Corporate Social Responsibility is management based concept that involves integrated environmental and social concerns in business operations. The effective corporate social responsibility helps in establishing the better interaction with the stakeholders associated with the business. According to Büyüközkan and Karabulut (2017), CSR is generally conceptualized as the method of achieving the economic, social, and environmental imperatives by addressing the expectations of the shareholders. CSR is generally developed to strengthen the organisational position by acquiring a larger customer base (Wang et al. 2016). The chapter will focus on the research aim, objectives, and questions based on which the entire research will be conducted. The identification of the problem scenario will also provide the insight of the entire research study.
Corporate social responsibility is much crucial now-a-days to retain the competitive position of the organisation. Each of the companies is striving to meet the needs of the customers and strengthen the competitive position. The energy sector deals more challenging inventory and distribution process (Xie et al. 2017). The emission of the carbon is much harmful for the environment, which may create the external constraints. Yakovleva (2017) indicated that the maintenance of the effective corporate social responsibility is quite essential to enhance the customer satisfaction and extend the possibilities to develop the sustainable position. The power generation industry is mainly characterized in diverse ways. Customer satisfaction in this industry is much crucial to the distributors and the organisations. Therefore, the organisations adopt the effective corporate social responsibility to gather the maximum responses from their customers (Sun and Price 2016). Therefore, the study is concentrating on exploring the significance of developing corporate social responsibility for increasing the customer satisfaction.
Corporate Social Responsibility is eventually transforming into the influential component in conducting the cross-industrial and cross-regional activities. The corporate social responsibility has become one of most discussed topics in past few decades (Korschun, Bhattacharya and Swain 2014). Business trends in the Malaysian power industry have been dealing with the wider spectrum of business issues, including the ethical concerns, socially responsible investing, and corporate governance (Tai and Chuang 2014). In majority of the cases, it is noticed that organisations integrate the environmental and social concerns in the business operations and interact in a better way with the associated stakeholders. CSR process is quite a beneficial process to determine this purpose. Shin and Thai (2015) mentioned that CSR process is often about the ‘license to operate’ for the organisations in the power generation and distribution companies. The effectiveness of the process determines the customer satisfaction rate that helps the organisations to secure their sustainable and competitive position in a challenging business world. In power generation industry, most of the considerable issues are visible in involving the energy infrastructure (Pérez and Rodriguez del Bosque 2015). It is noticeable that building electricity infrastructure often involve with the emissions of carbon, which is a serious concern for the global warming. Therefore, it is necessary for the associated companies in this sector to develop the better corporate social responsibility in order to increase customer satisfaction rate (Saeidi et al. 2015). The study will thus focus on the agenda of maintaining corporate social responsibility for developing customer satisfaction.
The aim of the research is to identify the extent to which the corporate social responsibility develops the customer satisfaction level in the power generation and distribution industry in Malaysia and Thailand.
Philanthropic responsibilities do not have significant impact on the customer satisfaction in Power Generation & Distribution Industry of Malaysia & Thailand
Ethical responsibilities do not have significant impact on the customer satisfaction in Power Generation & Distribution Industry of Malaysia & Thailand
Legal responsibilities do not have significant impact on the customer satisfaction in Power Generation & Distribution Industry of Malaysia & Thailand
Economic responsibilities do not have significant impact on the customer satisfaction in Power Generation & Distribution Industry of Malaysia & Thailand
CSR (Philanthropic, Ethical, Legal and Economic responsibilities) do not have significant impact on the customer satisfaction in Power Generation & Distribution Industry of Malaysia & Thailand
The different chapters of the study provide the insightful ideas about the overall research process. The structure of this research study is presented further.
The chapter provides the introduction to the research subject. The aims, objectives, questions, and hypothesis formulated in this chapter will help in collecting the relevant information from secondary and primary sources.
The chapter explores the conceptual and theoretical explanation of the subject matter. The information received from the literature is then aligned with the primary research data to ensure the accomplishment of the research objectives.
The third chapter describes the appropriate methods used for conducting the entire research process in a systematic way. The use of the appropriate philosophy, approach, techniques, data collection methods, and sampling process will be described in the methodology section.
The chapter includes the collection of the primary data by conducting the quantitative survey process. With the help of the statistical tools, the information will be discussed to ensure the accomplishment of the subject purpose.
The chapter would link the information gathered from primary and secondary sources with the objectives. It will suggest whether the entire research has met the predetermined objectives or not. Based on such information, the study will also present the preferable recommendations to mitigate the issue. Furthermore, the study will also provide the future scope of the study.
The chapter provides the introduction to the subject. Considering the aims, objectives, and research questions, the further research will be conducted. The exploration of the conceptual and theoretical background will help in developing the in-depth analysis of the subject area. On the other hand, the utilization of the appropriate methodology will be used for conducting the entire research.
From the past few decades, the emergence of the corporate social responsibilities has become the crucial areas of studies as well as the profitable framework for business and financial institution (Stohl et al. 2017). While establishing corporate social responsibility, it is noticeable that the firms adopt various traits, such as social needs, environmental issues, employee welfare, or human rights safety. The continuous changing demands of the customers usually pose threats to the business companies. Park, Lee and Kim (2014) commented that the effective corporate social responsibility helps in developing the customer relationships. The proper form of CSR cannot even fully describe the willingness of the business and the functionalities, which are adopted for responding to the social demands. The effective CSR practices helps in bridging the reliable relationships between the firms and customers. The literature study is thus formulated to create the conceptual and theoretical analysis of the subject variables. The results derived from the literature helps in understanding the sheer linking between the variables in this research study. The clear and concise ideas regarding the subject areas will be aligned to the further research study.
The emerging concept of CSR defines the functional curriculums adopted by the companies to maintain the sustainable position. Many empirical researches defined this corporate social responsibility in diverse ways. According to Suliman, Al-Khatib and Thomas (2016), CSR is a concept, which is associated with the integrated social and environmental concerns of the company in their business operations. On the other hand, Ni and Van Wart (2015) described that the method of CSR determines the business decisions and activities undertaken for the environment by maintaining the ethical behaviour. This ethical behaviour maintains consistency with the societal welfare and the sustainable development. It also takes the stakeholder expectation into account. Singh and Kaur (2016) suggested that the maintenance of the effective corporate social responsibility often comply with the applicable laws and integrated through the organisation. Maintaining the appropriate CSR process is quite essential in this competitive business market. The continuous changing demands of the customers usually pose threats to the business companies (Keisidou et al. 2013). Maintaining the societal benefits through sound corporate social responsibility can strengthen the competitive edge of the business by developing the effective consumer relationships.
Over the decades, many of the scholars even presented many of the argumentative remarks against the practice of CSR. Terpstra and Verbeeten (2014) argued that the method of CSR is much suggestive of efforts that point out the obligation or accountability. The proper form of CSR cannot even fully describe the willingness of the business and the functionalities, which are adopted for responding to the social demands (Keisidou et al. 2013). It is often argumentatively conceptualized as the process of assuming any specific obligation. It is true that the businesses require developing the social responsiveness in order to maintain the sustainable position in a competitive business scenario (Cheng, Ioannou and Serafeim 2014). It can be implied that the term ‘responsibility’ emphasize motivation in a more specific way than the performance of a firm. However, it is argued that motivation is not the only requirement for surviving in a competitive landscape. According to Swaminathan et al. (2014), it is quite essential to make the organisation more flexible for responding towards the external changes that are taking place in the social surrounding. an organization can clean the city on their expenses not only to make the city clean but also to collect recycled resources for their next production unit. The continuous changing demands of the customers usually pose threats to the business companies. Maintaining the societal benefits through sound corporate social responsibility can strengthen the competitive edge of the business by developing the effective consumer relationships. The correctness of the method of corporate action depends on the functionalities related to the business process.
Park, Lee and Kim (2014) stated that this responsibility is not directly related with the core business functions. The prime objective of the company to associate with philanthropic activity is to make their brand reputation more strong. Schwartz (2017) stated that some such activities are organizing blood donation camps from their employee, donate amount to orphanage and providing school resources to the students. These CSR activities help an organization to make more people aware of their brand.
Suliman et al. (2016) depict that ethical responsibilities demonstrates the intention of doing the right things even if it is not written in the spirit of law or letter of regulations. Hopkins (2012) also stated that this approach is obtained only from coherent corporate culture. Ethical responsibility should be more occurred in the chemical manufacturing units, where businesspeople do not take any preventive measures for diminishing the impact of the toxic waste materials. Ni and Van Wart (2015) highlight that the management people of such industry need to be more careful regarding the impact of such materials.
Crane, Matten and Spence (2013) stated that as the name suggests legal responsibility refers to the situation where an organization has to adhere regulations. However, Baden and Harwood (2013) depict that these organization have to obey the rule willingly and no forcefully. Taken for instance, every company has to obey some rules and regulations concerning the environment and others and if these regulations are disobeyed, a certain amount has to be pay some penalty (Suliman, Al-Khatib and Thomas 2016). However, some company does not obey these regulations for attaining high profitability and agree to pay the penalty amount. Singh and Kaur (2016) highlighted that these companies will only start paying attention when the penalty amount will be too high to pay. The continuous changing demands of the customers usually pose threats to the business companies. Thus, companies that possess effective CSR attributes will think of social benefits and obey all regulations.
According to Hopkins (2012), business intends to obtain high profitability as they have to survive in the market. However, making money by not making anyone rich is the policy of CSR that many companies can opt. Taken for instance, an organization can clean the city on their expenses not only to make the city clean but also to collect recycled resources for their next production unit. In this way, the company can save the cost of some raw materials with no extra cost.
In order to make more profit apart from enhancing the product quality, it is equally important for the organization to satisfy the customer concerning their products. Park, Lee and Kim (2014) stated that customer satisfaction is a concept in which the company obtain money-back guarantee from their target audience. Thus, it is important for the business person to identify what the consumer demands and how to make them more connected with the brand’s products. Yakovleva (2017) depict that some companies consider the concept of customer satisfaction as marketing metric to judge their business effectiveness. Simon and Honore Petnji Yaya (2012) also highlight that measuring the customer satisfaction is important as it allows the company to identify purchase intention of the customers and loyalty.
The benefits of obtaining high satisfaction from the customers are financial profitability, corporate performance and business growth.
Repeat buying- Hopkins (2012) stated that people when aware that an organization is associated with philanthropic activities and follow all other CSR activities, they prefer that company more than the others. Terpstra and Verbeeten (2014) also depicted that it is easier to develop competitive strategies for retaining existing customers compared to gain new customers. Thus, making existing customer happy, results in low cost in advertising themselves which on the other hand leads to greater profitability.
Higher Prices- Sun and Kim (2013) also stated that customer satisfaction creates price advantage. Users do not want to switch to other organizations because they are not aware of the later organization. Moreover, Swaminathan et al. (2014) depict that customer satisfaction can be obtained from products excellence, service excellence and high products diversity. The proper form of CSR cannot even fully describe the willingness of the business and the functionalities, which are adopted for responding to the social demands. The effective CSR practices helps in bridging the reliable relationships between the firms and customers. These are the quality that makes a brand unique and makes them able to make more profit.
Loyalty in Crisis- Loyal customers does not want any preferable company to get extinct and they will do necessary steps to make the company to survive any crisis. The four factors that can help an organization to survive corporate crisis through customer satisfaction are during industry restructuring, product tampering, organizational breakdown and unfair competitions (Keisidou et al. 2013). This is because, they are aware of the quality of their services and years of trust that the loyal customer does not want to lose.
Zeitun and Tian (2014) demonstrates that corporate performance is an assessment regarding how effective an organization executes their important parameters like financial market and performance of their shareholders. Customer satisfaction on the other hand can be considered as a performance metrics as mentioned before. This factor help an organization to illustrate their effectiveness on markets as higher rate of customer satisfaction is directly proportional to effective business performance (Banos-Caballero, Garcia-Teruel and Martínez-Solano 2014).
Word of mouth- Van Vaerenbergh, Larivière and Vermeir (2012) consider word of mouth communication to be very powerful as it allow those customer to make aware of the brand image of an organization that cannot be reach by advertising media. A satisfied customer can well describe about the quality of the company than any advertisement as they can share their experience and benefits that they have attained through their products. Thus, it is important for an organization to make their customers happy.
One stop Shopping- The concept of one stop shopping is to buy necessary products from one store. Cheung and Thadani (2012) stated that not only satisfied customer promote their brand through word of mouth advertising but they also by other products and services from the same brand. This is because; purchasing all the items from one store is economical. Pappas et al. (2014) also depicted that in recent times, company also provide volume discounts and favorable terms on purchasing items of certain amount. A company can also obtain competitive advantage of economy of scope.
New Product Innovation- Customer satisfaction occurred when an organization ask for their feedback about their services. This can be taken through different means that are online feedback or a survey form after their purchase. Grissemann and Stokburger-Sauer (2012) stated that many times, these customer also provide valuable feedback regarding their products or services. Incorporating those services can also help the research and department team highlight some ideas regarding product innovations.
Implementation of CSR activities allows the customers to know that the companies with which they are associated are careful regarding the progress of the society. They can also know about these activities through proper communication attributes that a company is using. ICT is a process through which the company uses different services not only to make the customer aware of their products and services but also manage the user data and the things that is required for maintaining the satisfaction level of the users (Tarut? and Gatautis 2014).
Energy company can take initiative for developing greener energy that is safe for the society This will help the users to use more of their products as users nowadays are more concerned towards problems like global warming and climate change (Simon and Honore Petnji Yaya 2012). Thus, it is important for the energy sector to develop new ideas and invest a percentage of the annual revenue for research and development team for formulating green power generation. All these approaches of a company make the users more satisfied and they then intends to associate more with the company.
ICT helps the energy company to obtain organization learning, trialability and observability through which greater satisfaction can be attained (Cheung and Thadani 2012). The knowledge about current operational and managerial processes can be obtained from theories of organization learning which helps the energy company to understand the business needs and make more profit (Van Vaerenbergh, Larivière and Vermeir 2012). Zeitun and Tian (2014) on the other hand highlight that the degree of trialability is helpful to experiment new idea regularly which also results in more power and energy efficient technology which is safe for the earth also. Lastly, when all the ideas are communicated properly it is known as observability and shows respect regarding the customers which highlights the sensation of satisfaction more among the customers.
In recent times, energy companies are more focused towards communicating their plans and business progress through consume communications networks (Sun and Kim 2013). This will enhance the transparency regarding the business approach and helps the company to attain the satisfaction of the customers. This communication media and ICT technology also helps the company to take valuable feedback from the customer and also helps the company to meet short term and long term corporate requirements.
|
Sl.No. |
Name of the Author |
Year of Publication |
Journal |
Research Variable |
Research Findings |
|
1 |
Baden, D. and Harwood, I.A |
2013 |
Journal of Business Ethic |
Corporate Responsibility and Sustainability |
CSR is difficult due to lack of consensus on the definitions and usages of terms such as CSR. CSR affects attitudes, values and behavior of the business. It is also found that people, who made unethical decision, analyze all the business language of costs and benefits. |
|
2 |
Baños-Caballero, S., García-Teruel, P.J. and Martínez-Solano, P |
2014 |
Journal of Business Research |
Independent variable: financial constraints Dependent Variable: capital management-firm performance |
The main findings of the research are that more financially constrained companies are likely to have optimal working levels. It has been also found that working capital management is directly proportional to the firm performance. |
|
3 |
Cheung, C.M. and Thadani, D.R |
2012 |
Decision support systems |
Research Variable: electronic word-of-mouth communication |
This research shows that the customer nowadays satisfied through product quality and the business experts also emphasized more on the quality so that the customer themselves can promote their brand through word of mouth. |
|
4 |
Crane, A., Matten, D. and Spence, L |
2013 |
Book |
Research Variable: Corporate social responsibility |
The main actors of the CSR are Shareholders and external stakeholders for the large firms and for the smaller firms, the main actors are owner-manager and employees. The book also represents that the aim of the CSR is building corporate brand and building trust and networks for larger and smaller firms respectively. |
|
5 |
Grissemann, U.S. and Stokburger-Sauer, N.E., 2012 |
2012 |
Tourism Management |
Research Variable: company support, customer satisfaction and co-creation performance |
This report shows that company support is affect the degree of customer co-creation significantly. The company that follows CSR activities positively affects customer satisfaction and can also drive the customer loyalty, and service expenditures. In this approach, the company also brings all their stakeholders together so that effective decisions can be taken. |
|
6 |
Hopkins, M. |
2012 |
Book |
Research Variable: Corporate social responsibility and international development |
Some of the effective CSR approaches are ending poverty. The research also shows the CSR key drivers based on different aspects that are foreign ownership, corporate governance codes, Nascent public interest, global pressure and strong external investor interest. This research also shows that CSR positively builds relationships with host governments and other stakeholders. |
|
7 |
Hopkins, M |
2012 |
Book |
Research Variable: Corporate social responsibility |
It is found that CSR is related with corporate citizenship, business ethics in ethical corporation. The main actors for the implementation of CSR are potential investors, employees, business partners, customers and contractors or suppliers. The prime benefit of the planetary bargain is future prosperity and stability of business. |
|
8 |
Keisidou, E., Sarigiannidis, L., Maditinos, D.I. and Thalassinos, E.I |
2013 |
International Journal of Bank Marketing |
Research variable: Customer satisfaction, loyalty and financial performance |
This research focuses on banking industry and it has been found that customer satisfaction and customer loyalty does not impact the financial performance of banks. The factors that can raise customer satisfaction in banking sector are service quality, image, value and brand credibility |
|
9 |
Ni, A. and Van Wart, M |
2015 |
Research Variable: Corporate social responsibility |
The research shows that CSR is a way of promoting social trends. The CSR also consist of obligations for legal framework and social conventions. This research also shows that the CSR activity is not for altruistic do-gooding but for business prosperity. |
|
|
10 |
O. Pappas, I., G. Pateli, A., N. Giannakos, M. and Chrissikopoulos, V |
2014 |
International Journal of Retail & Distribution Management |
Independent Variable: online shopping experience Dependent Variable: Customer satisfaction and repurchase intentions |
The research found that there is a moderate relationship between performance expectancy and customer satisfaction. The factors that can affect effort expectancy, performance expectancy, self-efficacy and trust. |
The literature presents the conceptual and theoretical analysis of the corporate social responsibilities and customer satisfaction. Despite presenting the concept based analysis, the literature study is quite flawed. It is known to all that the current business world has been changing with the rapid demands of the customers. Therefore, the literature lacks the updated information in respond to the current business practices. On the other hand, the limited resources and time was also the major constraint for this literature study. It only contains the information from the outside sources. However, there is no such method of measuring the authenticity of the information. The lack of appropriate validation is also a gap identified in this literature study. Furthermore, it is noticeable that different countries follow the diverse rule. The literature is focusing on the overall power generating industry instead of concentrating on any specific country. The corporate social responsibility is complied with the laws and regulations that are diverse in nature. Therefore, the study fails to present the idea about the rules and regulations of a specific country. Hence, it can be stated that the literature is quite limited.
The chapter provides the conceptual and theoretical analysis of the corporate social responsibilities and its impact on consumer relationships. It is stated that the proper form of CSR cannot even fully describe the willingness of the business and the functionalities, which are adopted for responding to the social demands. The study explored the in-depth analysis of the procedures maintained by the corporations for strengthening the sustainable position in a competitive landscape. The information derived from the literature study will be aligned to the information derived from the primary data collection process. The use of the appropriate methodology will also be discussed in the further section of the study.
The research process is conducted by depending on the structured and systematic format. It is essential to utilize the appropriate methods for collecting the data from the different sources. The study is based on understanding the impact of the corporate social responsibility on customer satisfaction with the special reference of the power generation and distribution industry in Thailand and Malaysia. The research is based on the mixed method process in which both the primary and secondary research process. The secondary data is collected from different secondary sources, like books, journals, and articles. On the other hand, the primary data collected from conducting the structural survey process. The further study would explain the use of the appropriate philosophy, approach, and techniques, and data collection process for conducting the entire research study.
According to Mackey and Gass (2015), research philosophy is the belief of understanding the data phenomenon, which is needed to be analyzed and used for a research process. The research philosophy is classified into three different types, such as positivism, realism, and interpretivism. The realism and positivism philosophy deal with the extraction of the hidden truth related to the case scenario. On the other hand, the interpretivism philosophy deals with the human interpretation and assumption based explanation. The study has used the positivism philosophy that helped in gathering the responses from the primary sources. The information was quite appropriate for understanding the actual scenario. Hence, the use of the positivism philosophy is quite justified.
Research approach is a procedure and plans that include the steps of broad assumptions to define the subject in a detailed way (Lewis 2015). The research approach is characterized into two sections, such as deductive and inductive approach. The deductive approach depends on the existing theories whereas the inductive approach formulates the new theory. The study explores the idea of the significance of corporate social responsibility by discussing the associated dimensions. The information is mostly generated from the theory based analysis. The ideas are derived from the existing theory due to which the deductive approach is utilized in this study.
The research design is the process of recognizing study type, hypothesis, research problem, and the different variables that are associated with a research study. The research design is classified into three different types, such as exploratory, explanatory, and Descriptive designs. Exploratory design signifies the exploration of the data by gathering them from various sources. The exploratory data discussion includes the existing thesis statement, theories, and the information related to the study (Smith 2015). It sometimes require the external manipulative behavior to make it relevant to the research study. On the other hand, the explanatory design is associated with human interpretations and diverse perspectives. The descriptive research designs presents the data gathered from the survey conducted among the people who have been experiencing the real life scenario. The study is based on the primary survey process and the data gathered from this survey will be interpreted accurately to derive the suitable ideas from the study. Hence, the use of the descriptive approach is appropriate for this specific research.
The study is based on the mixed method process in which both the primary and secondary data is collected. The secondary data is collected from the secondary sources like books, journals, and websites is utilized in the literature section. On the other hand, the primary data collection process is based on the quantitative survey process in which the participants shared their perspectives regarding diverse segments related to the research study. The questionnaires are distributed to the participants through online sources. The collected data is analyzed through using the statistical tools.
The use of the sampling method is necessary for developing the data collection process in a systematic way. The study is mainly based on the quantitative data collection process in which the random answers will be obtained from the participants. Therefore, the study has used the Probability, Simple Random Sampling for gathering the responses. The survey is conducted among 150 participants in Malaysia and Thailand. These people work in different sector and presented their views about the subject. The data obtained from this research will clarify the purpose of the research in a significant way.
The data analysis process must follow a significant and effective process that would create the necessary perceptions about the subject area. This specific research study based on the quantitative survey process, which develops the enriched knowledge about the necessity of the corporate social responsibility. The primary data gathered from the survey process is thus analyzed through using several statistical tools like MS Excel, SPSS, and Google form. The questionnaire include the different questions related to the corporate social responsibility. The respondents were required selecting answers as per their preferences from multiple choices. The information derived from their responses was then analyzed by using these specific tools. The extracted data will be further aligned to the secondary sources to ensure the objectives of the study are met.
Despite conducting the research in a systematic way, there are some flaws in this study were much visible. One of the most observable limitation was the time constraints. The limited time period for conducting the research restricted the information. Moreover, the study is only based on the quantitative data collection process. The lack of the qualitative data limited the study since it did not include the perception of the business managers who have been dealing with the business functionalities on a daily basis. Another visible limitation was the biased responses of the associated participants. It was noticed that many participants stood neutral in selecting the actual responses. This biased response made the study lacked the accurate information. Hence, the research limitations are considered here as the major drawbacks.
Conducting the research study was not an easy procedure. The maintenance of the ethical considerations. During the survey process, it was needed to be ensured that the personal details and names of the participants would be hidden. This rule was strictly followed under the Privacy Act 2000 regulations. In fact, no participants were to be persuaded to answer any questions. They could withdraw their responses at any point of time. The information of the participants gathered from this primary process was strictly prohibited to be shared with other researchers. In the secondary research process, it was necessary to ensure that the information shared through the secondary sources are authentic. The proofs of the authenticity was strictly followed. Considering these ethical concerns, the research study was conducted in a systematic way.
|
Main activities |
1st week |
2nd week |
3rd week |
4th+5th week |
6th week |
7th week |
|
Research Topic |
v |
|||||
|
Literature Review |
v |
|||||
|
Formulation of Research Methodology |
v |
|||||
|
The primary data collecting source |
v |
|||||
|
The analysis process after collecting data |
v |
|||||
|
Finding results |
v |
|||||
|
The conclusions and the recommendation |
v |
|||||
|
Submission of the final work |
v |
Table 3.1 Gantt chart
(Source: Created by the Author)
The chapter develops the understanding of the used methods for this research study. The justification of using the appropriate philosophy, approach, designs, and data collection techniques are explained in this research. The further section of the study will discuss the data gathered from the primary data collection process. With the help of these methodologies, the data will be interpreted.
This chapter represents the findings of the data collected through the survey on 150 participants, belonging to the Power Generation and Distribution Industry of Malaysia and Thailand. The researcher aimed to explore the impact of CSR activities on the customer satisfaction of the industry. Increased customer satisfaction implies greater market share. The researcher collected primary data through a survey. The questionnaire contained two general parts, demographic and non-demographic. There were all close ended questions and the aspects of CSR activities were divided into 5 subparts. The survey questionnaire was made using Google form and it was distributed among the 150 participants through their emails, who were selected randomly. The findings are as below.
Demographic analysis includes the examination of the demographic factors, that is, the socio-economic aspects of the sample. The researcher gathered data on gender, age group, country of residence, education level, and occupation of the participants. These elements are significant to gather an idea about the social and economic background of the respondents.
The researcher had made 5 categories in the age group, and those are 18-25 years, 26 – 35 years, 36 – 45 years, 46 – 55 years and 56 years and above. The age group starts with 18 years as that is the legal age for working. It is seen from the response data that, 46%, that is, 69 participants belonged to the age group of 26 to 35 years, followed by 24.7%, that is, 37 people in the age group of 36 to 45 years.
The research study explored the Power Generation and Distribution Industry of two countries, Malaysia and Thailand. Among the respondents, 80 belonged to Thailand while 70 belonged to Malaysia.
Majority of the respondents (68, that is, 45.3%) hold the Bachelors degree, followed by Masters degree by 54 (36%) participants. Only 12 people held the diploma, and 7 people had secondary education. 9 people had responded with the Others option.
The researcher provided many options to gather the data on the occupation of the participants. These were helpful in having a wide scale idea about the job profile of the respondents. It is observed that, 31 people reported that they are professionals, followed by 28 people working for Distribution Industry, 25 working in the Public Sector, 24 working for the Private Sector. 18 respondents work in the Power Generation Industry. Rest of the respondents fell in different categories, such as, student (9), self-employed (14), and business owner (7). Thus, it can be said that majority of the respondents were salaried individuals working in different sectors and they were assumed to be aware about different aspects of the CSR policies followed in their companies.
Regarding the question on the source of energy used in their companies, it is seen that 48.7% (73) respondents reported that their organizations use Renewable Source of energy, that is, wind power, solar and hydro energy, which is a sustainable energy solutions. 26.7% (40) reported that their companies use Fossil Fuel Energy, that is, coal, oil and natural gas. This is not a sustainable energy source. Lastly, 26%, that is, 39 respondents reported that they are not aware of the energy sources used in their organizations. It can be assumed that, the respondents who are students have responded that they are not aware of the energy source that is used in their organizations.
The researcher considered various non-demographic factors to address the research issue, that is, CSR activities and its impact on the customer satisfaction. Companies often engage in CSR activities but not always the employees are aware about the details of those of impact of those. There are various aspects and types of CSR activities that focus on different areas ad through this study, the researcher addressed those areas. The researcher divided the different categories of actions into 5 categories, namely, Philanthropic Responsibilities, Ethical Responsibilities, Legal Responsibilities, Economic Responsibilities and Customer Satisfaction. The findings are as follows. Charts have been used to describe the pattern of responses regarding different subparts of these responsibilities.
Part A: Philanthropic Responsibilities (Be a good Corporate Citizen)
Philanthropic responsibilities involve activities for the welfare of the communities, such as, fund donations, production activities or services to another organization for a social cause (). For example, when an organization donates money for the development of a school or hospital, it is termed as a philanthropic CSR activity. The corporations often hold charities for donations and measuring their performances compared to their mission. In the given study, the researcher categorized five variables under philanthropic responses and those are
These five variables summarized different types of philanthropic responsibilities of the organizations undertaken as CSR activities. The responses were collected through a five point rating scale against each of these five variables and those are presented below.
It is seen from the above chart that, majority of people reported neutral in the question of whether their organizations are engaged in environmental and climate change issues and whether they consider their employees to be the most valuable asset. In the rest of three questions, people have mostly agreed that, they support environment friendly activities, effective utilization of resources by the companies and they are also aware of the energy issues of the world. Thus, it can be said that, the respondents are mostly aware about the environmental issues and they also support the protection program, however, they are not much aware about how much their organizations are involved in the philanthropic activities.
Part B: Ethical Responsibilities (Be Ethical)
Ethical responsibility under CSR activities refers to the capacity to identify, comprehend, and act upon several values and fundamentals, which are morally correct in a given context (). These responsibilities compel the organizations to act ethically or morally and not do harm to the environment or community while doing business. Ethics are important for creating laws. In other words, ethical responsibilities are those voluntary actions that organizations undertake to encourage and pursue the social objectives by extending the legal responsibilities, even if those are not profitable, but meets expectations of the society. For this study, the researcher again clubbed 5 different variables under the broad heading of Ethical Responsibilities. The variables are:
It is observed that, apart from the variable concerning the security of women employee at night and the opinion regarding the companies doing any harm to the society at any cost, in which the participants mostly expressed neutral opinion, followed by disagreement, in the rest of the variables, the participants have mostly agreed. The respondents reported that their organizations undertake ethical responsibilities, such as, educating the customers about energy usage and savings, implementing strict laws against sexual harassment, and retaliations on open feedback from the employees. Thus, it can be said that according to the participants, the companies usually engage in ethical responsibilities, which is a part of the CSR, however, the nature of activities are different across the organizations and not all companies follow the same ethical responsibilities.
Part C: Legal Responsibilities (Obey the law)
Legal responsibilities are a major part of the CSR activities of an organization. The organizations must follow the legal obligations in all type of activities while running a business. CSR activities also have a legal framework which must be followed. The researcher picked out 5 variables constituting the legal responsibilities aspects of the CSR activities of the organizations. The variables are:
Maximum number of respondents agreed to these variables except for the one that addressed the issue that whether the companies report their CSR activities periodically with their financial statements, in which majority answered neutral. Therefore, it can be said that, according to the respondents, the organizations follow the legal responsibilities.
Part D: Economic responsibilities (Be Profitable)
These responsibilities are always present in the operations of organizations. Profitability is a necessary condition for any organization to sustain in the market. The cost and quality both must be maintained by the organizations while providing the goods and services to the customers at the optimum price. The researcher selected few important economic factors that can influence the CSR activities of the Power Generation and Distribution Industry, and those factors are:
Apart from the variable that the companies provide electricity supply at optimum cost, in all others, the respondents have agreed. The level of neutral response is higher for the third variable due to the fact that not many respondents work in the power generation and distribution companies. Those, who work elsewhere, have provided neutral responses. Thus, it can be said that, majority respondents feel that their organizations fulfil the economical responsibilities.
Part E: Customer Satisfaction
This is the last section of the survey questionnaire that addressed six variables to get information of customer satisfaction. The researcher selected these variables based on the customer satisfaction level provided by the organizations. The selected aspects are:
In all of these, the respondents have mostly agreed, indicating that the organizations put focus on customer satisfaction through CSR activities
Research hypotheses: Outcomes
Philanthropic responsibilities do not have significant impact on the customer satisfaction in Power Generation & Distribution Industry of Malaysia & Thailand
Ethical responsibilities do not have significant impact on the customer satisfaction in Power Generation & Distribution Industry of Malaysia & Thailand
Legal responsibilities do not have significant impact on the customer satisfaction in Power Generation & Distribution Industry of Malaysia & Thailand
Economic responsibilities do not have significant impact on the customer satisfaction in Power Generation & Distribution Industry of Malaysia & Thailand
CSR (Philanthropic, Ethical, Legal and Economic responsibilities) do not have significant impact on the customer satisfaction in Power Generation & Distribution Industry of Malaysia & Thailand
To test these hypotheses, the researcher formulated a liner regression model, where Customer Satisfaction is the dependent variable and Philanthropic, Ethical, Legal and Economic responsibilities are independent variables. Five hypotheses were formulated to test the impact of the individual variables on the dependent variable, that is, customer satisfaction. The regression result is as follows.
|
Model Summary |
||||
|
Model |
R |
R Square |
Adjusted R Square |
Std. Error of the Estimate |
|
1 |
.839a |
.703 |
.695 |
.49557 |
|
a. Predictors: (Constant), Economic, Philanthropic, Ethical, Legal |
It is seen from the above table that, R-Square value is 0.703, which indicates that the model is a good fit to the data. In other words, the model explains 70% of the outcome. The adjusted R-Square value is 0.695, which is very close to R-Square and thus, it also indicates that the model is a good fit.
|
Coefficientsa |
||||||
|
Model |
Unstandardized Coefficients |
Standardized Coefficients |
t |
Sig. |
||
|
B |
Std. Error |
Beta |
||||
|
1 |
(Constant) |
.231 |
.181 |
1.279 |
.203 |
|
|
Philanthropic |
-.080 |
.073 |
-.079 |
-1.096 |
.275 |
|
|
Ethical |
.305 |
.074 |
.307 |
4.141 |
.000 |
|
|
Legal |
.192 |
.076 |
.195 |
2.513 |
.013 |
|
|
Economic |
.489 |
.080 |
.483 |
6.140 |
.000 |
|
|
a. Dependent Variable: Customer Satisfaction |
The above table shows the significance of each of the independent variable in affecting the customer satisfaction in the power generation and distribution industry in Malaysia and Thailand. It is seen that, the p-value at 95% confidence interval is significant for ethical, legal and economic responsibilities under CSR of the organizations. For a null hypothesis to be accepted, the significance value must be greater than the critical value of 0.05. In this case, the significance value is less than 0.05 for the variables concerning ethical, legal and economic responsibilities of the organizations. Only in the case of philanthropic responsibilities, the p-value is greater than 0.05. Thus, it can be said that, the first null hypothesis,H1 is accepted, that is, philanthropic responsibilities do not have significant impact on the customer satisfaction. At the same time, the other variables, that is, ethical, legal and economical responsibilities have a significance value less than 0.05, thus, the second, third and fourth null hypotheses,H2, H3 and H4 are all rejected. In other words, all these three variables have significant impact on the customer satisfaction in the power generation and distribution industry in Malaysia and Thailand.
|
ANOVAa |
||||||
|
Model |
Sum of Squares |
df |
Mean Square |
F |
Sig. |
|
|
1 |
Regression |
84.458 |
4 |
21.114 |
85.974 |
.000b |
|
Residual |
35.611 |
145 |
.246 |
|||
|
Total |
120.068 |
149 |
||||
|
a. Dependent Variable: Customer Satisfaction |
||||||
|
b. Predictors: (Constant), Economic, Philanthropic, Ethical, Legal |
This table shows the overall significance of the model. The fifth hypothesis, that is, H5 is examined through this outcome. It evaluates the combined effect of all the four independent variables on the dependent variable. The overall significance value at 95% confidence interval is 0.000, which is less than the critical value of 0.05. Thus, it can be inferred that the overall model is significant, that is, although, philanthropic responsibilities do not have significant influence on the customer satisfaction, yet, the combined impact of all the other three variables on the customer satisfaction is important. Hence, the fifth hypothesis, H5 is rejected. It can be inferred that the model as a whole is significant. The CSR activities include all these four types of responsibilities and thus, each of the components has significant influence on the customer satisfaction in the Power Industry of Thailand and Malaysia.
The chapter sums up the discussion developed in the previous chapters. The study is based on exploring the impact of corporate social responsibility on customer satisfaction with the special reference of the case scenario of power generation and distribution industry of Thailand and Malaysia. The data gathered from both the primary and secondary data collection process determines that the companies have been securing their competitive position by developing the sound corporate social responsibility. In this chapter the data obtained from the primary source and secondary sources will be aligned to the research objectives. Based on the outcome, the suitable recommendations will also be provided in this chapter. In addition to this, the future scope of the study will be discussed as well.
Objective 1: To explore the conceptual analysis of corporate social responsibility
The first objective of this research was to explore the concept of corporate social responsibility. The idea gathered from the literature review section indicates this corporate social responsibility is a medium for the corporate organisations to strengthen their competitive position by responding to the social and environment needs. The primary data responses also highlighted that the preferences of the customers determine the organizational survival in a competitive landscape. The literature study also explained the dimensions or the crucial areas of the corporate social responsibilities followed by the corporations. Hence, it is noticeable that the objective of exploring the concept of this subject is properly met.
Objective 2: To critically analyze the impact of CSR on customer satisfaction in power generation and distribution industry of Malaysia and Thailand
The next objective of the study indicates the analysis of the CSR impact on the customer satisfaction rate. The obtained idea from the literature study highlights that Implementation of CSR activities allows the customers to know that the companies with which they are associated are careful regarding the progress of the society. An organization can clean the city on their expenses not only to make the city clean but also to collect recycled resources for their next production unit. It is important for the energy sector to develop new ideas and invest a percentage of the annual revenue for research and development team for formulating green power generation. The information received from the primary survey also ensured that the companies often engage in CSR activities but not always the employees are aware about the details of the impact on customer satisfaction rate. Hence, the impact is measured through gathering data from both the primary and the secondary sources. Therefore, it can be stated that the objective in this segment is properly achieved.
Objective 3: To identify the gaps in maintaining the effective corporate social responsibilities for satisfying the customer needs in power generation and distribution industry
The third objective of the study is to recognize the underlying gaps and loopholes in implementing the corporate social responsibilities. The information obtained from the literature study indicates that energy companies are more focused towards communicating their plans and business progress through consume communications networks. However, there is the lack of communication with the higher customer base. This communication gap can be much challenging for the companies to ensure the strengthened customer base. The primary data reports that many of the participants are not even aware of the extra initiatives undertaken by the power generation or distribution companies. It was also stated that every company has to obey some rules and regulations concerning the environment and others and if these regulations are disobeyed, a certain amount has to be pay some penalty. This factor help an organization to illustrate their effectiveness on markets as higher rate of customer satisfaction is directly proportional to effective business performance. Hence, the lack of this communicational transparency is the biggest barrier in such context. The objective of recognizing this gap is thus served in such manner.
Objective 4: To present the preferable recommendations to mitigate the challenges encountered during the establishment of the corporate social responsibility
Observing the above outcomes, the following recommendations will be suitable enough for the company.
The recommendations for the study is presented below:
The information gathered from this study will be utilized as the secondary research sources. This information will be used for conducting the research on similar subject matter. The process and techniques would also strengthen the skills of the future researchers. Moreover, it will develop the enriched knowledge about the corporate social responsibility in the power generation and distribution industry.
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