Lectures Corporate Social Responsibility Communication
Exam
1e meeting definitions, consequences, theoy, conclusions, management
proposels, vraag over auteurs, ze vonden dit en dit en wat zou je op basis van de
resultaten adviseren aan marketing direchteur, beste per thema zetten. Of een
model en dan vragen om uit te leggen.
Social identity theory
Social attribution theory
Management implication, formulate hypothesis, formulate research question.
Chronologically based on two articles.
Lecture 1
Tony Chocolonely/Ben & Jerry’s: Their reputation is the same as the reality. For
apple this isn’t.
Depositional skepticism= You have no influence on it.
Situational skepticism= Much more controllable.
Green washing: Say something but doing something else will lead to skepticism.
Dimensions/Core definition.
Customer/Employee/Environmental/Supplier/Local community
Environmental/Social/Economic/Stakeholder/Voluntariness
Seminar 1
5 dimensions (approaches to CSR). EXAM about these dimensions!
There is a focus on a specific definition of CSR. One thing is left out of
this definition and there is a reason for this. When you focus on a
dimension you do not all approaches.
Article 1
- Divergent results.
- Historical development.
- More focus on CSR for smaller organizations.
- Concept of CSR.
- Pillars.
- Elaborate for different dimensions.
- Different research areas all focus on the approach of Carroll.
- Values society = values business.
Article 2
- 5 dimensions (sometimes incomplete). How to apply?
- Versus: you state that one is good and one is wrong.
- (1-2, 2-3 or 5 dimensions mentioned) Some perhaps dominate for a certain
situation.
Research proposal: define CSR and mention dimensions.
,Summary
Development of CSR you can describe that in the context of history.
Definitions: broad and narrow. Measure it different.
• The development of CSR can be described in a historical context (based on the
development of the field of research and management).
• There are several definitions of corporate social responsibility.
• Broad definitions and more narrow definitions.
• CSR can have different dimensions.
• The use of these definitions and dimensions are dependent on the context.
• Diversity – confusion – nervous
Lecture 2 Content
Questions from homework
- Cultural difference? Identification could be different per culture (individualistic
and collectivistic).
- When CSR lead to negative employee identification: When you hate your boss,
not treated well
- How will small vs big ones do that: local initiatives (local charity). Size does
not matter that much. But, it is easier for big companies to communicate.
- How do you pick your CSR? You have to take care of all of your stakeholders
and product, but if people perceive the goal that is close to the goal of the
company, people trust it more than when they have no clue.
- Results in this context lead to different conclusions? You can never answer
that question in general. There are a lot of context questions.
Keeping an eye on the mirror
Paper pre-CSR. They followed a company for +- 5 years (longitudinal). When it
comes to content: how do organizations form their organizational identify? The
way their identity is the way they deal with a problem (homeless problem).
Identity is a cause on how a company reacts, they can also can develop all other
kinds of activities.
(cognitive) organizational identification = “The perception of oneness with or
belongingness to an organization, where the individual defines him or herself in
terms of the organization(s) in which he or she is a member.” Mael & Ashforth
(1992, p. 104).
Trade of between Corporate Ability and CSR? Some people think when CSR a
company has to pay for it (quality). When CSR is high, people also think the
quality of the product is high. They will enhance each other. Or people think that
when this is high they not invest in the quality of the product. Depending on how
people perceive it has influence.
Social identify theory = “Why do group members malign other groups and what
makes people so often
believe that their own group is better than the others?” Your social identity is
your consciousness that you belong to a particular group and to be treated by
,others as such. You and your group have a certain (desired) self-image and you
are identified by others as unique.
Social identification = Two functions of social identification: self-categorization
and self-enhancement.
Do you think Tilburg University is working on CSR? Show initiatives on CSR?
Paper 4: Not going to ask on the results. But asking something about
the definitions and theory.
How come that if you are in a group you always think that your group is better
than other ones? In-group/out-group. Students had to choose a painting they
liked. They had to give credits (individual, your group, the other group).
Everybody did it for the group.
• The result was that even in minimal conditions where students do not
know each other and had never met, there was in-group favoring.
• In other words, students were more motivated to realize the relative gain
of their own group versus another group than their own absolute individual
gain.
Two kind of arguments:
- Self-categorization: how do you think your identify is compared to the group
identity.
- Self-enhancement: You don’t want to be in a group other people think of that
is a weird group. The group needs to make you feel better. This is one of the
processes. Otherwise, you wouldn’t identify with it.
Self-enhancement: first experiment that showed that people who didn’t know
each other there is some processes that people make work like a group.
Limitations: Social identity theory (SIT) still left open some questions: “one
important limitation of SIT is that it offers a relatively underdeveloped analysis of
the cognitive processes associated with social identity salience”. Self
categorization theory (Turner & Oakes, 1986): Identity salience says something
about the visibility of your (social) identity. Identity salience = you can be at
different groups at different context (first university, hockey, friends). Says
something about the visibility of being a group (ex. Sweater on football club, not
weird when wearing during football).
Self categorization
- Depersonalization (from self identity to social identity): in what context do you
see yourself as part of a group.
- Prototypes (specific persons who are representative for the group): Always
used on debates on racism. If you say: all students are lazy. Based on for
example on one person. We do that all the time, negatively/positively.
Stereotyping is the negative. We need it for us to explain the world.
- Categories, context and multiple identities.
Self-enhancement = to gain positive self image. This is one of the underlined
processes of why to identify with a group.
, • So if I strongly identify with a group and my (social) identity is visible then this
leads to behaviors that can have a positive effect for the group where I feel part
of!
- In a sports context, for example by buying a coffee/ tea mug, visiting home
matches or buying a LEGO (BanBao) stadium of your favorite club.
- But in a more serious context, you can also use social identity to explain
human behavior ... We Dutch versus those refugees / asylum seekers, We
Brits versus them Europe, We Trump supporters versus those Clinton
supporters, We anti black Piet versus them pro black Piet.
Article 4:
Aim: to understand when, how, and why consumers react to CSR by focusing on
both some key moderators of consumers’ CSR responses and the mechanisms
underlying these responses (mediators). When, how and why. There are other
contextual factors. Low versus high quality products.
Sen & Bhattacharya (2001) focus on the following topics
• CSR information (experimental manipulation)
• New product quality information (experimental manipulation)
• CSR support (consumer involvement in CSR)
• Consumer - Company Congruence (social identity theory en personorganization
fit)
• CSR Domains (relevant – irrelevant)
• CSR-CA beliefs
• Company evaluation and purchase intention (as product evaluation)
Researchers believed that when a net product is introduced in the market, a
product would have high quality.
You organic food buying will be higher when you are in that environment.
P-O fit = do you identify with …? That is something different than asking on
values. Combining values to see whether there was an overlap.
CSR domains: if you have a specific product = relevant. It could be that for the
product quality there could be overlap in the perceptions you have.
Irrelevant = perceived product quality is loose from the perceived company.
Example question: What kind of definition do Sen & Bhattacharya elaborate?
They use a large, societal view of CSR adopted by Brown and Dacin (1997, p. 68)
as the company’s “status and activities with respect to [i.e., responsiveness to]
its perceived societal obligations.”
Actions. It’s a really broad one. Because they use 6 different dimensions as input
on their story.
He is not going to ask on six dimensions.
Perceived societal obligation (CSR) versus product quality (CA). Different beliefs
about the combination:
1) CSR + CA makes people happy:
2) If there is CSR the CA could be bad.
Corporate ability: “associations related to the company's expertise in producing
and delivering its outputs”. Product quality, market leadership, innovation, R&D
Corporate social responsibility: “the organization's status and activities with
respect to its perceived societal obligations.”
