Impact Of Corporate Social Responsibility On Brand Image Of Tesco, UK

Background of the study

Background of the study

The constant focusing on the business operations all around the world, corporate social responsibility acts as a key role for the competitions in the market. The corporate social responsibility depends on some factors such as brand image and customer satisfaction also the quality of the products and services that are offered. This research is purposely based on Tesco which is mainly a globally known grocery and retailer of various merchandises with its head office located in the Welwyn Garden City, England. Tesco is also listed as the third of the largest retailer all around the globe regarding profits and also placed 9th on the list concerning revenues (Skard and Thorbjørnsen, 2014). These stats were affected along with the brand image due to the improper management of the Corporate Social Responsibility. Therefore, this study enables to learn about the relation between the corporate social responsibility also termed as CSR and the brand image of Tesco located in the United Kingdom.

The primary goal of this research work is to analyze the effects of corporate social responsibility on the brand image in the context of Tesco, United Kingdom.

The purpose of this study is stated as follows:

• To analyze the factors which affect the brand image of Tesco.
• To find the positive effects of the corporate social responsibility.
• To evaluate the relationship between the corporate social responsibility and the brand image of Tesco.
• To remove the issues of corporate social responsibility in improving the brand image.

• Which factors affect the brand image?
• How does the corporate social responsibility affect the company?
• How is corporate social responsibility connected to the brand image of Tesco?

H0: The corporate social responsibility has no important role in creating a brand image of Tesco.

H1: The corporate social responsibility has a significant role in establishing the brand image of Tesco.

According to the financial report released recently of the Tesco, the company has a degraded profit scale. As per the management of the enterprise, Tesco is failing in the corporate social responsibility which is the reason for small profit margin (Chernev and Blair, 2015). Therefore, this study will further help the company to understand the usage of corporate social responsibility and also to evaluate the solutions regarding the issues.

Corporate social responsibility is defined and conceptualized by various researchers. Nowadays companies are the biggest constitution of the community. They believe in the greatest deal and also earning a high profit (Youn and Ryu, 2016). The organizations are present to utilize the energy of the business, which tries to solve problems regarding social and environmental. A central idea where organizations coordinate with the social and ecological issue in their trading sector and create a communication design with their stakeholders is known as the corporate social responsibility. It is the path which the company completes an adjust monitor system also natural and social problems and trying to understand the customer’s desire. The company has to maintain the relationship with corporate social responsibility to preserve their strategic management (Uhrich, Koenigstorfer and Groeppel-Klein, 2014). It also helps to keep the idea, investment, altruism and so many. The idea of the corporate social responsibility maintain the impoverishment reduction and also retain the company image. The promotion of the Corporate Social Responsibility within the different companies requires various procedures that are needed to reach the desired capacity of the business. The approach towards the CSR is a type of strategy that will also support the development of relations with the government, society and the related stakeholders (de Jong and van der Meer, 2017). The triple bottom line approach to the corporate social responsibility is formed by the United Nations Industrial Development Organization. These procedures used the unique tool which is suitable for small and medium sized enterprises, to help the companies in their trading system and meet the social and environmental guideline. To execute the social and ecological manner against the monetary, the triple bottom line giving the useful system to measure the corporate executives. The main issues that are involved in a CSR are mostly the changes in the management, environmental efficiency, involvement of the stakeholders (Hur, Kim and Woo, 2014). The quality of labors and the working conditions for them. Gender balance is also one of the concerns with proper governance and non-corruptive methods. The perfect implementation of the CSR can enable the company to achieve a high competitive advantage like the vast improvement in the capitals, increase in the sales along with the profits and methods that can improve the savings of resources or funds (Gürhan-Canli, Hayran and Sarial-Abi, 2016). The CSR can also improve the productivity of the goods and also the brand image of the company. Furthermore, CSR is an innovative thinking to that is taken into consideration which can quickly enhance the various objectives rather than only profit scales and also fulfilling the expectations socially.

Aims and objective of the study

It is the dedication of each organization to keep up the brand picture. With a particular original goal to complete the buyer’s relentlessness, it is crucial for the team to meet the responses of the clients. It is the central responsibility of the organization to open out the right substance to the clients (Tingchi Liu et al. 2015). This concept developed at the start of 20^th century. It happens that every company is differentiating from others by its name, condition, sign also various things. By their brand name, a company has many options like they can demand a higher price or they can give a little time for their services compare to the other company.

A company holds the customer loyalty by their brand name and also the company has less weakness to focus some showcasing activity. An organization increased their marketing communication by using their brand name. A brand image of the business creates or maintain by their promoting procedure, their assets, and products quality (Cha, Yi and Bagozzi, 2016). For any organization brand value measured by some parameter such as by their strength, by their favourability and by their uniqueness.

According to the assumptions, there is a multivariate estimation of brand perseverance. Brand dependability or brand image also considered are very uneven and has three stand-out estimations, for example, emotive inclination towards a particular brand, evaluative slant towards a brand and behavioral propensity towards a brand (He and Lai, 2014). All the three circles have an uneven positive reaction towards the brand image of a company as to buy and the exercises identified with utilize.

There is a relationship between the brand and the clients that perhaps inferred from five assets of the overall public. The human recognizes ascend to the immensity of the brand picture. Therefore, a material review is necessary to be done with a particular real goal to get hold of a brand, which will survey the obvious touch inspirations driving the brands. Siddiqi conveyed that the establishment of the brand winds up more grounded when the material parts increments (Lim and Greenwood, 2017). The hypothesis considers the key factor, for example, check the signature; stamp shows up, check staging, unmistakable review, utilize and assessment as the center of stamping. A connection can accomplish a positive reaction from the clients, and the focused on get-togethers of onlookers by concerning the above segments of the hypothesis (Rahman, Rodríguez-Serrano and Lambkin, 2017). Accordingly, the brand photograph of the affiliation gets more grounded.

These days, customer playing a significant role to influence the corporate social responsibility craves on a particular company and day by day the desire of a company is getting stronger which also may affect the higher value of customer social responsibility. Being a client, they have some expectation on the value framework which includes the emotional value system and also social value system (Jiraporn et al. 2014). A brand that based on the customer’s emotional value, they have high protection from focused crumbling. To improve the organization’s competitive advantage, customer’s social responsibility doing an active part as showing the brand image of the company.

Research questions

The positioning strategy of a company depends on the corporate social responsibility, which shows the primary value of the company is presented by the principal value of corporate social responsibility (Anselmsson, Vestman Bondesson and Johansson, 2014). The response of marketing strategy of a company is defending the brand from any external problem like strikes. It shows the corporate social responsibility also work as damage insurance to secure the name. When a company has a great brand name, that time they facing minimal issue compared to the other company. At the point when corporate social responsibility is making contact, it creates a strategic bonding tool to regulate the buyer’s expectation. Corporate social responsibility outlines the positive impact of customer’s state of mind and conductance. As the strength of an organization and become the main reason for the groups associated with the corporate social responsibility activates (Cha, Yi and Bagozzi, 2016). Corporate social responsibility linked with the brand image. Brand image affected by the corporate social responsibility positively and also become the vital needs of the company as opposed to something that some add some extraordinary advertisement in the customer’s social regards. Customers support for any organization also included in the corporate social responsibility.

At the point when a client’s see any group which is socially reliable, they affected within a short time when they are surveying the organizations quality. Customers always expect that the social duty is connected with high body quality and sometimes its use as corporate social responsibility data to decrease the instability of an organization (Tai and Chuang, 2014). Costumer’s brand loyalty sometimes depend on the corporate social responsibility which was shown as a brand image. Using the brand image of an organization, they increase the purchase point positively. For a company, it is important to use their verbal communication to know the customer’s state of mind and set a brand image. So the service industry names as the fastest growing sector. Many product based company tiring to develop their business in the fastest growing area and they become a success (Cheng, Ioannou and Serafeim, 2014). Day by day consumers have more knowledge of supportability, and they also have the knowledge about corporate social responsibility effect (Korschun, Bhattacharya and Swain, 2014). The brand picture is getting too familiar, use as a mark of the company, also a showcasing segment.

The methodology section of the study discusses the different tools and other techniques that are needed to complete the research successfully. The research study aims to understand and analyze the impact of corporate social responsibility of Tesco on its brand importance. The section of the survey will thus discuss the different approaches, research designs, philosophies and the methods of data collection. This will help to achieve the desired outcome for the research.

Research philosophy can be stated as the belief through which the data are collected regarding a particular phenomenon (Silverman, 2016). Based on this data the analysis and evaluation are done so that the required outcome is achieved. There are three types of research methodologies such as interpretivism, positivism research philosophies, and realism research theories.

Research hypothesis

In this particular research, the researcher will use interpretivism research philosophy since it allows the researcher to understand the beliefs and values considered by the customers. It will help to analyze the level of impact of corporate social responsibility on the brand image of Tesco, UK.  

In the words of Mackey and Gass (2015), research method can be described as the relevance of hypothesis to understand the validity of the study. The research process is further of two types namely the deductive approach and the inductive approach. The inductive research approach will be used by the researcher to complete the study. This method will help to maintain a focus on the market place that needs to be observed. The effectiveness of corporate social responsibility on the brand image can be quickly evaluated. The best possible outcome for the research study is achieved with the help of the inductive approach.

Some research designs are used by the researchers to complete the study systematically. The various research designs are the descriptive research design, graphic research design, and the exploratory study design (Flick, 2015). The researcher prefers the use of exploratory research design since the study aims to find and analyze the real issues. The research takes into account the different perception and concept of the managers and the customers of Tesco to obtain relevant data for the study. With this particular research design, the researcher will be able to understand the impact of corporate social responsibility (CSR) on the brand image of Tesco, UK.

The best possible methods that the researcher can use to get a clear idea about the market and the market situation in which the company operates is through conducting surveys and interview (Smith, 2015). The impact of corporate social responsibility (CSR) on the brand image of Tesco can be analyzed through the understanding of the genuine insight of the customers. On the other hand, the competitiveness or the position of the company concerning others can be understood through an interview with the managers of Tesco. The researcher will use here both the types of data collection process that is primary data collection process as well as the secondary data collection process. The primary data collection will be done in the form of online surveys and interviews while the secondary data collection will be done for the literature review section by examining the previous articles, studies, and journals.

To determine the sample size for the survey and choose the respondents, the researcher will opt for the probability sampling method and the non-probability sampling method. Probability sampling method helps to select samples very fast without any bias, and the respondents will get an equal number of chances of getting chosen for the survey (Taylor, Bogdan and DeVault 2015). Whereas the non-probability sampling does not provide an equal chance for being selected. The non-probability sampling is used to determine the respondents for the interview.

Sample size refers to the number of interviewees the researcher considers to collect relevant data. For this data collection process, the researcher will examine 50 respondents or potential customers of Tesco to collect data. This will be doing with the probability sampling method. Further with the help of on- probability sampling method, 3 line managers of Tesco will be chosen for the interview. Thus the sample size of 50 is considered as a high sample size allows to analyze the data authentically and achieve better results of the research.

Rationale of the study

There are certain ethics that the researcher needs to consider while completing the research. It is important for the researcher to Data Protection Act 1998 while collecting the data. One cannot disclose the personal information of the respondents from whom the relevant data are collected. In addition to that, the data cannot be gathered in any unethical manner. The defendants cannot be forced to answer any question. For the secondary data collection, no wrong websites or methods should be used to collect the data. The primary concern of the scientist is continually presenting new thoughts, instruments or sources. On the off chance that the researcher gathers information from any licensed innovation, the specialist should give appropriate affirmation or give the credit. The researcher needs to keep up that they didn’t utilize any unpublished information or never give appropriates.

Table 1: Gantt chart

(Source: Created by researcher)

From the research study, it can be opined that there is a positive impact of corporate social responsibility (CSR) on the brand image of a company. If Tesco, UK delivers effective CSR measures to its customers, they can achieve high brand image within the market in which it operates.

References 

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Cheng, B., Ioannou, I. and Serafeim, G., 2014. Corporate social responsibility and access to finance. Strategic Management Journal, 35(1), pp.1-23.

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