
While
chapter five, present the discussion, recommendation and conclusion of the
research findings, and direction for further studies or research.
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