Which of the three action-oriented corporate social responsibility (CSR) types is the most effective in improving the public attitude toward tobacco companies?

• Main Author: Petrova, Dessislava Petrova
• Publication Date: 2015
• Format: Master thesis
• Language: eng
• Source: Repositórios Científicos de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (RCAAP)
• Download full: http://hdl.handle.net/10284/5032
• topic: Corporate social responsibility (CSR); Action-oriented CSR typology; Reputational benefits; Tobacco companies; Responsabilidade social das empresas (RSE); Tipologia de RSE orientada para a acção; Benefícios de reputação; Empresas de tabaco

CSR has nowadays become an integral part of the business strategy of many companies. Though the definition and the scope of the practice have been elusive over the years, CSR can be generally described as a corporate act of gratuitously contributing to society and/or the environment. Through CSR companies typically expect to reap some reciprocal benefits such as organisational, legal and/or reputational. Over the last few decades, controversial industries, such as tobacco, have purposefully sought for the reputational outcomes of CSR. Yet, there appeared to be insufficient academic insight as to what extent the CSR activities of tobacco companies have been effective in ameliorating the public’s attitude. To the best of the researcher’s knowledge, this thesis was the first to employ an action-oriented CSR typology to compare which of three inherently different CSR types would be the most effective in improving the public’s attitude toward tobacco companies. An online survey was conducted to test three scenarios: an imaginary tobacco company practising CSR Philanthropy, CSR Integration or CSR Innovation. Unlike previous studies, the current one situated the three scenarios in the same domain. It was discovered that none of the three action-oriented CSR types was more successful than the others in directly improving the public’s attitude toward tobacco companies or of inducing any substantial attitude change. Likewise, none of the tested CSR types elicited significantly different CSR-contingent attitudes nor resulted in significantly better motive perceptions. CSR Innovation was the only action-oriented CSR type which had at least partial success in that it elicited the best evaluations of the attribute of social responsibility. Given the significant relationship between the attribute evaluations and the CSR-contingent attitude, it could be expected that, under specific conditions, the CSR type of Innovation could be able to indirectly improve the CSR-contingent aspect of the public’s attitude toward tobacco companies. This research demonstrated that, in general, CSR was not effective in ameliorating the public’s attitude toward tobacco companies directly but, nonetheless, had the potential to do so indirectly. Managers of tobacco companies should therefore proceed with caution if they want to use CSR as means of image improvement.