Rethinking Corporate Social Responsibility
In the past, nongovernmental organizations, government, activists, community leaders, and shareholders have not only set the agenda for corporate social responsibility, but also provided the focal point for an overwhelming majority of other social responsibility studies. This 2006 survey allowed the respondents to start from their own beliefs and volunteer, through open-ended questioning, what matters most to them.
The survey was designed on the premise that the public’s definition of CSR cannot be assumed, and that they would not interpret the phrase “corporate social responsibility” in a uniform way across all demographic groups. The survey interviews began by asking participants to define CSR in their own words. These unbiased responses provided a starting point for discovering the general public’s range of opinions regarding corporate social responsibility.
The survey was also designed to examine the public’s opinions about CSR by asking respondents to prioritize the importance or influence of various CSR-related issues under a variety of circumstances. For instance, they were asked to respond as consumers buying products or as investors buying stock. Participants were also asked to rank the importance of one issue against other issues, in order to identify what matters the most to consumers as they form their opinions of a company’s social responsibility commitment.
