More than ever, companies today are expected to be socially conscious. The days of a company simply being for profit are over. We now expect the companies we buy from and work with to be engaged in social responsibility. Companies in almost any sector can be held responsible by their board, key stakeholders (such as shareholders and staff) and the general public. Understanding the importance of corporate social responsibility, though, is not easy.
In many ways, this is a multifaceted topic that can become very confusing. Not every company preaches the same corporate social responsibility; many have different focuses outside of this. However, companies that do promote corporate social responsibility tend to benefit from a greater awareness of their impact on society. Companies are not just businesses there to make a profit; they are here to deliver change, offer solutions, and, in general, make life better than before it appeared.
That can be not very clear, and rightly so. Determining how a company should advocate for corporate social responsibility can take a lot of discussion and research. That research often comes in the form of social research. What role, though, does social research play in corporate social responsibility? Let’s look at how companies today are using research to help further their goals and ambitions.
Why Does Corporate Social Responsibility Matter?
Given the sheer volume of competition in almost any industry today, customers have a choice. People no longer have to hold their noses and buy from or work with companies they dislike purely because they dominate the market. In most cases, customers today have options to work with companies more aligned with their personal and philosophical leanings.
For example, let us say that two companies provide a product. They both receive the product in the same way and deliver the same product to the customer without much difference. One difference, though, is that one company does everything it can to cut down on emissions, wasteful packaging and the use of cheap labour. The other company has no qualms about this: they simply wish to sell products.
Today, customers who care about a business’s approach to corporate social responsibility will evaluate this. Those who care about the environment and social conditions will choose the company that takes their corporate social responsibility seriously. Why? The customer felt this business aligned with their own decisions and that the company was doing more to help improve the world. By contrast, the other company was seen as calculated and only in sales for the profit.
This business model means that companies that take their corporate social responsibility seriously want to make the world a better place. A strict focus on corporate social responsibility can help a business be more positive in its approach to its customers, the environment, and the problems its products/services resolve. However, understanding what the target client base expects can be tough.
How Do Companies Define Their Corporate Social Responsibility?
Today, we hear all about companies looking to their ‘target market’ and their ‘demographics’ to ensure they are marketing to the right people. Marketing today is so powerful and capable of being targeted. That matters greatly because marketing allows people to speak to the kind of person they believe is the right target for their business. This, though, includes having corporate social responsibility.
Companies today will define their corporate social responsibility by using social research. Social research helps a company to determine factors of their corporate social responsibility, such as:
- Do our clients and customers have a passion and care for the environment?
- Would our clients like us to invest time and money into charitable and philanthropic endeavours?
- Are we expected to have a strong ethical edge to our business and what we do/sell?
- Should we consider adjusting our financial approach, i.e. using ethical but more costly suppliers?
Any business with ambitions of success must understand how important corporate social responsibility is to its clientele. Some companies, through social research, will simply find that their primary client base wants a good end product or service and cares little for what the business stands for. In an increasingly large number of industries, though, clients expect the companies they choose to be different. They need morals, ethics, and decency regarding what matters to them.
Social research plays a big role in determining what a company does and how it focuses its corporate social responsibility accordingly. Social research is a multifaceted form of market analysis, usually requiring the use of tools like:
- Experiments that determine how one change impacts another – for example, does raising prices with the intent to engage in Fairtrade practices matter to customers?
- Surveys with customers, new and old, who can help to give the business a better understanding of the opinions and beliefs which are held by the people they are targeting as clients
- Interviews with key stakeholders such as long-term business partners and customers. This helps to measure attitudes and preferences towards the company’s corporate social responsibility
- Focus group discussions mostly formulated by small groups of people who have a particular stake in the subject matter of choice, i.e. disabled charities, environmental campaigners
- Ethnography, where a business looks to integrate itself within a certain community or culture to have a more thorough understanding of what people here expect and demand from partners
These few examples of positive social research can show why this research matters so much when creating a company’s corporate social responsibility charter. Social research improves knowledge of the customer/client base, informs decision-makers about what their audience wants, informs future policies and approaches to business development, and empowers businesses to adjust to fit the needs of their target audience.
As you can see, social research goes hand-in-hand with developing a proper corporate social responsibility charter. Any business that wishes to engage in social research should look for a market research specialist, like Qafqaz Research, to better determine what their customers and clients want. This ensures the business can pivot to be more like the company their clients expect, securing their future and building a better reputation among their target audience.
