August 15, 2015 · 4:52 pm

Unleashing Corporate Social Responsibility through Digital Media

csr

Companies are increasingly focusing their attention on content and inbound marketing. In a nutshell, content marketing necessitates an integrated marketing communications approach involving different media (1). Content strategists and marketers who care about their online reputation are realising that they have to continuously come up with fresh, engaging content with a growing number of quality links. They have to make sure that their websites offer great content for different search engines. Consistent high quality content ought to be meaningful and purposeful for target audiences (2).

Successful marketers are capable of enhancing customer loyalty, particularly if their businesses are delivering ongoing value propositions to promising prospects (on their website). Such businesses are continuously coming up with informative yet interesting content through digital channels, including blogs, podcasts, social media networking and e-newsletters. Online content often include refreshing information which tell stakeholders how to connect the dots. It may appear that many companies are becoming quite knowledgeable in using social media channels to protect their reputation from bad publicity or misinformation.

Several online businesses often tell insightful stories to their customers or inspire them with sustainable ideas and innovations. Corporate web sites could even contain their latest news, elements of the marketing-mix endeavours as well as digital marketing fads.
Most social media networks are effective monitoring tools as they could feature early warning signals of trending topics (3). These networks may help business communicators and marketers identify and follow the latest sustainability issues. Notwithstanding, CSR influencers are easily identified on particular subject matters or expertise. For example, businesses and customers alike have also learned how to use the hashtag (#) to enhance the visibility of their shareable content (4). Some of the most popular hashtags comprise: #CSR #StrategicCSR, #sustainability, #susty, #CSRTalk, #Davos2015, #KyotoProtocol, #SharedValue et cetera. Hashtags could possibly result in financial support to charity, philanthropic or stewardship principles. They may even help to raise awareness of the overall CSR communications. Hence, there are numerous opportunities for businesses to leverage themselves through social networks as they engage with influencers and media.

  • The ubiquity of Facebook and Google Plus over the past years has made them familiar channels for many individuals around the globe. These networks have become very popular communication outlets for brands, companies and activists alike. These social media empower their users to engage with business on a myriad of issues. They also enable individual professionals or groups to promote themselves and their CSR credentials in different markets and segments.
  • Moreover, Linkedin is yet another effective tool, particularly for personal branding. However, this social network helps users identify and engage with influencers. Companies can use this site to create or join their favourite groups on LinkedIn (e.g. GRI, FSG, Shared Value Initiative among others). They may also use this channel for CSR communication as they promote key initiatives and share sustainability ideas. Therefore, LinkedIn connects individuals and groups as they engage in conversations with both academia and CSR practitioners.
  • In addition, Pinterest and Instagram enable their users to share images, ideas with their networks. These social media could also be relevant in the context of the sustainability agenda. Businesses could illustrate their CSR communication to stakeholders through visual content. Evidently, these innovative social networks provide sharable imagery, infographics or videos to groups who may be passionate on certain issues, including CSR.
  • Moreover, digital marketers are increasingly uploading short, fun videos which often turn viral on internet (5). Youtube, Vimeo and Vine seem to have positioned themselves as important social media channels for many consumers, particularly among millennials. These sites offer an excellent way to humanise or animate  SR communication through video content. These digital media also allow their users to share their video content across multiple networks. For instance, videos featuring university resources may comprise lectures, documentaries, case studies and the like.

CSR practices may provide a good opportunity for businesses to raise their profile in the communities around them.  Genuine businesses communicate their motives and rationales behind their CSR programmes. In this case, there are numerous media outlets where businesses can obtain decent coverage of their CSR initiatives, especially on the web (e.g. CSRwire and Triple Pundit among others). Although, there are instances  where consumers themselves, out of their own volition are becoming ambassadors of trustworthy businesses; at the same time certain stakeholders are becoming increasingly acquainted and skeptical on certain posturing behaviours and greenwashing (6).

Generally, digital communications will help to improve the corporate image of firms. Positive publicity can lead to reputational benefits and long lasting relationships with stakeholders (7). Online content and inbound marketing can be successfully employed for CSR communication1. Corporate sites should be as easy as possible, with user-centred design that enables interactive information sharing on CSR activities. Inter-operability and collaboration across different social media can help businesses to connect with stakeholders (1). 

Marketers can create a forum where prospects or web visitors can engage with the business in real time. These days, marketing is all about keeping and maintaining a two-way relationship with consumers. Digital marketing is an effective tool for consumer engagement.

A growing number of businesses are learning how to collaborate with consumers about product development, service enhancement and promotion. These companies are increasingly involving customers in all aspects of marketing. They listen to and join online conversations as they value their stakeholders’ opinions and perceptions.

Today, pervasive social media networks are being used by millions of customers every day. In a sense, it may appear that digital marketing tools have reinforced the role of public relations. These promotional strategies complement well with CSR communication and sustainability reporting.

This contribution encourages businesses to use digital media to raise awareness of their societal engagement and environmentally sustainable practices. Further research may possibly identify how successful businesses are using digital channels to forge genuine relationships with their stakeholders.

References

  1. Camilleri, M.A. “Unleashing Shared Value Through Content Marketing.” Triple Pundit, 10th February 2014. http://www.triplepundit.com/2014/02/unleashing-shared-value-content-marketing/
  2. Camilleri, M.A. “A Search Engine Optimization Strategy for Content Marketing Success.” Social Media Today 28th May, 2014. http://www.socialmediatoday.com/content/search-engine-optimization-strategy-content-marketing-success
  3. Kietzmann, Jan H., Kristopher Hermkens, Ian P. McCarthy, and Bruno S. Silvestre. “Social media? Get serious! Understanding the functional building blocks of social media.” Business horizons 54, no. 3 (2011): 241-251.
  4. Small, Tamara A. “What the hashtag? A content analysis of Canadian politics on Twitter.” Information, Communication & Society 14, no. 6 (2011): 872-895.
  5. Guadagno, Rosanna E., Daniel M. Rempala, Shannon Murphy, and Bradley M. Okdie. “What makes a video go viral? An analysis of emotional contagion and Internet memes.” Computers in Human Behavior 29, no. 6 (2013): 2312-2319.
  6. Laufer, William S. “Social accountability and corporate greenwashing.” Journal of Business Ethics 43, no. 3 (2003): 253-261.
  7. Camilleri, M.A. “The Business Case for Corporate Social Responsibility” (paper presented at the American Marketing Association in collaboration with the University of Wyoming, Oklahoma State University and Villanova University: Marketing & Public Policy as a Force for Social Change Conference. Washington D.C., 5th June 2014): 8-14, Accessed June 26, 2015. https://www.ama.org/events-training/Conferences/Documents/2015-AMA-Marketing-Public-Policy-Proceedings.pdf

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August 4, 2015 · 6:06 am

Valuing Stakeholder Engagement and Sustainability Reporting

This conceptual paper has been accepted for publication by Corporate Reputation Review http://www.palgrave-journals.com/crr/journal/v18/n3/full/crr20159a.html

This conceptual paper sheds light on some of the major intergovernmental benchmarks, guidelines and principles for corporate social responsibility (CSR), corporate governance and sustainability reporting. It reports on several governments’ regulatory roles as their societal governance is intrinsically based on interdependent relationships. There are different actors and drivers who are shaping CSR communications and policies in relational frameworks. This paper mentions some of the countries that have already introduced intelligent substantive and reflexive regulations. It also shows how certain businesses are stepping in with their commitment for sustainability issues as they set their own policies and practices for laudable organisational behaviours. Very often, corporate businesses use non-governmental organisations’ regulatory tools such as process and performance-oriented standards. These regulatory instruments focus on issues such as labour standards, human rights, health and safety, environmental protection, corporate governance and the like. Afterwards, this paper discusses about the relationship between governance and sustainability. It makes reference to some of the relevant European Union Expert Group recommendations for non-financial reporting and CSR audits. Relevant academic contributions are indicating that customers are expecting greater disclosures, accountability and transparency in sustainability reports. This contribution contends that the way forward is to have more proactive governments that raise the profile of CSR. It maintains that CSR communications and stakeholder engagement may bring shared value to business and society. Ultimately, it is in the businesses’ interest to implement corporate sustainability and responsibility and to forge fruitful relationships with key stakeholders, including the regulatory ones, in order to address societal, environmental, governance and economic deficits.

Citation:

Camilleri, M.A. (2015) “Valuing Stakeholder Engagement and Sustainability Reporting”. Corporate Reputation Review, Vol. 18 (3) 210-222.

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July 17, 2015 · 7:32 pm

Crunching Big Data and Analytics from Web2.0

social media

The use of data and its analyses are becoming ubiquitous practices. As a result, there has been a dramatic surge in the use of business intelligence and analytics. These developments have inevitably led to endless opportunities for marketers to leverage themselves and gain a competitive advantage by untangling big data. Relevant data could help businesses to better serve customers as they would better know what they need, want and desire. This knowledge will lead to customer satisfaction and long lasting relationships.

Businesses are increasingly collecting and analysing data from many sources for many purposes. Much of the value of data is derived from secondary uses that were not intended in the first place. Very often datasets can possess intrinsic, hidden, not-yet-unearthed value. According to a research from IBM and the Saïd Business School at the University of Oxford; nearly nine in 10 companies were using transactional data, and three-quarters were collecting log data in 2012. This study suggested that business practitioners also gathered data from events, emails and social data (eMarketer, 2012).

This data is being collected and stored in massive amounts by search engines including Google, Bing and Yahoo as well as by e-commerce conglomerates such as eBay and Amazon. For instance, Security First boosted its productivity and customer satisfaction by using content analytics to bridge social media and the claims process. Similarly, Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria has improved its online reputation with analytics that quickly responded to online feedback (IBM, 2015).

In addition, users can easily access multiple sources of digital data that is readily available through websites, social networks, blogs, as well as from mobile devices, including smart phones and tablets. Big data is being gathered from social media content and video data from Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Google Plus among others. These modern digital marketing tools are helping business to engage in social conversations with consumers. Social networks have surely amplified the marketers’ messages as they support promotional efforts. Here are some of the unique pieces of data each social network is collecting:

  • “Facebook’s interest/social graph: The world’s largest online community collects more data via its API than any other social network. Facebook’s “like” button is pressed 2.7 billion times every day across the web, revealing what people care about.
  • Google+’s relevance graph: The number of “+1s” and other Google+ data are now a top factor in determining how a Web page ranks in Google search results.
  • LinkedIn’s talent graph: At least 22% of LinkedIn users have between 500-999 first-degree connections on the social network, and 19% have between 301-499.The rich professional data is helping LinkedIn build a “talent graph.”
  • Twitter’s news graph: At its peak late last year the social network was processing 143,199 tweets per second globally. This firehose of tweets provide a real-time window into the news and information that people care about. Fifty-two percent of Twitter users in the U.S. consume news on the site (more than the percent who do so on Facebook), according to Pew.
  • Pinterest’s commerce graph: More than 17% of all pinboards are categorized under “Home,” while roughly 12% fall under style or fashion, these are windows into people’s tastes and fashion trends.
  • YouTube’s entertainment graph: What music, shows, and celebrities do we like? YouTube reaches more U.S. adults aged 18 to 34 than any single cable network, according to Nielsen. YouTube knows what they like to watch.
  • Yelp’s and Foursquare’s location graphs: These apps know where we’ve been and where we’ll go. Foursquare has over 45 million users and 5 billion location check-ins” (Business Insider, 2014).

Big data is fundamentally shifting how marketers collect, analyse and utilise data to reach out to customers. Business intelligence and analytics are helping companies to get new insights into how consumers behave. It is envisaged that the IT architecture will shortly develop into an information eco-system: a network of internal and external services where information is shared among users. Big data can support business in their decision making. It could be used to communicate meaningful results and to generate insights for an effective organisational performance. New marketing decision-making ought to harness big data for increased targeting and re-targeting of individuals and online communities. On-demand, direct marketing through digital platforms has already become more personalised than ever. The challenge for marketers is to recognise the value of big data as a tool that drives consumer in-sights.

Every customer contact with a brand is a moment of truth, in real-time. Businesses who are not responding with seamless externally-facing solutions will inevitably lose their customers to rivals. This contribution posits that a strategic approach to data management could drive consumer preferences. An evolving analytics ecosystem that is also integrated with web2.0 instruments could lead to better customer service and consumer engagement.

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July 16, 2015 · 10:08 am

Evaluating big data and predictive analytics

bigdata

The use of business intelligence and marketing information systems has expanded in recent years. Through advancements in technologies, marketers can extract value from very large data sets. Very often, companies can benefit if they use and reuse the same data to extract added value from it. Sometimes, it would also make sense for these companies to acquire data that they do not own (or data that was not collected).

All individuals leave a “digital trail” of data as they move about in the virtual and physical worlds. This phenomenon is called, “data exhaust”. Initially, this term was used to describe how Amazon.com used predictive analytics in order to suggest items for its customers. Predictive analytics could quantify the likelihood that a particular person will do something — whether it is defaulting on a loan, upgrading to a higher level of cable service or seeking another job. Such data anticipates human behaviours that have not happened as yet. For instance, Fedex has predicted which customers were most likely to defect to competitors. Even, Hewlett-Packard made a good use of suitable data to identify employees that were on the brink to leave the company. The latter corporation took remedial decisions in anticipation of staff turnover.

Predictive data is usually based on large amounts of cur¬rent and past indicative information that may have been collected from multiple sources. Such data could also provide additional details of customer personas, segments and prospects. Quantitative techniques can be deployed to find valuable patterns in data, enabling companies to predict the likely behaviour of customers, employees and others. First Tennessee Bank had used predictive analytics to increase its marketing response rate by better targeting its offers to high-value customers (IBM, 2015). Through predictive analytics businesses’ could quantify how many consumers will buy their products after receiving electronic mail. They may also measure how effective their personal mailing was.

Nowadays there are fewer inaccuracies in the measurement of big data. In addition, many applications of data can arise far from the purposes for which the data was originally intended. However, big data and predictive analytics could raise a number of concerns. Minor increases in the data accuracy of predictions can often lead substantial savings in the long term. There many companies that have saved significant financial resources by using predictive analytics. For instance, “Chickasaw Nation has used predictive and patron analytics to reduce its month-end close processes by 50%. This way it has also improved customer experience. In a similar vein, predictive tools and smart cards enabled Singapore Land Transit Authority to provide a more convenient transportation system.

Although, individuals tend to regularly repeat their habitual behaviours, pre¬dictive analytics cannot determine when and why they may decide to change their future preferences. The possibility of “one off” events must never be discounted. Many customers may be wary of giving their data due to privacy issues. The underlying question is; when does personalisation become an issue of consumer protection? In 2012, consumers learned that Target was using quantitative methods to predict which customers were pregnant. Very often, advances in technology are faster than legislation and its deployment. These issues could advance economic and privacy concerns that regulators will find themselves hard-pressed to ignore. It may appear that digital market manipulation is pushing the limits of consumer protection law.

Evidently, society has built up a body of rules that are aimed to protect personal information. Another contentious issue is figuring out the value of data and its worth in monetary terms. In the past, companies could have struggled to determine the value of their business; including patents, trade secrets and other intellectual property.

Despite its numerous pitfalls, the market is responding to the emerging demands for corporate IT solutions. Extant relational databases are capable of handling a wide variety of big data sources. Statistical analytical packages are similarly evolving and are working in conjunction with these new data platforms, data types and algorithms. Furthermore, big data is also being modified for those clients that may require cloud-based services. Cloud-based service providers offer on-demand pricing with a fast reconfiguration facility.

This short contribution suggests that in the foreseeable future many corporations would require bespoken software that is relevant for their particular line of business. Customised business intelligence software and big data systems allow organisations to load, store and query massive data sets in short time periods. Business could make good use of structured data (such as demographics) and unstructured information (including text and images) to improve their operational performance and customer service levels.

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July 6, 2015 · 8:53 am

Untangling Big Data for Digital Marketing

customers
The web and its online communities are expanding the use of big data. Ecommerce conglomerates including Amazon and eBay have already transformed the market through their innovative, highly scalable digital platforms and product recommender systems. Moreover, internet giants like Google and Facebook are leading the development of web analytics, cloud computing and social media networks. The emergence of user-generated content in fora, newsgroups, social media and crowd-sourcing platforms are offering endless opportunities for researchers and practitioners to “listen” to marketplace stakeholders; including customers, employees, suppliers, investors and the media.

Unlike the traditional transactional records that were conspicuous in past legacy systems, e-commerce systems continuously gather insightful data from the web. Much of the value of data is derived from secondary uses that were not intended in the first place. Every dataset can possess some intrinsic, hidden, not-yet-unearthed value. Having said that, many potential applications could skim along the edges of what might be ethical, moral or even legal.

In addition, online review sites and personal blogs often contain opinion-rich information that may be explored through textual and sentiment analysis. Arguably, consumer sentiment analysis may not be designed for automation but could be better adapted for the real-time monitoring of the marketing environment. Successful businesses strive to understand their customers’ personas so that they target them the right content with the relevant tone, imagery and value propositions.

Therefore, advertisers continuously gather consumer data and use it well to personalise every aspect of their users’ experience. They strive to take advantage of their consumers’ cognitive behaviour as they try to uncover and trigger consumer frailty at their individual level. It may appear that companies gather data on their customers in order to manipulate the market. They need to establish processes which determine when specific decisions are required. Firms use big data to delve into enormous volumes of information that they collect, generate or buy. Marketers need to realise that it’s important to analyse, decide and act expeditiously on data and analytics. It’s simply not enough to be able to monitor a continuing stream of information. Businesses should be quick in their decision making and take action.

Companies may use what they know about human psychology and consumer behaviour to set prices. Behavioural targeting is nothing new in digital marketing. When firms hold detailed information about their consumers, they may customise every aspect of their interaction with them. On the other hand, there could be instances when certain marketing practices could lead to unnecessary nuisances. Nowadays, customers are frequently bombarded with marketing endeavours including email promotions that are often picked up as spam. Therefore, one-size-fits-all messages could also have negative implications on prospective customers.

Eventually, firms could use this database to deliver promotional content to remind customers on their offerings. Consumer lists whether they are automated or in the cloud should always be used to deliver enhanced customer experiences. Customer-centric marketing is all about satisfying buyers. Customers may in turn become advocates for the business. Hence, technology has become instrumental for marketers in their ongoing interactions with people.

Evidently, without data, businesses could not keep a track record of their marketing effectiveness and performance stats. Engagement metrics; including, email-open rates, click through rates, pay per click and the like enable marketers to continually fine tune their individual customer targeting. Today, many individuals are becoming quite active on review sites, such as Yelp.com or Tripadvisor; and on social media channels; including Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin or Google Plus.These modern digital marketing tools are helping business to engage in social conversations with consumers. Social media networks are often rich in customer opinion and contain relevant behavioural information. Moreover, the social media analytics could capture fast-breaking trends on customer sentiments toward products, brands and companies.

Businesses may be interested in knowing whether there are changes in online sentiment and how these correlate with sales changes over time. Digital media is supporting many businesses to map out how customers receive promotions, messages, newsletters and even advertisements. Relevant data is also helping these businesses to keep a focus on their customer needs and wants.

This contribution suggests that there is scope for businesses to consider realigning (and personalising) their incentives toward individual consumers by using data-driven marketing. Many businesses have become proficient on the use of maintaining databases of prospects and customer lists. They gather this valuable information to communicate and build relationships. This data collection may possibly drive new revenue streams and build long-term loyalty.

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June 26, 2015 · 10:42 am

CSR 2.0 – A Conceptual Framework For Corporate Sustainability and Responsibility

gr

Businesses are capable of implementing responsible behaviours as they pursue their profit-making activities. A thorough literature review suggests that many academic articles have dedicated their energies on organising and evaluating the evidence to establish a link, usually through regression analysis between corporate social responsibility (CSR) or corporate social performance (CSP) and financial performance. Other authors referred to similar concepts as corporate citizenship has evolved following the concepts of stakeholder engagement and business ethics. In the light of these past theoretical underpinnings, this article reports on the many facets of CSR. This contribution puts forward key constructs representing strategic CSR, creating shared value and systematic CSR. It sheds light on the corporate sustainability and responsibility (CSR2.0) notion. This latter perspective suggests that responsible behavioural practices may be strategically re-conceived to confer competitive advantage over rival firms. Therefore, article makes reference to specific examples of some the latest laudable investments that create shared value. It explains how CSR2.0 requires a focus on building adaptive approaches and directing resources towards the perceived demands of diverse stakeholders for the long term sustainability of business. In a pragmatic approach, this contribution indicates that societal demands are not viewed as constraints on the organisation, but more as challenging opportunities which can be leveraged for the benefit of the firm and its stakeholders.

The Business Case for Corporate Social Responsibility
CSR can help to build reputational benefits; it enhances the firms’ image among external stakeholders and could lead to a favourable climate of trust and cooperation within the company 1. It may lead to create value for both business and society 2 3 4. Several authors maintained that through strategic CSR engagement businesses may achieve a competitive advantage5 6. Empirical studies have shown that there is a correlation between CSR and financial performance 1 3 7. Yet, it may appear that to date there is no explicit, quantitative translation of socially responsible practices into specific results that affect the profit and loss account8. Nevertheless, many companies are defending the correlation between social practices and financial results. The working assumption revolving around the CSP research is that corporate social and financial performance are universally related3. Strategic CSR increases the financial performance; minimises costs through better operational efficiencies, boosts the employee morale and job satisfaction and reduces the staff turnover, along with other benefits3.

CSR can bring a competitive advantage only if there are ongoing communications and dialogue between all stakeholder groups9 10 (including the employees, customers, marketplace and societal groups). The stakeholder relationships are needed to bring external knowledge sources, which may in turn enhance organisational skills and performance. Acquiring new knowledge must be accompanied by mechanisms for dissemination. There is scope in sharing best practices, even with rival firms. It is necessary for responsible businesses to realise that they need to work in tandem with other organisations in order to move the CSR agenda forward3 4. A recent study has indicated that businesses were investing in environmental sustainability, as they minimised their waste by reducing, reusing and recycling resources11. Several others were becoming more conscientious about their environmental responsibilities, particularly in the areas that were in situated in close proximity to their business. They were increasingly protecting the environment as they reduced their pollution through carbon offsetting programmes and the like11. The researcher believes that there is still room for improvement. There are many business practitioners who ought to realise the business case for CSR. Their organisational culture and business ethos could become more attuned to embrace responsible behavioural practices.

Creating Shared Value – Seeking Win-Win Outcomes
In the past, the stakeholder theory has demonstrated how stakeholders could develop long-term mutual relationships, rather than simply focusing on immediate profits. Of course, this does not imply that profit and economic survival are unimportant. On the contrary, this argument is that it is in the businesses’ interest to engage with a variety of stakeholders, upon whom dependence is vital3 4. The businesses’ closer interactions with stakeholders are based on relational and process-oriented views9. Many corporations are already forging strategic alliances in their value chain in order to run their businesses profitably. Some successful businesses are also promoting the right conditions of employment in their supply chains. At the same time, they are instrumental in improving the lives of their suppliers. They do this as they want to enhance the quality and attributes of their products, which are ultimately delivered to customers and end consumers12.
Nestlé, Google, IBM, Intel, Johnson & Johnson, Unilever, and Wal-Mart are some of the multinationals who have somewhat embraced Porter and Kramer’s ‘shared value’ approach. In many cases they are building partnership and collaborative agreements with external stakeholders (including suppliers) hailing from different markets. The notion of shared value is opening up new opportunities for sustainability, particularly with its innovative approach to re-configure the value chain4. Yet, there are academics who argued that this concept ignores the tensions that are inherent in responsible business activity13. “Shared value” cannot cure all of society’s ills as not all businesses are good for society nor would the pursuit of shared value eliminate all injustice. However, the profit motive and the tools of corporate strategy will help to address societal problems14. As a matter of fact, many businesses are reconceiving their products as they take a broad view of their purchasing, procurement and production activities4.
Several multi-national organisations are looking beyond their short-term profits for shareholders. They are also looking after their marketplace stakeholders including suppliers who source their products. Many multinational organisations are redefining productivity in the value chain and enabling local cluster developments to mitigate risks, boost productivity and competitiveness. For instance, Nestlé’s business principles incorporated 10 United Nations Global Compact Principles on human rights, labour, the environment and corruption12. Nestlé is an active member of the Compact’s Working Groups and Initiatives. Nestlé maintains that it complies with international regulatory laws and acceptable codes of conduct, as it improves its company’s operations. Yet, at the same time it helps those suppliers hailing from the least in poorer rural regions of the world. Nestlé has revisited its numerous processes and its value chain activities. Each stage of the production process, from the supply chain to transforming resources adds value to the overall end product. This benefits the company itself. Nestlé sources its materials from thousands of farms from developing countries. The company maintains that it provides training to farmers in order to encourage sustainable production while protecting their procurement, standards and quality of their raw materials. This brings positive, long-term impacts on the local economy. At the same time, these suppliers are running profitable farms, as they are offering their children a better education. Moreover, both Nestlé and its suppliers are committed to protecting their natural environmental resources for their long term sustainability.
Corporate sustainability occurs when a company adds a social dimension to its value proposition, making social impact integral to its overall strategy. The rationale behind the corporate responsibility lies in creating value and finding win-win outcomes by seeking out and connecting stakeholders’ varied interests. Creating shared value (CSV) is about embedding sustainability and strategic corporate social responsibility into a brand’s portfolio. As firms reap profits and grow, they can generate virtuous circles of positive multiplier effects11.

 

Conclusion
This article provides the foundation of the conceptual theory and empirical enquiry of the discourse surrounding the corporate sustainability and responsibility (CSR2.0) agenda. A thorough literature review reveals that many authors have often investigated the relationship between corporate social responsibility (corporate social performance or corporate citizenship) and financial performance. This contribution maintains that CSR 2.0 initiatives can be re-conceived strategically to confer competitive advantage in the long term. The business case for CSR 2.0 focuses on building adaptive approaches and directing resources towards the perceived demands of stakeholders (Camilleri, 2015). Stakeholder demands are not viewed as constraints on the organisation, but more as challenging opportunities which can be leveraged for the benefit of the firm. This contribution looks at different aspects of CSR2.0, as it makes specific reference to responsible human resources management, environmental sustainability, forging relationships with marketplace stakeholders and strategic philanthropy towards the community. Engagement in these activities will ultimately create shared value for both the business and the society. CSR2.0 unlocks value, as the business and the community become mutually reinforcing. The value creation arguments focus on exploiting opportunities that reconcile differing stakeholder demands. Businesses ought to realise that laudable investments in CSR2.0 can lead to better organisational performance in the long run. This contribution indicates that there are future avenues for further research in this promising area of strategic management. Empirical studies may focus on how socially responsible behaviour, environmental sustainable practices, stakeholder engagement and regulatory interventions may create value for all.

References

  1. Camilleri, M.A. “Unlocking shared value through strategic social marketing” (paper presented at the American Marketing Association and the University of Massachusetts Amherst: Marketing & Public Policy Conference, Boston, 6th June 2014): 60-66 Accessed June 26, 2015. https://www.ama.org/events-training/Conferences/Documents/MPP14BO_Proceedings.pdf
  2. Sen, Sankar, Chitra Bhanu Bhattacharya, and Daniel Korschun. “The role of corporate social responsibility in strengthening multiple stakeholder relationships: A field experiment.” Journal of the Academy of Marketing science 34, no. 2 (2006): 158-166.
  3. Camilleri, M.A. “Creating Shared Value through Strategic CSR in Tourism” Saarbrucken: Lambert Academic Publishing, 2013 – ISBN 978-3-659-43106-7.
  4. Porter, Michael E., and Mark R. Kramer. “Creating shared value.” Harvard business review 89, no. 1/2 (2011): 62-77.
  5. Crane, Andrew, Abagail McWilliams, Dirk Matten, Jeremy Moon, and Donald S. Siegel, eds. The Oxford handbook of corporate social responsibility. Oxford University Press, (2008).
  6. Porter, Michael E., and Mark R. Kramer. “The link between competitive advantage and corporate social responsibility.” Harvard business review 84, no. 12 (2006): 78-92.
  7. Orlitzky, Marc, Frank L. Schmidt, and Sara L. Rynes. “Corporate social and financial performance: A meta-analysis.” Organization studies 24, no. 3 (2003): 403-441.
  8. Murillo, David, and Josep M. Lozano. “SMEs and CSR: An approach to CSR in their own words.” Journal of Business Ethics 67, no. 3 (2006): 227-240.
  9. Morsing, Mette, and Majken Schultz. “Corporate social responsibility communication: stakeholder information, response and involvement strategies.” Business Ethics: A European Review 15, no. 4 (2006): 323-338.
  10. European Union. “A renewed EU strategy 2011-14 for Corporate Social Responsibility” last modified December 10, 2014 http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=COM:2011:0681:FIN:EN:PDF European Commission Publications (2011).
  11. Camilleri, M.A. “The Business Case for Corporate Social Responsibility” (paper presented at the American Marketing Association in collaboration with the University of Wyoming, Oklahoma State University and Villanova University: Marketing & Public Policy as a Force for Social Change Conference. Washington D.C., 5th June 2014): 8-14, Accessed June 26, 2015. https://www.ama.org/events-training/Conferences/Documents/2015-AMA-Marketing-Public-Policy-Proceedings.pdf
  12. Camilleri, M.A. “Leveraging Organizational Performance through ‘Shared Value’ Propositions” Triple Pundit last modified November 22, 2013 http://www.triplepundit.com/2013/11/leveraging-organisational-performance-shared-value-propositions/
  13. Andrew Crane, Guido Palazzo, Laura J. Spence, and Dirk Matten. “Contesting the value of “creating shared value”.” California management review 56, no. 2 (2014): 130-153.
  14. A response to Andrew Crane13 article by Porter, Michael E., and Mark R. Kramer (2014) http://www.dirkmatten.com/Papers/C/Crane%20et%20al%202014%20in%20CMR.pdf

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June 19, 2015 · 9:46 am

Crunching Big Data for Operations Management

Big data

For decades businesses have been using data in some way or another to improve their operations. For instance, an IT software could support small enterprises in their customer-facing processes. Alternatively, large corporations may possess complex systems that monitor and detect any changes in consumer sentiment towards brands.

Recently, many industry leaders, including McKinsey, IBM and SAS among others have released relevant studies on big data. It transpires that they are using similar terminology to describe big data as a “situation where the volume, velocity and variety of data exceed an organisation’s ability to use that data for accurate and timely decision-making” (SAS). These providers of business intelligence solutions have developed technical approaches to storing and managing enormous volumes of new data.

The handling and untangling of such data requires advanced and unique storage, management, analysis and visualisation technologies. The terms of “big data” and “analytics” are increasingly being used to describe data sets and analytical techniques in applications ranging from sensor to social media. Usually, big data analytics are dependent on extensive storage capacity and quick processing power requiring a flexible grid that can be reconfigured for different needs. For instance, streaming analytics process big data in real time during events to improve their outcome.

Insightful data could easily be retrieved from the Web, social media content and video data among other content. Notwithstanding, such data could be presented in different forms; ranging from recorded vocal content (e.g. call centre voice data) or it can even be genomic and proteomic data that is derived from biological research and medicine.
Big data is often used to describe the latest advances in technologies and architectures. Nowadays, big data and marketing information systems predict customer purchase decisions. This data could indicate which products or services customers buy, where and what they eat, where and when they go on vacation, how much they buy, and the like.

Giant retailers such as Tesco or Sainsbury every single day receive long-range weather forecasts to work 8-10 days ahead. Evidently, the weather affects the shopping behaviour of customers. For example, hot and cold weather can lead to the sales of certain products. It may appear that weather forecasting dictates store placement, ordering and supply (and demand) logistics for supermarket chains. Other retailers like Walmart and Kohl’s also use big data to tailor product selections and determine the timing of price markdowns.

Shipping companies, like U.P.S. are mining data on truck delivery times and traffic patterns in order to fine-tune their routing. This way the business will become more efficient and incur less operational costs. Therefore, big data extracts value by capturing, discovering and analysing very large volumes of data in an economic and expeditious way. This has inevitably led to a significant reduction in the cost of keeping data.

Big data can also be linked with production applications and timely operational processes that enable continuous improvements. Credit card companies are a good illustration of this dynamic as direct marketing groups at credit card companies create models to select the most likely customer prospects from a large data warehouse. Previously, the process of data extraction, preparation and analysis took weeks to prepare and organise. Eventually, these companies realised that there was a quicker way to carry out the same task. In fact, they created a “ready-to-market” database and system that allowed their marketers to analyse, select and issue offers in a single day. Therefore, this case indicates that businesses became much more effective (and efficient) in their processes through iterations and monitoring of websites and call-centre activities. They could also make personalised offers to customers in milliseconds as they kept tracking responses over time.

Organisations are increasingly realising the utility of data that could bring value through continuous improvements in their operations. This contribution indicated that relevant data needs to be captured, filtered and analysed. Big data is already swamping traditional networks, storage arrays and relational database platforms. The increased pervasiveness of digital and mobile activity, particularly from e-commerce and social media is leading to the dissemination of meaningful data – that is being created each and every second. Successful, online businesses can gain a competitive advantage if they are capable of gathering and crunching data.

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June 9, 2015 · 8:57 am

CSR and Educational Leadership

people

Adapted from my chapter, entitled; “Reconceiving CSR  programmes in Education” in Academic Insights and Impacts (Springer, Germany).

CSR and sustainability issues are increasingly becoming ubiquitous practices in different contexts, particularly among the youngest work force. This contribution suggests that there is a business case for responsible behaviours. Besides, minimising staff turnover, CSR may lead to strategic benefits including employee productivity, corporate reputation and operational efficiencies. Therefore, CSR can be the antecedent of financial performance (towards achieving profitability, increasing sales, return on investment et cetera).

Notwithstanding, the businesses’ involvement in setting curricula may also help to improve the effectiveness of education systems across many contexts. Businesses can become key stakeholders in this regard. Their CSR programmes can reconnect their economic success with societal progress. They could move away from seeking incremental gains from the market . Proactive companies who engage in CSR behaviours may possibly take fundamentally different positions with their stakeholders – as they uncover new business opportunities. This contribution showed how businesses could inspire their employees, build their reputations in the market and most importantly create value in education. This movement toward these positive outcomes may represent a leap forward in the right direction for global education.

This chapter has given specific examples of how different organisations were engaging in responsible behaviours with varying degrees of intensity and success. It has identified cost effective and efficient operations. It reported measures which were enhancing the human resources productivity. Other practices sought to engage in philanthropic practices and stewardship principles. At the same time, it was recognised that it was in the businesses’ interest to maintain good relations with different stakeholders, including the regulatory ones. Evidently, there is more to CSR than public relations and greenwashing among all stakeholder groups (including the employees, customers, marketplace and societal groups). Businesses ought to engage themselves in societal relationships and sustainable environmental practices. Responsible behaviours can bring reputational benefits, enhance the firms’ image among external stakeholders and often lead to a favourable climate of trust and cooperation within the company itself
(Herzberg et al., 2011). This chapter reported that participative leadership will boost the employees’ morale and job satisfaction which may often lead to lower staff turnover and greater productivity in workplace environments. However, it also indicates that there are many businesses that still need to realise the business case for responsible behaviours. Their organisational culture and business ethos will inevitably have to become attuned to embrace responsible behavioural practices.

Governments may also have an important role to play. The governments can take an active leading role in triggering corporate responsible behaviours in the realms of education. Greater efforts are required by governments, the private sector and other stakeholders to translate responsible behaviours into policies, strategies and regulations. Governments may give incentives (through financial resources in the form of grants or tax relief) and enforce regulation in certain areas where responsible behaviour is necessary. The governments ought to maintain two-way communication systems with stakeholders. The countries’ educational outcomes and curriculum programmes should be aligned with the employers’ requirements (Walker and Black, 2000). Therefore, adequate and sufficient schooling could instil students with relevant knowledge and skills that are required by business and industry (Allen and De Weert, 2007). The governments should come up with new solutions to help underprivileged populations and subgroups. New solutions could better address the diverse needs of learners. This chapter indicated that there is scope for governments to work in collaboration with corporations in order to nurture tomorrow’s human resources.

It must be recognised that there are various business operations, hailing from diverse sectors and industries. In addition, there are many stakeholder influences, which can possibly affect the firms’ level of social responsibility toward education. It is necessary for governments to realise that it needs to work alongside with the business practitioners in order to reconceive education and life-long learning. The majority of employers that were mentioned here in this chapter; were representative of a few businesses that hailed from the developed economies. There can be diverse practices across different contexts. Future studies could investigate the methods how big businesses are supporting education. Future research on this subject could consider different samples, methodologies and analyses which may obviously be more focused and will probably yield different outcomes. However, this contribution has puts forward the shared value’ approach. It is believed that since this relatively ‘new’ concept is relatively straightforward and uncomplicated, it may be more easily understood by business practitioners themselves. In a nutshell, this synergistic value proposition requires particular focus on the human resources’ educational requirements, at the same time it also looks after stakeholders’ needs (Camilleri, 2015). This notion could contribute towards long term sustainability by addressing economic and societal deficits in education. A longitudinal study in this area of research could possibly investigate the long term effects of involving the business and industry in setting curriculum programmes in education. Presumably, shared value can be sustained only if there is a genuine commitment to organisational learning for corporate sustainability and responsibility, and if there is a willingness to forge genuine relationships with key stakeholders.

Recommendations
This contribution contends that the notion of shared value is opening up new opportunities for education and professional development. Evidently, there are competitive advantages that may arise from nurturing human resources. As firms reap profits and grow, they can generate virtuous circles of positive multiplier effects. Many successful organisations are increasingly engaging themselves in socially responsible practices. There are businesses that are already training and sponsoring individuals to pursue further studies for their career advancement (McKenzie and Woodruff, 2013; Kehoe and Wright, 2013; Hunt and Michael, 1983). It may appear that they are creating value for themselves as well as for society by delivering relevant courses for prospective employees. In conclusion, this chapter puts forward the following key recommendations to foster an environment where businesses become key stakeholders in education.

  • Promotion of business processes that bring economic, social and environmental value;
  • Encouragement of innovative and creative approaches in continuous professional development and training in sustainable and responsible practices;
  • Enhancement of collaborations and partnership agreements with governments, trade unions and society in general, including the educational leaders;
  • Ensuring that there are adequate levels of performance in areas such as employee health and safety, suitable working conditions and sustainable environmental practices among business and industry;
  • Increased CSR awareness, continuous dialogue, constructive communication and trust between all stakeholders;
  • National governments ought to create regulatory frameworks which encourage and enable the businesses’ participation in the formulation of educational programmes and their curricula.

References

Allen, J., & De Weert, E. (2007). What Do Educational Mismatches Tell Us About Skill Mismatches? A Cross‐country Analysis. European Journal of Education, 42(1), 59-73.

Camilleri, M.A. (2015) The Synergistic Value Notion in Idowu, S.O.; Capaldi, N.; Fifka, M.; Zu, L.; Schmidpeter, R. (Eds). Dictionary of Corporate Social Responsibility. Springer http://www.springer.com/new+%26+forthcoming+titles+%28default%29/book/978-3-319-10535-2

Herzberg, F., Mausner, B., & Snyderman, B. B. (2011). The motivation to work (Vol. 1). Transaction Publishers.

Hunt, D. M., & Michael, C. (1983). Mentorship: A career training and development tool. Academy of management Review, 8(3), 475-485.

McKenzie, D., & Woodruff, C. (2013). What are we learning from business training and entrepreneurship evaluations around the developing world?. The World Bank Research Observer, lkt007.

Walker, K. B., & Black, E. L. (2000). Reengineering the undergraduate business core curriculum: Aligning business schools with business for improved performance. Business Process Management Journal, 6(3), 194-213.

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May 30, 2015 · 4:11 pm

The future of marketing is mobile…

mobile

An IBM (2012) technology trends survey indicated that mobile devices could increase the productivities and efficiencies of organisations. This study showed that mobile software was the second most “in demand” area for research and development. In addition, Gartner BI Hype Cycle (2012) also anticipated that mobile analytics was one of the latest technologies that may potentially disrupt the business intelligence market. At the same time, the market for mobile advertising is escalating at a very fast pace. Interestingly, eMarketer (2012) had predicted that mobile advertising shall experience a surge from an estimated $2.6 billion in 2012 to more than $10.8 billion in 2016. Evidently, there are niche areas for professional growth, particularly in this specialised field; as more and more individuals are increasingly creating new applications for mobile operating systems.

Recent advances in mobile communication and geo-positioning technologies have presented marketers with a new way how to target consumers based on their location. Location-targeted mobile advertising involves the provision of ad messages to cellular subscribers based on their geographic locations. This digital technology allows marketers to deliver ads and coupons that are customised to individual consumers’ tastes, geographic location and time of day. Given the ubiquity of mobile devices, location-targeted mobile advertising seems to offer tremendous marketing benefits.

In addition, many businesses are commonly utilising applications, including browser cookies that track consumers through their mobile devices as they move out and about. Once these users leave these sites, the products or services that they had viewed online will be shown to them again in advertisements, across different websites. Hence, businesses are using browsing session data combined with the consumers’ purchase history to deliver “suitable” items that consumers like. Therefore, savvy brands are becoming increasingly proficient in personalising their offerings as they collect, classify and use large data volumes on their consumers’ behaviours. As more consumers carry smartphones with them, they are (or may be) receiving compelling offers that instantaneously pop up on their mobile devices.

For instance, consumers are continuously using social networks and indicating their geo location as they use mobile apps. This same data can be used to identify where people tend to gather — information that could be useful in predicting real estate prices et cetera. This information is valuable to brands as they seek to improve their consumer engagement and marketing efforts. Businesses are using mobile devices and networks to capture important consumer data. Smart phones and tablets that are wifi-enabled interact with networks and convey information to network providers and ISPs. This year, more brands shall be using mobile devices and networks as a sort of sensor data – to acquire relevant information on their consumers’ digital behaviours and physical movements. These businesses have become increasingly interactive through the proliferation of near-field communication (NFC). Basically, embedded chips in the customers’ mobile phones are exchanging data with retailers’ items possessing the NFC tags. It is envisaged that mobile wallet transactions using NFC technologies are expected to reach $110 billion, by the year 2017. The latest Android and Microsoft smartphones have already include these NFC capabilities. Moreover, a recent patent application by Apple has revealed its plans to include NFC capabilities in their next products. This will inevitably lead to an increase in the use of mobile wallets (GSMA, 2015). Undoubtedly, the growth of such data-driven, digital technologies is adding value to customer-centric marketing. Therefore, analytics can enable businesses to provide a deeper personalisation of content and offers to specific customers.

Apparently, there are promising revenue streams in the mobile app market. Both Apple and Android are offering paid or free ad-supported apps in many categories. There are also companies that have developed apps for business intelligence. For example, enterprise / industry-specific apps, e-commerce apps and social apps. Evidently, the lightweight programming models of the current web services (e.g., HTML, XML, CSS, Ajax, Flash, J2E) as well as the maturing mobile development platforms such as Android and iOS have also contributed to the rapid proliferation of mobile applications (Chen et al., 2012). Moreover, researchers are increasingly exploring mobile sensing apps that are location-aware and activity-sensitive.

Possible future research avenues include mobile social innovation for m-learning; (Sharples, Taylor and Vavoula, 2010; Motiwalla, 2007), mobile social networking and crowd-sourcing (Lane et al., 2010), mobile visualisation (Corchado and Herrero, 2011), personalisation and behavioural modelling for mobile apps in gamification (Ha et al., 2007), mobile advertising and social media marketing (Bart et al., 2014; Yang et al., 2013). Google’s (2015) current projects include gesture and touch interaction; activity-based and context-aware computing; recommendation of social and activity streams; analytics of social media engagements, and end-user programming (Dai, Rzeszotarski, Paritosh and Chi, 2015;  Fowler, Partridge, Chelba, Bi, Ouyang and Zhai, 2015; Zhong, Weber, Burkhardt, Weaver and Bigham, 2015; Brzozowski, Adams and Chi, 2015).

 

References:

Bart, Y., Stephen, A. T., & Sarvary, M. (2014). Which products are best suited to mobile advertising? A field study of mobile display advertising effects on consumer attitudes and intentions. Journal of Marketing Research, 51(3), 270-285.

Brzozowski, M. J., Adams, P., & Chi, E. H. (2015, April). Google+ Communities as Plazas and Topic Boards. In Proceedings of the 33rd Annual ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (pp. 3779-3788). ACM. Retrieved May 22nd, 2015, from http://static.googleusercontent.com/media/research.google.com/en//pubs/archive/43453.pdf

Chen, H., Chiang, R. H., & Storey, V. C. (2012). Business Intelligence and Analytics: From Big Data to Big Impact. MIS quarterly, 36(4), 1165-1188.

Corchado, E., & Herrero, Á. (2011). Neural visualization of network traffic data for intrusion detection. Applied Soft Computing, 11(2), 2042-2056.

Dai, P., Rzeszotarski, J. M., Paritosh, P., & Chi, E. H. (2015). And Now for Something Completely Different: Improving Crowdsourcing Workflows with Micro-Diversions. In Proceedings of the 18th ACM Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work & Social Computing (pp. 628-638). ACM. Retrieved May 17th, 2015, from http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=2675260

eMarketer (2012). eMarketer in the News: June 1, 2012 Retrieved January 28th, 2015, from http://www.emarketer.com/newsroom/index.php/emarketer-news-june-1-2012/

Fowler, A., Partridge, K., Chelba, C., Bi, X., Ouyang, T., & Zhai, S. (2015, April). Effects of Language Modeling and its Personalization on Touchscreen Typing Performance. In Proceedings of the 33rd Annual ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (pp. 649-658). ACM. Retrieved May15th, 2015, from http://cslu.ohsu.edu/~fowlera/Fowler_CHI2015.pdf

Gartner (2012). Big Data Drives Rapid Changes in Infrastructure and $232 Billion in IT Spending Through 2016. Retrieved January 20th, 2015, from https://www.gartner.com/doc/2195915/big-data-drives-rapid-changes

Google (2015). Human-Computer Interaction and Visualization Research at Google. Retrieved May 20th, 2015, from http://research.google.com/pubs/Human-ComputerInteractionandVisualization.html

Ha, I., Yoon, Y., & Choi, M. (2007). Determinants of adoption of mobile games under mobile broadband wireless access environment. Information & Management, 44(3), 276-286.

IBM (2012) Tech Trends Report. Fast track to the future. Retrieved May15th, 2015, from http://www-01.ibm.com/common/ssi/cgi-bin/ssialias?subtype=XB&infotype=PM&appname=CHQE_XI_XI_USEN&htmlfid=XIE12346USEN&attachment=XIE12346USEN.PDF#loaded

Lane, N. D., Miluzzo, E., Lu, H., Peebles, D., Choudhury, T., & Campbell, A. T. (2010). A survey of mobile phone sensing. Communications Magazine, IEEE, 48(9), 140-150.

Motiwalla, L. F. (2007). Mobile learning: A framework and evaluation. Computers & Education, 49(3), 581-596.

Sharples, M., Taylor, J., & Vavoula, G. (2010). A theory of learning for the mobile age. In Medienbildung in neuen Kulturräumen (pp. 87-99). VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften.

Yang, B., Kim, Y., & Yoo, C. (2013). The integrated mobile advertising model: The effects of technology-and emotion-based evaluations. Journal of Business Research, 66(9), 1345-1352.

Zhong, Y., Weber, A., Burkhardt, C., Weaver, P., & Bigham, J. P. (2015). Enhancing Android accessibility for users with hand tremor by reducing fine pointing and steady tapping. In Proceedings of the 12th Web for All Conference (p. 29). ACM. Retrieved Ma7 20th, 2015, from http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=2747277

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May 11, 2015 · 3:52 pm

Creating Shared Value: Doing well by doing good!

Relevant research has shown that those companies that had undertaken social and environmental responsibility did prosper in the long run (McWilliams and Siegel, 2001; Orlitzky, 2003). However, other research has indicated that it is also possible to over-spend on strategic CSR — as this is true of all discretionary marketing expenditures (Lantos, 2001). It may appear that there is an optimal level of spending on strategic CSR (Orlitzky et al. 2010). The factors contributing towards creating value are often qualitative and may prove very difficult to measure and quantify, such as; employee morale, corporate image, reputation, public relations, goodwill, and popular opinion (Miller and Ahrens, 1993). Lantos (2001) advocated the need to identify CSR activities that will yield the highest payback. Of course, every stakeholder group has its own needs and wants. Therefore is is important to continuously balance conflicting stakeholder interests and measure the returns from strategic CSR investments (McWilliams and Siegel, 2011; Freeman, 1984).

Porter and Kramer (2006) believed that organisations can set an affirmative CSR agenda that produce maximum social benefits and gains for the businesses themself, rather than merely acting on well intentioned impulses or by reacting on outside pressures. They referred to the value chain (Porter, 1986) as an appropriate tool to chart all the social consequences of business activities. Figure 1 illustrates inside-out linkages that range from hiring and layoff policies to green house gas emissions, as follows.

Figure 1. Porter’s Value Chain
value chain
(Source: Porter, 1985, reproduced in Tsai et al. 2010)

This value chain model presents operational issues which have an effect on the companies’ performance. It depicts some of the activities a company engages in while doing business. This model can be used as a framework to identify the positive and negative social impacts of those activities. Porter and Kramer (2006) held that through strategic CSR the company will make a significant impact in the community.They suggested that companies may be triggered to doing things differently from competitors, in a way where they could lower their costs. The authors went on to say that strategic CSR involve both inside-out and outside-in dimensions, working in tandem. Interestingly, the authors indicated that there are ‘shared value’ opportunities through strategic CSR (Porter and Kramer, 2006, 2011). They argued that the companies’ may strengthen their competitiveness by investing in social and environmental aspects, as featured in Figure 2.

Figure 2. Corporate Involvement: A Strategic Approach
Figure 2
(Source: Porter and Kramer, 2006)

The success of the company and of the community may become mutually reinforcing (Porter and Kramer, 2006). They maintained that the more closely tied a social issue is to the companies’ business, the greater the opportunity to leverage the firms’ resources and capabilities and will in turn benefit society at large. Falck and Heblich (2007) related the notion of strategic CSR to the shareholder value theory. This approach implied a long term view of wealth maximisation. As it was also the case for the agency theory. These authors suggested that proper incentives may encourage managers ‘to do well by doing good’.

“…as the company’s goal was to survive and prosper, it can do nothing better than to take a long term view and understand that if it treats society well, society will return the favour” (Falck and Heblich, 2007).

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