‘To be or not to be?' responsible: Corporate Social Responsibility in customers' perception

Abstract

The purpose of this work is to explore the views of potential customers on Corporate Social Responsibility. The first part of the paper concerns theoretical aspects of the matter. The chapter devoted to present theory, contains Corporate Social Responsibility development, discussion of provided definitions and basic assumptions of the concept. The main element of this work is analysis of survey’s data, gathered from 100 respondents. The expressed opinions were then compared with CSR’s theory. It lead to conclusions which presents community’s understanding of being socially responsible. According to gained information Corporate Social Responsibility, as a new trend in Poland, needs more social and business engagement to teach Polish population what it really is. Respondents considered CSR as a way of raising social welfare and expressed their approval for socially responsible actions. Nevertheless, apart from positive attitude to CSR’s goodwill activities customers are more likely to buy less expensive products from companies which do not act for society. According to respondents’ opinion high quality, as well as low price play the main roles in the process of purchasing goods. CSR activities have rather low influence on customers decisions in Poland. What is more, respondents’ answers showed lack of knowledge of basic assumptions of CSR. CSR may have potentially strong impact on financial characteristics of corporations. It may raise in respondents’ opinion revenue, market share and brand awareness. However, as CSR strategy focuses on improvement of social welfare, corporations should not do it driven by their own benefits.