Professional Documents
Culture Documents
By
Ryan Bowd
July, 2003
DECLARATION
I, Ryan Bowd, have not been a registered candidate for any other award of a university
No material within this dissertation has been used in any other submission for an
academic award.
Ryan Bowd
July, 2003
2
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I would like to thank the Retail Centre in question, its management and staff who were
kind enough to take the time and effort to take part in this study that dealt with a subject
that they recognised the importance of, and where willing to take the risk of being
scrutinised impartially on. I would like to also thank the individual stakeholders of the
I am grateful to Danny Moss, Prof. Richard Thorpe, Dr. Joep Cornillissen, Prof. Ossie
Jones and my colleagues in the MMU Graduate School of Business for their
I would like to give special thanks and recogniztion to my director of studies Dr. Phil
Harris and Judith Bourassa. Also I sincerely thank my business partner Mark Hayward
and Dr. Les Bowd, who in their own special way were the rocks that helped me through
the turbulent times and guided along the path when I veered. The debt I own them is one
I am also grateful to my Mother, Dash and Bebe. Also what would I do without copious
doses of Diet Coke, which gave me a much needed lift at different times.
3
“Put it before them briefly so they will read it, clearly so they will
Joseph Pulitzer
4
ABBREVIATIONS
5
ABSTRACT
Corporate “Social Responsibility [CSR] is neither a fad nor an optional extra. The
contributing to its creation and maintenance. The public increasingly wants to know
about companies that stand behind the brands and products presented to them. And use
their power to reward “good” companies and punish the “bad” ones.” (Lewis, S. 2001)
evident by the fact that most leading public companies include a specific statement on
their CSR policy within their annual reports. Indeed, changing societal expectations,
increasingly intrusive media reporting, and ever more sophisticated and powerful
pressure groups have caused all organisations to consider more carefully their wider
social responsibilities not only out of altruistic reasons, but because of the need to
consider the potential impact of their policies on their wider stakeholder relationships.
Inevitably, the subject of CSR has attracted increasing academic and professional
attention both within general business and communications circles. This burgeoning
interest in it has seen academics, corporate stakeholders and governments all calling on
advocated in the opening quote of the abstract. Proponents of this argue that CSR
orientated organisations benefit from a series of tangible and intangible results, when
Development”, corporations are yet to be sure of the business case. As a result, major
6
initiatives are underway into illustrating this case by the Commission of the European
Communities and the Academy of Business Society. Corporations have reacted to these
calls and this belief in a business case and are implementing CSR programmes or
corporate change to bring about new corporate mindsets, and are in-turn communicating
the results of these programmes. This process of communication is being carried out by
release of British American Tobacco’s CSR Report they are not always effective and
This diversity in methods and what is being communicated, uncertainty of success and
notably failed attempts inspired this author to carry-out a research to examine the
practice for his PhD studies. As a result, for this Master in Research dissertation the
author carries out a pilot research case. This is a study testing the methodology he
intends to use for his main PhD study while examining the effectiveness of the
Chapter 1 of the dissertation introduces the research and sets out the author’s goals and
objectives for the research and the potential significance of the research and its
Chapter 2 reviews the emerging literature on CSR and seeks to tease out the current
temporal definition of Corporate Social Responsibility, which the author believes was
7
an important starting point necessary to achieve the objectives of the research and take
Here the author identifies three predominant schools of thought in respect to CSR and
the contexts they exist within. These are the Bowen School, the Friedman School and
the Commission of the European Communities School. Using the rationale advanced by
the latter school, a definition of CSR blending aspects of all three is advanced and
discussed.
Chapter three examines relevant communications theory and models that will be
necessary to effectively design the research and analyse its findings. Most notably this
communication theory.
Chapter four commences by outlining the research paradigms adopted by the researcher
and which impacted upon the study. Those being working in a mode two knowledge
framework and taking a relativist ethical stance. Following on from this the two-phase
data collection methodology utilised is reviewed: The first gathered the management of
the centre’s viewpoints and beliefs qualitatively, then tested these against that of the
After the review of the methodology, chapter five outlines the findings of the research
in relation to its two phases of data collection and draws out the findings relevant to the
8
Most notably, the research identifies the large degree of symmetry between
Chapter six discusses the findings of the research, draws conclusions, discusses the
limitations of the study as a whole and raises questions for future research.
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CONTENTS
Declaration 2
Acknowledgements 3
Abbreviations 5
Abstract 6
Contents 10
Chapter 1 Introduction 14
3.5 Summary 44
10
4.2 Research Paradigms 46
5.3 Summary 81
6.2 Recommendations 86
Bibliography 90
11
LIST OF FIGURES AND TABLES
of Public Relations
Figure 12 PR Techniques 42
Production of Knowledge’
Social Constructionism
12
Figure 21 Management View of CSR 66
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CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION
within the non-academic world. In the UK, Europe and internationally, CSR has
become a ‘buzzword’ from the boardroom to the living room pushed to the fore by
growing media coverage dealing with such issues as corporate governance and
such as Enron, Marconni and WorldCom have served to focus attention on the often
the UK, US, France and Germany by international communications specialists Echo
Research found that from 2000 to 2001 media coverage dealing with CSR increased by
52% from 377 articles to 573 articles. From 2001 to 2002 the increase was a further
407%. The number of articles published jump to 2,906. (Echo Research. 2003)
Professionally, this rise in awareness of the term CSR has created a new ‘fashion’ in
business management. (Jackson, B. 2001. This is namely that of making business policy
and strategy decisions and communicating them under the heading of CSR in order to
be seen to be one of Lewis’s ‘good’ companies and not be punished by the ‘public’ or
14
This new management fashion has seen most leading public companies include a
specific statement on their CSR policy within their annual reports and undertake CSR
initiatives and communications programmes. Activities which are being driven and
This growth of professional attention to CSR has been mirrored in a growth in the
academic literature on the subject. Here, for example, citation index reviews of three of
the UK’s leading online databases show a marked increase in the number of articles
1600
1400
1200
1000
Emerald Fulltext
800 Proquest
ScienceDirect
600
400
200
0
>1980<198 >1985<199 >1990<199 >1995<200 >2000 -
5 0 5 0 March 2003
Emerald Fulltext 1 3 10 10
ScienceDirect 3 3 5 10 17
15
While there is some concern that this explosion of literature represents an unstructured
literature on CSR has evolved in logical and deliberate patterns and given rise to a
A subject which, has seen many academics, corporate stakeholders and government
calling on large and small corporations to adopt CSR orientated approaches to business,
this argue that CSR orientated organisations benefit from a series of tangible and
intangible results, when stakeholders are informed of their orientation. (Bergen, J. 2000;
Black et al. 2000; Burke, L & Logson, M. 1996; FTSE4GOOD. 2002; Key, S. &
business case. As a result, major initiatives are underway into illustrating this case by
the Commission of the European Communities and the Academy of Business Society.
Communities. 2001; Cowe, R. 2002) Corporations have reacted to these calls and this
belief in a business case and they are implementing CSR programmes or corporate
change to bring about new corporate mindsets. They are also in-turn communicating the
results of these programmes. This process of the communication is being carried out
16
communicate with the various stakeholders of the organisation. (Esrock, S. & Leichty,
B.1998; Lewis, L. & Inermant, J. 1999) However, as demonstrated by the recent release
of British American Tobacco’s CSR Report, these methods are not always effective and
This diversity in methods and what is being communicated, uncertainty of success and
notably failed attempts inspired this author to carry-out research to examine the
“practice” for his PhD studies. As a result, for this Master in Research dissertation, the
author carried out a pilot research case study testing the methodology he intends to use
for his main PhD study while examining the effectiveness of the communication of
England.
To tackle this a set of research aims and objectives were drawn up to focus the research
project.
Research Aims
1) Assess the current definition and usage of the term Corporate Social Responsibility.
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4) Assess the effectiveness of CSR communications at a major UK retail centre based
in the NW of England.
5) Explore the tangible and intangible business outcomes generated by corporate social
Research Objectives
literature.
area of research
4) Develop a research methodology to examine and conduct a case study to test the
These aims and objectives aim to contribute significantly to the knowledge on the
(Britannica World Language Dictionary, 1961) The importance of this contribution will
be three-fold.
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Firstly, the work is testing a new novel research methodology for the examination of
underpin further research by the author at the PhD level and could be used by other
researchers in the area of communications for the examination of new areas of practice
Secondly, the second aim of the research is to generate a novel definition of CSR that
will strive to overcome the vagueness and ambiguity of the term CSR that Frankental
Thirdly, the exploratory case study of the major UK retail centre’s CSR
this case contribution and its descriptive nature will be intrinsically linked to context it
In order to make such contributions the research project, as outlined in chapter four, will
require a literature examination as to what exactly is the concept of CSR and what are
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CHAPTER 2 LITERATURE REVIEW: CORPORATE
SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY
a subject that has evolved in logical and deliberate patterns and given rise to a clearly
context, to have originated in Howard Bowen’s 1953 text, the ‘Social Responsibilities
of the Businessman’. (Warren, R. 2000: 80-81, Balabanis et al. 1998: 25, Whetten et al.
2002:375, Phillips, R. & Claus, S. 2002, Cowe, R. 2002) Bowen advocated that CSR
follow those lines of actions which are desirable in terms of objectives and values of
practice, make up only part of what has been described by Carroll and Pinkston as an
(Pinkston, T. & Carroll, A. 1996: 199) This is a view echoed by Frankental, who stated
that with CSR’s nearly endless range of definitions and manifestations that it was a
“vague and intangible term, which can mean anything to anybody.” (Frankental, P.
2001: 20)
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In an attempt to bring clarity to this debate and provide typologies for defining CSR and
models for its manifestation existing literatures from the fields of management,
communications, accounting and corporate social responsibility, amongst other sources
were reviewed.
Three distinct ‘schools’ of thought that existing definitions and literatures on CSR can
be perceived to fit into are discussed. The first two schools, the ‘Bowen’ and
‘Friedman’ schools, are in complete contrast and this contrasting categorisation of the
schools’ polarized views of CSR is ever present in the literature. (Hemphil, T. 1997,
Carroll, A: 1999, Demosthenous, M: 2001) These schools are founded in the seminal
texts of the authors for which they have been named, and it is from these texts that the
discussion of the literature and definition of CSR will commence. The third and
emergent school of thought, the “Commission of the European Communities” school of
thought encompasses literature that moderates the polarisation of the other schools. This
school’s name has been taken from the organisation, which recently, in the European
context, has been its largest practical proponent. (Commission of the European
Communities. 2002) (Commission of the European Communities. 2001)
This quote effectively summarizes Howard Bowen’s seminal view, espoused in his
1953 text ”Social Responsibilities of the Businessman”, in which he proposed that
business, by its existence, had a responsibility to society. Academics believed that this
view stemmed from the fact that at the time, and into the 1960s and 1970s, business was
perceived to be enjoying unprecedented levels of power while exercising little social
responsibility. (Wood, D. 1990: Eberstadt, N. 1997) Operating in what Harvey terms
the ‘Fordist’ period of mass consumption, when little attention was paid by the ‘public’
to the actions of corporations. (Harvey, D. 1990) However, the origins of this school of
thought, in relation to CSR, appear to have evolved much further back in time. Arthur
Page, who joined the American Telecommunications Company AT&T in 1927, as a
21
vice-president, advocated that; “All business in a democratic country begins with the
publics permission and exists by public approval.” (Griswold, G. 1967)
Although not specifically under the guise of CSR, a precursor to this was the view of
the English businessman Oliver Sheldon who in 1923, according to Wren (1979),
suggested that managers needed to adopt three societal standpoints:“1). “That the
policies, conditions, and methods of industry shall conduce to communal wellbeing”. 2)
That “management shall endeavour to interpret the highest moral sanction of the
community as a whole in applying social justice to industrial practice;” and (3) that
“management take the initiative in raising the general ethical standard and conception of
social justice.” (Wren, D.1979: 207)
These writings helped form the foundation of what is known as the ‘Bowen School’ of
CSR thought. (Davis, K. 1967: Preston & Post. 1975) They introduced into the model
and the definition of CSR concepts of businesses’ responsibility to serve society in a
pro-active manner. In the case of Page, CSR can be interpreted to be an implied social
contract in which business is accountable to society’s expectations or demands.
Despite the pioneering work of these authors, it was not until 1979 that Archie Carroll
developed what can be considered to be the pre-eminent model and definition of CSR in
the Bowen school of thought. (Wood, D. 1990: Eberstadt, n. 1997: Whetten et al. 2002:
Phillips, R. & Claus, S. 2002) Carroll, building on the works of Preston & Post (1975),
Sethi (1975) amongst others, proposed a conceptual model of CSR based on four
categories of social responsibilities, economic, legal, ethical and discretionary. (Carroll,
1979: Sethi, P. 1975: Davis, K. 1967): Economic responsibilities being to produce
products and services that society wants and to sell them at a profit. Legal
responsibilities refers to an obligation to fulfil not only an implied societal contract, as
Page eluded to, but also a formal contract with society, that being to obey the laws and
rules applied by the state. Carroll referred to ‘Ethical’ responsibilities as businesses’
obligation to satisfy society’s expectations of business to go beyond basic legal
requirements. This was an area of responsibility that Carroll perceived to be increasing
in prominence as the demands of society on business increased. The fourth category
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proposed by Carroll was ‘discretionary’ responsibilities, being those responsibilities that
go beyond society’s expectations or requests. Phillips and Claus (2000) refer to
Carroll’s categories as a levels approach to CSR, although they combine economic and
legal responsibilities into one category. (2002)
Across these levels of CSR, Carroll’s model included an examination of the ‘social
issues involved’, which at the time he listed as being consumerism, environment,
discrimination, product safety, occupational safety and shareholders. The model, which
could also serve as a practical evaluation tool for measuring corporate social
responsiveness, gauged whether an organisation’s philosophical approach to these
issues, across the categories, was taken in a reactionary, defensive, accommodating or
proactive manner. (Carroll, A. 1979) With specific respect to CSR, Carroll alluded in
his 1979 paper and advocated in later papers that a pro-active approach should be taken
in its manifestation. (Carroll, A. 1979: Pinkerston & Carroll. 1996)
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Figure 2 Carroll’s Model of Corporate Social Responsiveness
Proactive
Accommodating
Defensive
Reactive
Discretionary
Ethical
Legal
Economic
Carroll’s levels of responsibility model has been built upon and forms the pillar of
further additions to the Bowen School of CSR thought. (Lantos, G. 2001) Additionally,
research carried out by Pinkerston and Carroll in 1996 and Maignan in 2000 showed the
model and its principle levels of responsibilities to still be relevant. (Maignan, I. 2000)
This validation aside, Donna Wood in 1991 drawing from Carroll and the Bowen school
of CSR presented a modernised view of corporate social performance in which she
broke responsibilities into three levels, “Institutional, Organizational and Individual”.
(Wood, D. 1991) These are levels at which organisations conduct environmental
assessments, issue management and stakeholder management in line with the
organisation’s philosophical approach to corporate social responsiveness and
demonstrate it with behaviour in the form of social impacts, programs and policies.
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This levels of corporate social responsibility sub-school of the Bowen school of
corporate social responsibility, though prolific, has yet to gain the greatest share of
voice in the Bowen School. Academics and professionals view it to be an overly
altruistic model, because it’s proponents argued that organisations should aim for
Carroll’s discretionary level in their practice of corporate social responsibility. (Lantos,
G. 2001)
The underpinning of this sub-school was Edward Freeman’s 1984 text “Strategic
Management: A Stakeholder Approach.” (Freeman, E. 1984) Freeman’s model of CSR
argued that firms have relationships with numerous stakeholders, all of which, “affect
and are affected by the firms actions”. Freeman’s standpoint was in clear opposition to
Friedman’s uni-stakeholder model, which will be discussed later. Freeman articulated
that the economic system had clearly shifted to a ‘post-Fordist’ period, where the
actions of corporations were beginning to be scrutinized by the ‘public’. (Harvey, D.
1990) Freeman’s stakeholders were defined as “any group or individual who can affect
or is affected by the achievement of the organisation’s objectives”. (Freeman, E. 1984:
p.46) Freeman divided stakeholders into six distinct categories, owners, employees,
customers, suppliers, communities and governments, which have varying
responsibilities or ‘social contracts’. He, and others authors, then argued that these
stakeholders are then addressed by the firm at differing levels depending on
organizational objectives. (Freeman, E. 1984: Phillips, R. & Claus, S. 2002: Key, S. &
Popkin, S. 1998: Boehm, A. 2002)
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The stakeholder approach and levels sub-schools of the Bowen School of thought, in
their initial manifestations, were concerned with defining the construct of CSR.
However, as academic thought progressed with respect to each standpoint, moves to
measure and quantify the manifestations and effects of corporate social responsibility in
the sub-schools were undertaken. These attempts, as they progressed, created a new
construct or paradigm of thought identified as corporate social performance (CSP)
CSP, as with CSR, is rooted in the original underpinning philosophy of the Bowen
School reviewed previously. However, its controversial differentiation is based on CSP
being the outcomes of corporate behaviour. (Carroll, A. 1999) (Phillips, R. & Claus, S.
2002) In this respect, in the CSP literature, CSR is a principle, definition or mindset
adopted by an organisation, as opposed to an outcome.
CSP as a construct finds it modern origins in Sethi’s, 1975 article, “Dimensions of
Corporate Social Performance: An Analytic Framework,” in which the author proposes
a three-dimensional model of CSP. (Sethi, P. 1975) His three dimensions include ‘social
obligation’, which is the prescriptive dimension. An interpretation of this could be that
this dimension is the explicit aspect of CSR’s social contract such as legal and statutory
obligations. The remaining dimensions of Sethi’s model, ‘responsiveness’, which he
defines as the anticipatory dimension, and ‘preventative’, form the implicit aspects of
the social contract.
Furthering the work of Sethi and developing a more comprehensive, and functional
model of CSP, is Woods three-dimensional model of CSP based on the three
aforementioned dimensions of CSR introduced in the discussion of the levels sub-
school; Institutional, Organisational and Individual. (Wood, D. 1991; Whetten et al.
2000; Carroll, 1991: A) The author also refers to these as; Social Legitimacy
(Institutional), Public Responsibility (Organisational), and Managerial Discretion
(Individual).
Using these three principles of CSR in the CSP context, Wood’s model then sets out the
manifestations of CSP across Carroll’s four level of CSR. CSP manifestations, which
include quality of product or service of the organisation, economic contribution,
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approach to legal policies and regulations such as environmental, health and safety and
work policies, communication to stakeholders and level of corporate
citizenship/philanthropy.
Figure 3 Woods Model of CSP
CSR PRINCIPLES
Domains Social Legitimacy Public Responsibility Managerial Discretion
Economic Produce goods and Price goods and services Produce ecologically
services, provide jobs, to reflect true production sound products, use
create wealth for costs by incorporating low-polluting
shareholders. all externalities. technologies, cut costs
with recycling.
Legal Obey laws and Work for public policies Take advantage of
regulations. Don’t lobby representing enlightened regulatory requirements
for or expect privileged self-interest. to innovate in products
positions in public or technologies.
policy.
Ethical Follow fundamental Provide full and Target product use of
ethical principles. (E.g. accurate product information to specific
honesty in product information, too markets. (e.g. children,
labelling) enhance user safety foreign speakers) and
beyond legal promote as a product
requirements. advantage.
Discretionary Act as a good citizen in Invest the firm’s Choose charitable
all matters beyond law charitable resources in investment that actually
and ethical rules. Return social problems related pays off in social
a portion of revenues to to the firm’s primary problem solving. (i.e.,
the community. and secondary apply an effectiveness
involvement society. criterion.)
(Wood 1991: 710)
CSP, Stakeholder and Levels sub-schools form the three predominant, areas of the
‘Bowen School of Thought’ of corporate social responsibility. Despite differences they
all agree that CSR is a core business principle and activity that involves multiple
stakeholders and can manifest itself at multiple levels across an organisation. At each
level the organisation will be asked to meet legal and statutory requirements of society
as well as exceeding these requirements to meet society’s implicit demands.
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2.1.2 Friedman School
In contrast to the Bowen School, the Friedman School of thought provides an extremely
polarised view of CSR. This polarisation is made evident by the following statement
from one of school’s seminal texts;
“Few trends could so thoroughly undermine the very foundations of our free society as
the acceptance by corporate officials of a social responsibility other than to make as
much money as possible for their stockholders.” (Friedman, M. 1962)
This view, that the only responsibility of business is to make money for its owners,
forms the basis for this ‘Friedman School of CSR Thought’. Although the school has
few recent proponents advocating its adoption, it is prolifically debated and referenced
in the academic writing on CSR. (Lantos, G. 2001; Warren, R. 2000: 80-81, Balabanis
et al. 1998: 25, Whetten et al. 2002:375, Phillips, R. & Claus, S. 2002) Furthermore,
and similarly to the Bowen school, the Friedman school can trace its origins back to
long before the authoring of the seminal piece for which it has been named. One such
example that Wren points to, is that of the 1883 legal case of Hutton v. West Cork
Railway in Britain. (Wren, D. 1979: 109) The case dealt with the subject of corporate
philanthropy and the court ruled that “that the corporation existed only as a profit-
making enterprise whose purpose was the equitable distribution of its earning to its
owners, the stockholders”. (Wren, D. 1979)
Within the Friedman school of thought, George Lantos inferred two main sub-schools in
his 2001 article, the constrained profit making and the pure profit-making schools.
(Lantos, G. 2001)
The constrained profit making view of CSR is that advocated by Milton Friedman
himself, in his 1962 text and 1970 article. Friedman argued that business's
responsibility is to conduct itself in accordance with the desires of its owners, which, he
stated, was generally the generation of profit. (Friedman, M. 1970) Furthermore, that
this generation of profit could be done by any legal, honest and ethical manner needed
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to achieve the objective. Friedman argued that the altruism being advocated by Bowen
was the responsibility of government, the social welfare system and individuals.
(Friedman, M. 1962; Friedman, M. 1970)
While the Friedman stance is the predominant and most referenced view that forms this
school of thought, it is not the most recent paradigm presented in the school. As can be
seen below, the pure profit sub-school is a much more extreme expression of
Friedman’s views.
Working from Friedman’s initial standpoint, Albert Carr in 1968 argued a model of
CSR, which advocated that business's responsibility was to generate a profit at any cost.
2002) Carr argued that business could operate outside even the minimal amount of
moral standard implied by Friedman. This implies a situation in which business should
only obey the law and where possible attempt to influence the law for its own desires.
In stark contrast to the Bowen School, these positions give rise to a construct of CSR
that is only concerned with addressing the owner(s), as the principal and sole
stakeholder. Furthermore, it is a construct, which manifests itself and is evaluated only
by the generation of profit.
This third and most recent school of thought that is emerging in the current literature on
CSR provides a moderating view of the two previous schools. (Commission of the
European Communities 2001; Commission of the European Communities 2002;
Balabanis et al. 1998; Burke, L & Logson, M. 1996; Key, S & Popkin, S. 1998; Murray,
29
K. & Vogel, M. 1997; Bennett, R. 1997) This school argues that CSR, as reflected in
the ‘Bowen School of Thought’s’ philosophy, can generate increased profit as argued as
the sole purpose of business in the ‘Friedman School of Thought’. Key and Popkin
simply phrased it as “doing well by doing good”. (1998)
Key and Popkin (1998) and Burke and Logsdon (1996) advocate that this is
accomplished by reorienting CSR, from achieving an altruistic level or stakeholder
relationship, to a strategic function in which the levels or relationships selected are tied
to individual organisational goals. In general, their goals involve increasing profit or
strengthening intangible assets such as reputation or brands. (Burke, L & Logson, M.
1996; Key, S & Popkin, S. 1998) (Fombrum, C. & Gardberg, N. 2000)
This third school of thought, linking the two other predominant schools of thought,
states that CSR strategically used with ‘stakeholders’ at all ‘levels’ can generate,
ideally, a measurable increase in ‘profit’ or achievement of organisational objectives.
Therefore, more appropriately this amalgamation could be referred to as ‘Neo-Friedman
School of Thought for CSR.
If one accepts the moderating view incorporating elements of the Bowen and Friedman
Schools of thought, then it can be proposed that corporate social responsibility be
defined in the ‘Neo-Friedman School’ as;
CSR is; Corporations’ being held accountable by explicit or inferred social contract
with internal and external stakeholders, obeying the laws and regulations of
30
government and operating in an ethical manner which exceeds statutory requirements.
This “ethical manner” is placed at the core of the entity’s strategy, exemplified by
proactive community involvement, philanthropy, corporate governance, corporate
citizenship, addressing of social issues, a commitment to the quality of its products and
services, human rights, health, safety and the environment and its staff. An
accountability, which its strategy, aims, principles and manifestations are measurable
and audited, the results of which are communicated to the corporation’s audiences
(stakeholders). While all the time this accountability should ensure a continual
emphasis on generating growth, revenue and profit for the corporate entity and its
shareholders/owners, facilitating this process either directly or through positive effects
on the entity’s intangible assets, such as brands and reputation.
This definition is derived from Page’s view of a social contract, incorporates Carroll’s
levels of CSR with Wood’s manifestations of corporate social performance across
Freeman’s stakeholders, with Friedman profit generation model and the perceived
potential benefits of CSR advocated by the ‘CEC School’. Furthermore, incorporated
into the definition are the manifestations of corporate governance and addressing social
issues drawn from a review of 2001 financial year corporate reporting of CSR activities
in 31 ‘Financial Times Top 100 Index’ companies. (Appendix F)
The synthesised definition derived from the literature of CSR will be utilised further on
in this paper to assist in the examination of the aims and objectives of the research
project as outlined in Chapter one. The definition will be coupled with the findings of
the literature review of communications theory, models and techniques in the following
chapter.
31
CHAPTER 3 COMMUNICATIONS (PUBLIC RELATIONS)
In examining the concept of CSR and the schools of CSR thought, chapter 2 provides
part of the framework essential for examining the research aims. However, prior to
investigating the topic of research, a review of communications literature, its
development, theory, models and techniques and its relation to CSR is required.
In Warnaby and Moss’s 1997 text reference is made to Harlow’s 1976 study examining
the term public relations where in a study of five hundred definitions he found that they
shared many commonalties. (Harlow, R. 1976) They can be summarised into a single
definition which sees PR being “concerned with establishing and maintaining mutual
32
understanding between organisations and their publics, serves as an intelligent function,
analyzing and interpreting trends and issues in the environment that may have potential
consequences for an organisation and its stakeholders, is concerned with assisting
organisations to both formulate and achieve socially acceptable goals and is a
communications function, where there is an emphasis on the two-way
communications.” (Warnaby, G. & Moss, D. 1997:8)
More recently the American academics, Grunig & Hunt in their 1984 text “Managing
Public Relations” suggest that public relations is defined as the “The management of
communications between an organisation and its publics.” Whilst in the United
Kingdom, the Institute of Public Relations (IPR) in a 1987 definition stated that:
“Public Relations is the planned and sustained effort to establish and maintain goodwill
and understanding between an organisation and its publics.” (Taken from Harrison, S.
1995:2)
The Public Relations Society of America (PRSA) proposed in it’s definition that:
“Public relations helps an organisation and its publics to adapt mutually to each other.
Public relations is an organisation’s effort to win the co-operation of groups of people.
Public relations helps organisations effectively interact and communicate with their key
publics.” (Taken from White, J. 1991:3)
However, this approach to the practice of public relations however is not a new
phenomenon.
Communications or public relations have been practiced for centuries with organisations
finding ways of “relating to their publics”. (Clark, R. 2000) For evidence of this
33
Harrison states that “Charles Dickens refers to a magazine edited by cotton workers in
New England (United States) in the late 1840’s” as well as the “Lever Brothers and the
Manchester Co-operative Society in England published an employee journal over a
hundred years ago.” (Harrison, S. 1995:13)
Within the American context, Grunig and Hunt provide a historical framework for the
development of public relations, which they categorise in five stages. (Grunig, J. &
Hunt, T. 1984)
Figure 4: Grunig and Hunt’s Five Stages of the Development of Public Relations
34
These evolutionary stages of PR see public relations share some resemblance to the
different schools of CSR thought. “The Public be Fooled” and “Propaganda and
Persuasion,” characterised by “press agentry” and overt public deception in
communications to achieve ‘corporate’ or business objectives, share similarities with
the “Constrained Profit” sub-school of the Friedman School of Thought. (Grunig, J. &
Hunt, T. 1984) ‘The Public Be Damned,’ with its view that the public could be ignored
and not communicated to or with, shares great similarities with the ‘Pure-Profit’ sub-
schools of the Friedman School of CSR thought.
The “Public Information” and “Public Understanding” phases, with their characteristics
of open honest communications and listening to the desires of stakeholders in order to
achieve their goals, bares great semblance to the Neo-Friedman school of thought. Both
in terms of rationale and also in fact, the current definition of public relations sitting in
the “Public Understanding” phase and the Neo-Friedman viewpoint of CSR are both
current manifestations of thinking in their respective areas.
In parallel with the evolution of the concept of public relations, a rich body of theory
and models of communications has developed.
Communications theories and models that deal with the types of communications,
planning of communication activities, and communication with stakeholders are
reviewed in the following section. This researcher believes that a theoretical
understanding will be essential in examining the aims of this research, specifically aims
four and five.
Models of Communications
35
Figure 5: Shannon and Weaver’s Model of Communication
Receiver
Medium
Sender
Noise
Feedback
(Shannon, C. & Weaver, W. 1948)
Shannon and Weaver’s model illustrates that at its essence communications is a process
during which one party, the sender, determines what it wants to communicate, the
“message” encodes it in some verbal, visual or textual way such as written English and
communicates it via a desired technique or medium. (Harrison, S. 1995; Stone, N. 1995,
Hunt, T. & Grunig, J. 1994) The receiver then decodes or interprets what is
communicated according to their specific thought processes and knowledge and may
then feedback to the sender, creating a two-way communication process, rather than a
one-way process. Throughout this whole process, Shannon and Weaver indicate that the
process may be affected by noise or Kotler’s barriers to communications, which they
define as any interference which may result in a distortion of the message which the
sender aimed to communicate, that effective communication must overcome.
36
Figure 6: Types of Noise
Types of Noise Characteristics
Channel Noise Physical Interference, such as background sounds,
not enough light, physical distractions
Physiological Noise Underlying elements in the relationship between
the sender and receiver that cause
misinterpretation, manifested in things such as
body language.
Language Noise Is noise resulting from a mis-match in code
between the sender and receiver. This could be
different languages, slang or terminology
(Extrapolated from Harrison, S. 1995)
As well as eight barriers to communications which include the sender and receiver’s
“fields of experience, value judgements, mismatching” of medium
choice/appropriateness, “language problems, selectivity” of the receivers attention,
distortion and recall, status differences, time constraints and overload’ of information.
(Harrison, S. 1995: 33)
Although not specific to public relations, the aforementioned model highlights several
key theoretical concepts to be aware of with regards to communications.
Within the context of public relations, Grunig and Hunt’s four models of
communications is by far the most influential work for examining public relations
communications. Grunig and Hunt outline two one-way models of communications,
“Press Agentry and Public Information” and two two-way models, “Two-way
Asymmetrical and Two-way Symmetrical”. For each they define the purpose of the
communication, the form of communication incorporating Shannon and Weaver is
source receiver model and the use of research. (Grunig, J. & Hunt, T. 1984) From the
literature we see that the use of research can occur prior to the development of message
and post the communication of message to evaluate effectiveness.
37
Figure 7: Grunig and Hunt’s Models of Public Relations
Like the phases of public relations, these models of communication, have some
similarities to the schools of CSR, with the purpose of the two-way symmetrical model
sharing commonalties with the Bowen School of thought in purpose. Like Bowen,
Grunig and Grunig argued that public relations should aim to be practiced in the most
ethical and effective way. (Grunig, J. & Grunig, L. 1992) This model of communication
aims to create a balanced effect for both the sender and receiver.
The two-way asymmetrical model, which Grunig and Grunig refer to as the normative
theory of public relations communications, can be seen to be relevant to the Neo-
Friedman school of thought. Here communication seeks to primarily assist in the
achievement of organisational goals, using two-way channels to persuade others to do
what is needed to achieve the desired organisational result.
38
Planning Communications Programmes
Moss’s framework is congruent with those proposed by many notable authors in the
area of public relations. (Stone, N. 1995, Harrison, S. 1995 and Hunt, T. & Grunig, J.
1994)
39
Stakeholder Theory
Though not broken down into broad groups Stone provides a more comprehensive list
of stakeholders. (Stone, N. 1995) (Figure 10)
40
• Debenture • Front-of- • Overseas • Sponsors
Holders House Staff Visitors • Statisticians
• Decision • Fundraisers • Owners • Statutory
Making Units • Government • Politicians Bodies
• Directors of Officials • Predators • Stockbrokers
Associated • ‘Greens’ • Pressure • Sub-contactors
Companies • Householders Groups • Subscribers
• Educators • Industry • Price Control • Suppliers
• Employees Organisations Bodies • Tax
• Employers’ • Investors • Professional Authorities
Organisations • Job Seekers Institutes • Tax Payers
• Environmental • Legislators • Protectionists • Trade
ists • Lenders • Regulatory Associations
• Ethnic • Lobbyists Bodies • Trade Unions
Minorities • Local • Retailers • Translators
• Experts Community • Retired People • Visitors
• Families of • Managers • Salesforce • Voters
Employees • Marketing • Schoolchildren • Wholesalers
• Finance Department • Shippers • X-Group
Providers • Media • Shopfloor (previous
• Financial • Motorists Workers stakeholders)\
Journalists • Neighbours • Specifiers • Etc..
• Sponsees
(Stone, N. 1995: 20)
Stone’s extensive list exemplifies the vastness of stakeholders that an organisation has,
as well as that divergent nomenclature which may exist for defining them. Stone refers
to “front of house staff” and one would expect him to therefore refer to ‘back of house
staff’ a common description used, however he refers to ‘shopfloor workers’.
41
Figure 11: Stakeholder Classes
Dormant
stakeholder Dominant
POWER stakeholder Discretionary
stakeholder LEGITIMACY
Definitive
stakeholder
Dangerous Dependent
stakeholder stakeholder
Non-stakeholder
Demanding
stakeholder
URGENCY
A review of Harrison’s and Grunig and Hunt’s texts draws out a list of numerous and
varying techniques, which include: (Harrison, S. 1995; Hunt, T. & Grunig, J. 1994)
Figure 12: PR Techniques
Annual Reports Investor Relations Staff Communications
Community Relations Launches Staff Groups
Conferences Letters Staff Induction Pack
Corporate Advertising Media Relations Staff Meetings
Current Technology Memos Staff Secondments
Direct Mail Minutes Suggestion Schemes
Displays News Releases Tele-conferencing
Email Newsletters Television
Equipment Donations Notice Boards Training Projects
Exhibitions Open Days Training Updates and
Feature Stories Oral Communications Calendar
Grants Pay Inserts Video Bulletins
Hotlines Press Kits Video-conferencing
House Journals and Profit Report Visitor Centre
Magazines Radio Walking the Job
Index of Services Social Policy Written Communications
Individual Briefings Sponsorship
Internet Staff Annual Reports
(Harrison, S. 1995; Hunt, T. & Grunig, J. 1994)
42
These varying techniques can be broken into the over-arching groups of practice of
media relations, corporate and financial relations, government relations, employee
relations, community relations and consumer relations, which are believed to be the
most effective for communication with their relevant stakeholders and alleviating noise.
(Stone, N. 1995) These headings are similar to the overarching themes in the Neo-
Friedman school of CSR thought, and therefore present the opportunity that a wide
range of these techniques could possibly be used in the communications of CSR.
Guthrie and Parker point to “Annual Reports” as being the primary method by which
CSR is currently being communicated by organisations. (Guthrie, J. & Parker, L. 1990)
They point to organisations communicating about their CSR activities in terms of the
themes of “Environment, Energy, Human Resources, products and Community
Involvement amongst others”. (Guthrie, J. & Parker, L. 1990)
However, if one accepts the seminal public relations author Edward Bernay’s comment
in Grunig and Hunt that “public relations is the practice of social responsibility” then all
communications carried out are CSR communications. (Grunig, J. & Hunt, T. 1984:48)
However, even with the similarities between CSR and public relations, the
organisational/operational implications of CSR make this statement’s relevance
doubtful.
A desk review of company materials has highlighted that CSR communications can also
be found in specific CSR reports, consumer brochures and Internet sites amongst others
dealing with all the varying themes found in the definition of CSR presented in the Neo-
Friedman school of thought in chapter two.
43
Figure 13: Examples of CSR Communications
The previous review of public relations literature provides us with a framework that will
later be utilised for evaluating aims four and five of the research. It highlights that
communications can occur in several ways, and that effective communications is
planned and has objectives that relate to those of the organisation as a whole. It also
introduces that communications involve accurate stakeholder selection and can utilise
varying techniques. What techniques are used and most effective for the
communications it leaves as a question to be answered. Furthermore, it introduces that
communications effectiveness should be tested through measurement and planning.
44
CHAPTER 4 RESEARCH METHODOGY
combination of:
This research possesses facets of all of Greenfield’s purposes of research, baring the
last. The research has and does play an integral part in the completion of the Mres
qualification that is essential to enable the researcher to carry-on with the PhD course
being pursued.
It has been a quest for knowledge, and interesting experience that has and will continue
to be an integral part of the researcher’s lifestyle. The process will hopefully open up
Furthermore, it is hoped that this research has been a useful experience as a result of the
exploration of the research question and the aims and objectives of this research as
outlined in chapter one. Making a contribution to human life, because this research
document provides the reader with insight from the review of the literature and the
research findings and conclusions provide him with new knowledge and understanding.
45
In order to achieve these broad research goals a project was undertaken as outlined later
in this chapter. It was designed to address the aims of the research and account for the
ethics.
The following section examines existing research paradigms, and outlines those stances
that the author used to focus his research by starting with the approach to knowledge
selected.
Knowledge like all things of human creation is produced. In the academic sense in
management or business research, which this research and its subject dealing with the
corporate world is part of, leading research methodology texts state that it is created
utilising various methods, ontologies and epistemologies. (Crotty, M. 1998; Easterby-
Smith et al. 2002; Foucault, M. 1972 Greenfield, T. 1996; Popper, K. 1972; Remenyi et
al. 1998) However, with all the variety of choice in respect to the aforementioned, these
texts suggest that most knowledge is produced in one traditional manner. Gibbons et al.
refer to this as “mode one knowledge production”. (Gibbons et al. 1994)
“Mode one research” is viewed as a “traditional mode of research.” It was born out of
the Carnegie and Ford reports of the post-war era in the US. A mode characterised by “
a series of 1960’s journals whose aim was to cater for knowledge producers rather than
lay practitioners and represent the growth of reputational systems of work organisation
and control in management studies”, and has been predominant in management research
for the last forty years. (Whitley, R. 1984: 334)
Mode one research is largely academic, conducted mainly within academic institutions
on subjects specific to the individual disciplinary fields in which the academic
researcher(s) expertise lies in a manner which is perceived to be as objectively detached
46
from the subject as possible. Its aim is to contribute primarily to academic knowledge
and understanding and for this knowledge to then, over time, seep into application
thorough practitioner interpretation.
“Mode 2 research is not a replacement for mode 1 research only an alternative and
differing paradigm for conducting research in management, born-out of a perceived
need for management research to be of relevance to a wider group of stakeholders.”
Prof. David Tranfield speaking at BAM ‘Doing Mode 2 Research’
Mode two research is viewed as a response to calls in the last twenty years from the
non-academic communities (corporations, government and sources of academic
research funding) for management research to be conducted in a manner whose results
would bare more relevance to those communities. This research is conducted and
presented in the environment of application, by a mix of academics and practitioners
from a multitude of disciplines, all of which impact upon and are impacted by what may
be an ever-changing and evolving research process.
Gibbens contrast the two by stating: “Mode 1 problems are set and solved in a context
governed by the, largely academic, interests of a specific community. By contrast Mode
2 is carried out in the context of application. Mode 1 is disciplinary while Mode 2
transdisciplinary. Mode 1 is characterised by homogeneity, Mode 2 is heterogeneity.
Organisationally, Mode 1 is hierarchical and tends to preserve its form while Mode 2 is
more heterarchical and transient. In comparison with Mode 1, Mode 2 is socially
accountable and reflexive”. (Gibbons et al. 1994: 3) This represented in the table below.
(Figure 14)
47
Figure 14: Mode 1 and 2 Research Defined (Characteristics)
Mode 1 Mode 2
• Problems set and solved by academic • Problems set and solved in context of
community application
• Disciplinary staff base • Transdisciplinary staff base
• Institutionalised research org – sites usually in • Variety of knowledge production –
universities collaborative consortia
• Hierarchical – elite academic gatekeepers • Heterarchical – collaborative and transient
• Dissemination downstream from production • Dissemination tightly coupled to production
Gibbons et al (1994)
Although it could be perceived that these two modes of knowledge production are
polarised one from the other. Tranfield and Starkey, in the figure below illustrate the
relationship between the two. (Tranfield, D & Starkey, K. 1998)
‘TOP’
! World of practice
Danger (Is knowledge of use?)
Epistemic
Theory-led research
Practice-led research (Trickle-up)
(Back-fitting)
Danger
Stocks of management knowledge
(is knowledge well founded?)
‘BOTTOM’
!
Tranfield, D. & Starkey, K. 1998
Tranfield and Starkey state that all knowledge is produced along this circular pattern
and the difference between mode one and two is where the researcher spends the
48
principle amount of their time. In the case of mode one the researcher spends the
majority of their time at the bottom of the figure, going to the top to occasionally
disseminate knowledge. Whereas, a mode two researcher spends the principle amount
of their time at the top of the figure going to the bottom of the graph to collect theory to
impact on the research and deposit new theory/knowledge.
For the purpose of the research documented in this paper, the researcher adopted the
mode two perspective as it was believed that it had characteristics congruent with his
own proposed Ph.D. and Mres studies.
A member of the professional corporate community brought both the subject area and
topic for investigation to the researcher’s attention This member was unsure what
exactly Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is and how to best communicate the
organisational manifestations and achievements, with respect to those activities and
programmes being conducted by the organisation in the name of CSR. These activities
were costing the organisation over ₤20 million per annum. As a result, this researcher
was prompted to investigate a subject area of which he had limited knowledge (CSR),
with assistance from other academics and practitioners.
A collaboration was undertaken in order to develop the framework for investigating the
problem and answering the initial research question which was “What is best practice
in the communication of corporate social responsibility with individual stakeholder
groups in relation to business outcomes/objectives?” This was later refined while
developing the aims of the project.
The collaborative nature of the research methodology and learning process, and the
transdisciplinary base of input, in terms of both literature (existing theory on CSR) and
participants, further demonstrates congruence with the characteristics of Gibbons’
definition of mode two research.
Upon establishing the mode of knowledge production to be used, the researcher then
examined the ontological and epistemological stance to be taken forward.
49
Ontological Stance
Ontologies deal with the “assumptions that we make about the nature of reality”, what is
fact and truth. (Easterby Smith et al. 2002) A review of the literature reveals wide and
diverse categorisations and nomenclatures of differing ontological stances. (Crotty, M.
1998; Easterby-Smith et al. 2002; Foucault, M. 1972 Greenfield, T. 1996; Popper, K.
1972; Remenyi et al. 1998)
Figure 16 illustrates the characteristic traits of these ontologies with respect to what is
‘truth’ and ‘fact’, as well as what is the corresponding epistemological stance for each
ontology. The Oxford Dictionary defines “facts” as “things that are known to have
occurred, to exist or to be true.” (Oxford et al. 1996:518) Flew adds that a fact is an
assertion that is not underpinned by moral distinction, as to its approval or disapproval.
(Flew, A. 1979: 110) Truth, or what is true is defined as something which “accurately
conforms to” or is “in accordance with fact and reality.” (Oxford et al. 1996:1640)
Based on these categorisations, the researcher, due to the mode two nature adopted and
50
outlook would later impact the selection of methods used in the research in order to
phenomena existed.
Epistemological Stance
As a result of the ontological stance adopted, Easterby Smith et al. indicated that in
general a ‘social constructionist’ epistemology would be undertaken for the research
project.
Epistemologies; are the “general sets of assumptions about the best ways of inquiring
into the nature of the world.”
(Easterby Smith et al. 2002)
Prior to accepting this view, a review of epistemological stances in the management and
social science literature body was carried out. The review also aimed to ascertain what
the methodological implications of a social constructionist stance would be. The
epistemological standpoints of positivism, relativism, and social constuctionism were
drawn out and contrasted, as the three were found to be the most prominent in the
literature. (Crotty, M. 1998; Easterby-Smith et al. 2002; Foucault, M. 1972; Popper, K.
1972; Remenyi et al. 1998) Following which it was determined that Easterby-Smith et
al. assumption was correct, as the other epistemologies would not be congruent with the
chosen ontology. Figures 17 and 18 illustrate the main characteristics of these
epistemological stances with respect to methodological implications.
51
Figure 17: Characteristics of positivism, relativism and social constructionism
Positivism Relativism Social Constructionism
The Observer Must be independent Aims to remain objective Is part of what is being
while being in a close observed
proximity to what is being
observed
Human Interest Should be irrelevant Is acknowledged as impact Are the main drivers of
upon science but aims not to science
be driven by it
Explanations Must demonstrate causality Aims to explain the reality of Aim to increase general
the phenomena being studied understanding of the
situation
7Research Progress Through Hypotheses and deductions Mixture of hypotheses and Gathering of rich data from
deduction and induction which ideas are induced
Concepts Need to be operationalised Need to have high degree of Should incorporate
so they can be measured probability stakeholder perspectives
Units of Analysis Should be reduced to Aims to be reduced in May include the complexity
simplest terms simplest terms, however of ‘whole’ situations
often includes layers of
complexity
Generalization Through Statistical probability Explanation Theoretical abstractions
Sampling Requires Large numbers selected Varies Small Numbers of cases
randomly chosen for specific reasons
Developed from Easterby Smith et al. 2002:30 & Crotty, M. 1998
Therefore, the research methodology below was carried out following a mode two
52
In addition to this, the research carried out was impacted by an additional paradigm, that
Ethical Stance
Following the initial review of the CSR literature it was evident that ethics and morals
linked to the subject and caused him to realise that he would need to account for this
The literature on ethics differentiates between two areas of ethical debates and thought;
normative (applied) ethics and meta-ethics. (Benn, P. 1998; Solomon, R. 1993; Singer,
A. 1993: Lewis & Unermant 1999) Normative ethics is defined as the branch of ethics
that deals with the determination of when a behaviour of an entity is ‘right’ and ‘wrong’
and how the entity should behave in a specific situation. (Singer, A. 1993) Meta-ethics,
in contrast, deals with what do the terms right and wrong mean, rather than what is
acceptable under the terms. In both of these areas of ethical debate and examination
there is a common view that the terms right and wrong and their application are variable
both temporally and socially. With respect to CSR, the Neo-Friedman definition of CSR
society perceives to be right and wrong. However, normative ethics do also come into
an acceptable viewpoint.
If the researcher had tried to account for any particular ethical stance, the literature
revealed that a multitude of ethical implications would exist Therefore the researcher
53
attempted to carry-out the research from a relativist ethical standpoint, where he tried
not to allow his own ethical bias/viewpoints to impact upon the research. (Benn, P.
Adopting these research stances outlined above, the researcher conducted the following
research methodology to test the aims of the research outlined in chapter one. (The
Utilising the stances outlined above, the research was carried out utilising a two-phase
data collection methodology. The first phase was undertaken and conducted firmly
adhering to, the researcher’s chosen stances. This phase was characterised by
qualitative, exploratory methods of research, which saw the researcher and subjects
“construct” knowledge together. In contrast, the second phase was more congruent with
a mode one research in respect to methods and approach, and utilised a positivistic
approach and quantitative methods. The purpose of which was not to lead away from
test the validity of the data collected in the first phase of research and ensure its
54
4.5 Methods of Data Collection and Analysis
The research project commenced with the literature review undertaken in chapter two
and three. The literature review was undertaken in order to establish the basis necessary
to carry-out the investigation and address aims one and two of the research. (Easterby-
smith et al. 2002) With respect to these two aims, chapter two outlines the use of the
term “ corporate social responsibility” in the reviewed literature and proposes at its
From this point the research is undertaken using a case-study approach that incorporates
the two-phase data collection methodology. The case study approach method was
present within single settings”. (Eisenhardt, K. 1989: 534) Therefore, it enables the
research to investigate aims four and five by conducting the study of the NW retail
effective in relation to aim three of the research, it will enable the researcher in his PhD
55
Phase 1
Phase one of the research saw a series of five “cognitive mapping” interviews
undertaken with five senior managers from the NW retail centre. (Ackermann, F. et al.
1990). Interviews were undertaken with the HR Manager, Marketing Manager, Public
Affairs Manager (Community Liaison Officer), Public Relations Manager and Centre
Manager in order to provide a transdisciplinary group for the co-operative mode two
research. The purpose of this was to explore what the retail centre’s management
perceived to be CSR, what activities they were undertaking in the fulfilment of CSR,
how they were communicating it and what they perceived to be the benefits of what
Cognitive mapping interviews were undertaken as they enable the researcher to not only
gleam finished responses, but also to identify what the respondent “considers in
answering the question” which helps to “structure messy or complex data for problem
solving” which it was believed that the research aims were to generate. (Czaja, R. &
Blair, J.1996; Ackermann, F. et al. 1990) Furthermore, the interview process was in line
with Kvale’s “knowledge as conversation” theory and in-turn with the stances adopted
for the research, more specifically that facts are human creations. (Kvale, S. 1996:42)
The interview process commenced with each manager and the researcher carrying-out a
one-hour taped interview. The interview was undertaken following a series of “semi-
revealed were mapped out, allowing the respondent to make any changes or linkages
they desired or noticed as the process was carried out. (See Appendix D for examples of
rough maps)
56
Following the interviews the researcher undertook an analysis of the interviews utilising
an interpretative method, cognitive mapping. From the transcripts of the interviews and
the rough maps overarching maps were created to reflect the management teams
2002)
1) Does the Retail centre have an explicit definition of corporate social responsibility
(CSR)? (If yes what is it?)
2) What does the term CSR mean to you? (Including what are the characteristics and
attributes of CSR, as far as you are concerned.)
3) Is CSR a good thing or a bad thing? (If it is a good thing what are the benefits of it,
and if it is a bad thing what are the issues with it?)
4) What caused you to adopt this point of view?
5) How does the Retail centre put CSR into practice?
6) Who do you believe the Retail centre's stakeholders to be?
7) Which of Retail centre’s stakeholders are involved in the operationalisation of CSR.
8) Why does the Retail centre put CSR into practice?
9) To which of its stakeholders does the Retail centre communicate its CSR definition,
activities and expected results?
10) How does this communication manifest itself? (Both in terms of content and
medium.)[If you have examples of this it would be useful if you could provide
them.]
11) Why does the Retail centre communicate CSR in this manner?
12) What do you perceive to be the benefits of communicating CSR with these various
stakeholders? (Tangible and Intangible)
13) Why do you believe these are the benefits you will reap?
Following this, each respondent was sent the overall maps produced and then a group
from the initial interviews. (Overall maps can be found in Appendix C) This process
saw minor amendments made to concept and case specific knowledge produced in this
co-operative method.
57
Phase 2
drawn by the researcher and the management team were tested through the more
This second phase aimed to test the management’s viewpoint of what is CSR in relation
to their stakeholders, and then test whether or not the communication was effective,
what methods were effective and what was the effect of the communication.
Sample
The survey designed was distributed to 200 stakeholders of the NW retail centre. This
sample size was selected for manageability within the time frame available and in order
to ensure that the costs incurred were reasonable. A breakdown of the survey
The breakdown of distribution was decided jointly between the researcher and the
managers of the NW retail centre based on who they were communicating their CSR
with, and who they perceived they were deriving benefits from, at a level that was
58
believed to be proportionate to estimated size of the stakeholder group as a whole. This
can be seen in the next chapter in the section dealing with the findings of phase one of
The survey was distributed to the selected stakeholder groups by the researcher and the
centre by post to all stakeholders, with the exception of centre users. A return postal
factor was deemed highly important in order to gain open and honest responses from
stakeholder groups such as employees and suppliers. This confidentiality, as well as the
accompanied the survey. Stakeholders for these groups were selected randomly from the
centre’s databases.
Centre users were surveyed by the researcher soliciting responses from users who were
able to spare the requisite time to complete the survey on the same day as questionnaires
were distributed to other parties. This was done in order to minimise outside factors that
could impact upon the opinions of respondents such as scandals, new communications
from the centre etc, and cause an uncontrollable variance in the data collected if the
result of the fact that respondents were known to be stakeholders, and were approached
59
In order to encourage a high response rate, respondents were offered an incentive to
complete the survey. This was that one respondent would be randomly selected to win a
Of the 200 surveys a total of 81 were returned (41%) four of which were removed from
the sample as they were not completed or the responses demonstrated juvenile malice
that would distort the results, and more than likely only completed the survey to win the
voucher. In the case of the two removed for this reason this was exemplified by
profanity in the additional information boxes and uniformity of column from which
Survey Questions
The survey designed was constructed of four over-arching thematic areas of questions,
testing the principle conclusions drawn from the first phase of the research in terms of
the aims. (See Appendix E for sample questionnaire.)These where; “What is CSR” (In
My Opinion CSR is about…) “In relation to CSR, I am aware that the NW retail
centre”, “I learnt of these activities by the following sources of information” and “As a
were posed with the opportunity at the end of each section to add additional
commentary. In the case of thematic areas one and four, respondents were asked to
codify their level of agreement with a particular statement on a five point “Likert scale”
Thematic areas two and three asked respondents to state their awareness of activities
60
undertaken by the centre or sources of information from which they learnt this
The survey questionnaire also collected personal data from the respondents in terms of
what stakeholder group they belong to, their sex and age, and how many years they had
The results of this survey were hoped to be used in statistical analysis, using the SPSS
computer software programme, to look for descriptive trends and testing for correlation
between independent and fixed variables. (Blair, J. & Czaja, R. 1996; Easterby-Smith et
al. 2002; Remenyi et al. 1998; Oppenheim, A. 1992). In addition to examining the
retail centre’, it was anticipated that the data could be explored in relation to individual
However, when it came to conducting the analysis the relatively small sample and the
large variety of stakeholder groups that existed proved problematic for utilising SPSS to
test for anything more complex than descriptive statistics. This was as a result of the
fact that with over “7000 retail staff, 360 internal staff” and over 300,000 users a week
the sample size did not allow for the requisite probability and confidence levels.
Easterby-Smith et al. 2002; Remenyi et al. 1998) However, as the purpose of this
61
following chapter are still believed to be highly relevant. As descriptive statistics are
still highly relevant for exploring new concepts and revealing trends that future research
can explore further, in this case the researcher future PhD studies. (Blair, J. & Czaja, R.
In phase one and as a whole of the research project, the mode two nature of the research
presented several limitations and problems in terms of “the breadth and scope, and
longitudinal aspects” of mode two. (Tranfield, D. 2002)
In terms of ‘breadth and scope’ the fact is that the area of investigation, CSR, in the
current literature and practice, does not sit simply within the context of one discipline
but rather across a full spectrum including accounting, human resources management,
marketing and business environment studies. This, coupled with the fact the research
focussed on communications, meant that there was a significant and wide ranging scope
that participants and the researcher had to be able to synthesise. Whether this was
achieved remains unclear, although the methodological approach chosen hoped to
achieve it. In order to attempt to minimise this limiting factor, the researcher provided
opportunities for the group to share information, via face-to-face meetings, email and
telephone methods to provide clarification.
62
research. These included reducing the scale of the second phase of the research with the
survey sample size being reduced from 500 to 200 which more than likely resulted in
the aforementioned fact that only descriptive statistical analysis could be undertaken to
arrive at the findings found in the following chapter.
Furthermore, the time pressures that occurred may have resulted in the quantitative
survey being constructed hastily, and that may have diminished the professional air of
the research needed to motivate high level management at both the centre and its’ parent
company to complete the survey, as well as others. This, in turn, may have impacted on
the return rate.
Further to this, in order to construct a survey that was brief enough to be manageable for
respondents as a whole, the questions posed in thematic areas two and three were not
structured in a way that allowed for an analysis of what methods were successful in
relation to individual stakeholders or what information was delivered by each method.
Therefore, future research into the subject would need a different questionnaire structure
to allow these relationships to be clearly established.
An additional limitation of the research methodology was that in phase two the
researcher had to take for granted that it had a “relevance to interviewees” and that they
possessed the requisite knowledge necessary for completing the survey. (Easterby-
Smith et al. 2002:94) However, as CSR and its communication is a relatively new
concept, it appears that not much could have been done to alleviate this potential
limitation of this exploratory research.
Finally, as this research project utilises case study approach, limitations and issues will
exist with respect to the “status of knowledge”. (Tranfield, D. 2002) Although the
findings presented and discussed may seem logical and generalisable, it is important to
remember that the knowledge generated is purely “local knowledge”. In order to
generate “universal knowledge” a further series of case studies would need to be
undertaken.
63
CHAPTER 5 FINDINGS
collected data in two main phases. The first phase was designed to draw out what the
management of the retail centre perceived CSR to be, what activities were they
undertaking in the fulfilment of CSR, how they were communicating it and what they
In the second phase the management’s viewpoint of what is CSR was tested in relation
to their stakeholders, and similarly in respect to whether or not the communication was
effective, what methods were effective and what was the effect of the communication.
The findings are summarised in relation to the interview questions posed to each
manager, in the order that they were conducted. ( Complete transcripts of these
Does the Retail centre have an explicit definition of corporate social responsibility
The initial question posed to managers at the retail centre asked whether or not the retail
centre itself had an explicit definition for CSR, to which a unanimous response of “no”
was recorded. However, this did not mean that the centre’s management, both
individually and as a group did not have a firm idea of what CSR was.
64
What does the term CSR mean to you? (Including what are the characteristics and
developed. ( Figure 21 )
65
Figure 21: Management View of CSR
Tackling social
issues
Evolving to meet
expectations
Being run in a
profitable manner
Communicating
with stakeholders
(2 way i.e. listening Being accountable
CSR to
You?
Operating in an
ethical manner How organisations
run their business
Organisations going
Community
beyond the laws and
involvement/corpo
regulations of Organisations rate citizenship
obeying the laws and
regulations of
H& S
Commitment to quality of
products and services Human Rights
Practices
Environmental
Practices Corporate
Governance Employment
Practices
(Appendix C: Question 2)
This shows that the centre’s managers, as a whole, held a view of CSR that incorporates
many of the same elements as the definition of CSR extrapolated from the literature
66
In general, an examination of the individual responses that formulated this conceptual
map shows that all managers shared the overarching points in the yellow spheres.
(Appendix A) However, with respect to some of the points in the red spheres, it was not
surprising that individual managers raised points that were of specific interest to them in
their individual fields. One, not surprising example was that the first ‘social
Is CSR a good thing or a bad thing? (If it is a good thing what are the benefits of it, and
With respect to whether or not the phenomena of CSR was a good thing or a bad thing,
the management as a whole believed that it was positive. They believe that it leads to;
The management stated that they were spurred on to take this point of view as a result
67
in age from their late twenties to early fifties, the congruency of viewpoint may seem
surprising. However, the strong influence of the current organisational culture at the
With respect to their personal life influences, their personal moral outlook, upbringing,
self reflection and the influence of family and friends were stated.
Although few of the activities were specifically undertaken in the name of CSR, the
management group, because of their beliefs in the benefits of CSR, stated that fulfilment
of their concept of CSR was being undertaken in the ways outlined in Figure 22.
• Donates used but still working and effective equipment and resources to local groups such as
computers to schools
• Has a green transport policy
• Has a prayer room
• Has a stated commitment to the quality of the Retail centre experience
• Has achieved investors in people status
• Has developed a curriculum pack for schools and works closely with local schools
• Has proactive employment and staff policies
• Operates a fair trading programme in conjunction with its retailers, that incorporates a complaint
resolution programme
• Operates a recycling programme
• Operates a truancy sweep programme with the local school authorities
• Operates environmental conservation projects on site
• Operates proactive security practices for the safety of patrons, which include offering to walk
customers/staff to their cars late at night.
• Runs staff awards programmes for its staff
• Supports charities and local groups through its fountain fund programme
• Works with organisations such as the NHS to address social issues such as its recent joint Breast
Screening Initiative
• Works with retailers to run joint staff training programmes
• Has award winning facilities and provisions for the disabled including:
• Toilets
• Shopmobility programme
• Sensory Solutions programme for the hard of hearing and sight deprived
• Runs a proactive children’s programme including:
• Two play areas
• Face painting
• Child sized toilet facilities
68
• Provisions of ID tags, buggies and toddler wrist links
• Baby changing areas
• Works Closely with:
• Local authorities to ensure that it maximises potential benefits of the Retail centre for the
local community and minimizes potential negative impacts.
• Government and regulators to ensure compliance with and stay ahead of new laws and
regulations
• Other local businesses to ensure their joint sustainability and viability
• Police, Fire and Medical Services on its Health and Safety provisions
The centre’s management stated that these activities were operationalised in conjunction
The list was identical to that which the centre’s management stated were their ‘overall
overarching stakeholder groups’, and the same groups that they were ‘communicating
their CSR activities with’. (Appendix C: Question 6) (Appendix C: Question 9). This is
not surprising considering that the centre managers’ perception of CSR reflects a
69
How does this communication manifest itself? (Both in terms of content and medium.)[If
you have examples of this it would be useful if you could provide them.]
information in relation to CSR, the centre management stated it was undertaken via the
methods outlined in figure 24.These methods are clearly congruent with the traditional
methods of public relations as extrapolated from Harrison and Hunt and Grunig.
(Harrison, S. 1995; Hunt, T. & Grunig, J. 1994) Though it should be noted that no
mention was giving to a structured planning cycle for CSR communications like that
which the literature indicated was essential to ensure successful delivery and to
minimise ‘noise’ and ‘barriers to communications’. However, this may have occurred as
part of the overall communications planning cycle, seeing that the centre did not carry
out it CSR activities under the formal banner of CSR. Further to this we that he list of
‘symmetrical 2-way’ methods are used by the centre’s management. (Grunig, J. & Hunt,
T. 1984)
• Word-of-Mouth
• Experience
• Staff training
• Staff handbook
• Staff newsletter
• Retail centre customer magazine ‘The XXXX Magazine’
• Retail centre in mall staff member/customer service desk
• Retail centre internet site
• Retail centre schools pack
• Retail centre Brochures/Leaflets
• Signs in the Retail centre
• Face-to-Face meeting with Retail centre Manager
• Staff Bulletin Board
• Retail centre retailer newsletter
• On the big screen TV in the Retail centre
• In a contract I have with the Retail centre
70
• From the Retail centre’s community development officer
• From the Retail centre’s retail liaison officer
• In correspondence with the Retail centre
• In the Media
• On TV
• On the Radio
• In the Newspaper
• In a magazine
• On the Internet
materials did carry information dealing with the centre’s manifestations of CSR.
One such example can be viewed in figure 25, which highlights the centre’s disabled
Awards
Information on Activities
Appendix C, question number 10’s map illustrates which stakeholders the various
the limitations of the methodology, it was not possible to test the effectiveness of
individual methods to a high level of certainty. Despite this limitation some deductive
71
Why does the Retail centre communicate CSR in this manner?
With regards to why the centre’s management communicated in this way, responses
indicated that it was as a result of experience, that it was affordable within the budget,
What do you perceive to be the benefits of communicating CSR with these various
What the centre’s management believe to be the “benefits of the communication being
undertaken” and “why the retail centre put CSR into practice” were unsurprisingly
Increased
customer loyalty
(visitors)
Develops goodwill
that could help the Enables customers to
centre in time of crisis, better understand
scandal or significant the centre
issues
To benefit
parent/associated
Benefits of companies
Communicating
Produces a CSR are?
competitive Increased staff
advantage loyalty
Builds/enhances
reputation Increased visitor
footfall that results
in an increase of
Builds trade/purchases for
relationships with retailers
stakeholders
72
Why do you believe these are the benefits you will reap?
In terms of why they believe these are the benefits that the centre derives from this
conversation with other professionals and input from the centre user’s twice annual
marketing survey which asks them what facilities and services would encourage them to
use the centre’s facilities more frequently. However, no formal study was undertaken by
the retail centre to evaluate the CSR views of their stakeholders with respect to CSR
and/or the centre’s CSR. This fact helps to illustrate, within the context of this case, the
Based on the results of this phase, a second phase of the research tested the
tested whether or not the communication was effective, what methods were effective
and what was the effect of the communication. This was tested utilising the
Respondents
77 responses to the questionnaire were returned and accepted for analysis. The
73
Figure 27: Breakdown of Quantitative Survey Respondents
Centre Users
10 Centre Managers
9 29 FOH Staff
BOH Staff
Supplier
Retailer Staff
centre. 44 of these defined themselves as a stakeholder, revealing that due to the nature
of the retail centre’s operation and the service provided, many of its stakeholders view
Results
In response to what CSR as a concept was, and in relation to the management of the
74
Figure 28: Respondents View of CSR
1 2 3 4 5
1-Strongly Disagree, 2-Disagree, 3-Neither Agree or Disagree, 4-Agree, 5-
Strongly Agree
75
Codification of the response on the graph relates to the ‘Likert scale’ evaluation tool
with the scale being indicated at the base of the figure. (Easterby-Smith et al: 2002)
We see that, as a whole, the centre’s stakeholders agree with the concept of CSR that
the centre’s management held. The strongest agreement amongst the 77 respondents
with 32 agreeing and 36 strongly agreeing and “behaving as good corporate citizens,”
with 40 agreeing and 25 strongly agreeing. The least agreement being in relation to
With respect to being aware of what the retail centre was doing in relation to CSR, the
findings below show that not the same level of congruence existed between what the
centre’s managers were doing and communicating and what the stakeholders where
aware of Figure 29 shows that of 28 activities the centre’s management stated they were
undertaking in the name of CSR, the majority of the centre stakeholders were unaware
of 12, fully aware of only 10, with six remaining balanced between awareness and lack
thereof.
76
Figure 29: What the Retail Centre is Doing in Relation to CSR
1 1.5 2 2.5 3
1-Aware, 2-Unaware, 3-Unsure
77
Stakeholders were most aware of those elements highly visible/relevant to users such as
special needs facilities for children, fair trading programme (which ensures
consumer/user rights are respected), the disabled facilities and their charitable giving
fountain fund. Programmes that are specific to only limited or individual stakeholder
groups, such as its work with local businesses, proactive employment policies and staff
training programmes run jointly with retailers, have the lowest awareness.
From Figure 30, we see once again, that those methods of communications that are
highly visible to users, as a whole, were the most successful communications medium
for the centre’s stakeholders to learn of CSR activities. These methods were the big
screen television in the centre, centre brochures, signs in the centre and the actual
Similarly to with the previous section of findings, those methods that relate to specific
stakeholder groups other than the users (of which most other stakeholders fit into in
addition to their primary relationship) such as staff bulletin boards, retailer newsletter
78
Figure 30: Sources of Information on Centre’s CSR Activities
Staff newsletter
Staff handbook
Aware
Staff training
Experience
Word-of-mouth
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70
Number of Respondents
79
As a result of this knowledge…
With respect to the final area of investigation, “what outcomes did the centre CSR
activities and their communication generate/ as result of the knowing about the CSR
activities of the centre what were the implications with stakeholders? it was found that
visit more frequently and spend more money 2 I am more likely to visit the Retail Centre ov
than before other shopping areas
1
I hold a more positive perception of Retail I do visit the Retail Centre over others that do
Centre than before not undertake these activities
We see that most of the centre’s assumptions were correct having high levels of
agreement from stakeholders as a whole, with the exception of two assumptions. The
two assumptions that are the exceptions are; ‘I visit more frequently and spend more
than before” and “I do visit the Retail Centre over others that do not undertake these
activities”. Both of which saw high proportions of respondents not agree or disagree
80
with the statement, disagree or strongly disagree with statement, specifically 42, 13 & 5
respondents totalling 59 in the first statements case and 28,6 & 5 respondents totalling
5.3 Summary
The above are the findings that the research uncovered in relation to the study
undertaken, taking account for the limitations of the methodology that impacted upon it.
81
CHAPTER 6 DISCUSSION & CONCLUSION
The findings of both phases of the research project raise several intriguing points which
may impact on conclusions drawn in relation to the aims of this research project.
Specially, the symmetry between management and stakeholders’ views of CSR, limited
Discussion of findings
A great symmetry between the academic thought with respect to CSR and the centre’s
management viewpoint is clearly evident and demonstrated through the centre’s
manifestation of CSR. We see clear synergies with regards to ‘social contracts’, diverse
stakeholders, obeying the laws and regulations of government, ethical conduct,
community involvement, philanthropy, corporate governance, corporate citizenship,
addressing of social issues, a commitment to the quality of its products and services,
human rights, health, safety and the environment. The latter is demonstrated by the
activities listed in figure 22 such as the centre’s green transport policy and recycling
with regards to the environment.
Further to this the centre’s managers held the belief, as supported by some of the
academic literature cited, that CSR activities and their communication need to
contribute to the profitability of the organisation, although this did have the least level
of agreement with the stakeholders as a whole.
It also evident from the findings that only a limited range of CSR activities were known
82
linked to what is communicated and evident to centre users. It is pertinent to note that
this stakeholder group includes most respondents, although it might not have been their
This does not mean, however that the other activities and methods were ineffective.
Many of the activities and methods dealt only with a specific stakeholder group and the
total number of respondent surveyed was to few to allow for effective testing as
previously discussed in chapter four. It is reasonable to deduce that they may have been
highly effective, however further research would be required to prove such a hypothesis.
A further point of interest relates to the benefits accruing to the centre as a result of
undertaking CSR activities and communicating them. We see that in general their
assumptions with regards to benefits are correct and that numerous intangible benefits
However, there is not a direct correlation between the activities and tangible benefits.
With regards to “frequency of visit and spending”, the stakeholders as whole were
unsure that they agreed this was an effect of effective CSR activity. However, at the
These findings of the research project, the methodology of the project and its execution
and the literature review conducted complete the objectives necessary for the
83
Conclusions
Assess the current definition and usage of the term Corporate Social Responsibility.
Three principle schools of thought were found to exist. They were characterised as the
Bowen, Friedman and the Neo-Friedman schools of thought and encompassed divergent
and moderating literatures, in terms of CSR perspectives. From this research literature a
novel, generalisable definition of CSR in the current temporal context was extrapolated.
The second aim of the project was achieved by defining CSR as follows:
With regards to the third aim of the research, the research methodology undertaken has
84
believed that it carried out with greater scope over a longer and more flexible time-line,
addressing the limitations discussed and thereby allowing for greater depth in analysis,
that the methodology shows promise for exploring the concept of CSR. It did bring out
several valuable findings from the case study undertaken of the major UK retail centre
the NW of England..
By treating its stakeholders as a homogenous group the centre was only partially
However, the research did show that some of the methods utilised by the centre were
highly effective in contrast to others for reaching the majority of stakeholders. In the
following section of recommendations some implications for the centre with respect to
Explore the tangible and intangible business outcomes generated by corporate social
The research showed that the centres’ communication strategy was highly effective in
generating intangible business outcomes for the centre and may be generating tangible
85
6.2 Recommendations
From the research there are three key areas in which recommendation can be made.
These are with respect to the centre and its CSR communication effectiveness, the
With respect to the methodology it is recommended that the questionnaire and sample
limitations discussed above are addressed. The research can then be carried out as
outlined above, however with more time allowed for the second phase.
To improve the cost effectiveness and impact of CSR communication by the retail
utilised. These reach the largest proportion of stakeholders, although the value of other
It is also recommended that the centre adopt more rigorous methods of planning and
evaluating CSR, their fulfilment of the social contract and its communication. This
could be the done through the techniques reviewed in the literature review, the amended
86
6.3 Limitations of the Study
In addition to these limitations mentioned with regards to the methodology, two other
theory”. (Easterby-smith et al.) Baring the concept of CSR and the stakeholder
CSR, the remainder of knowledge or insights are developed from the local perspective.
Even though practical replication of the effective methods of communication may result
Furthermore, a greater limitation of the study may have been the breadth and scope of
the research aims themselves. It may be the case that the scope of the research project
attempted was to vast within the context of a Master’s Dissertation and resulted in the
contribution to knowledge being highly descriptive. However, the purpose of the Mres
is to test and pilot one’s PhD research. Although it may have limited the study of the
case to an exploratory and descriptive level, the implications in terms of method and for
Three main areas evolve from the research for future study. These are the choice,
suitability, and application of the methods used in the research; the generalisability of
the results and conclusions that emerged from the project; the structuring and
effectiveness of corporate CSR activities and communication.
87
Methodology
First, does the use of Mode 2 research strategy provide an effective means of
collaboratively investigating CSR in a large corporate setting? Work with the centre
management team did appear to allow the development of a sound basis for going
forward. However, their natural disposition was towards customer service and
executive/owner approval was obtained for the project. In future studies the role of the
top management team will be critical.
.
Secondly, do structured interviews provide sufficient input and foundation to allow
questionnaires to be prepared for empirical investigation of a wider stakeholder
population? The limitations with two sections of the questionnaire have been noted
above. In order to establish relevant correlations between CSR activities and stakeholder
actions/perceptions, it will be necessary to validate the responses. Allowing subject
input to establish the parameters for quantitative assessment requires significant
research discipline in Mode 2 work.
Lastly, what steps must be taken to ensure that an acceptable and representative sample
is obtained in a reasonable time? My experience on this project suggests that planning,
follow up and time are key elements of future study.
As has been observed above, the results of a single case study may not be relevant to
other than the specific situation. However, the findings from this research would appear
to be at least intuitively, transferable to other corporate environments. Specifically,
future research needs to determine if these results are applicable to other retail centres in
the UK, and ultimately to all corporate entities. This may require replication across a
number of retail centres and other corporate businesses, a task of some magnitude.
However, one might expect that a CSR / stakeholder model would begin to emerge after
a few additional cases were undertaken.
88
Effective CSR Practices
If future research can identify “ best practices” that will demonstrate the impacts of
specific CSR communication activities on stakeholders and the organisation it will have
made a major contribution to both academic and management communities. This may
entail deeper and broader sampling, coupled with more empirical analysis than was
possible in this research. The limitations in respect to identifying and creating
awareness of stakeholder specific communication activities will only be overcome
through a more in-depth and segmented research and analysis. Sample size and breadth
inhibited this occurring in this research project.
This research did provide valuable and potentially valid indicators of the relationships
that exist between CSR practice and impacts, between the corporation and its’
stakeholders and within management and stakeholder groups. As such it provides an
important direction to this researcher’s future PhD studies. However, it has left many
questions requiring resolution and the challenge of exploring and creating new
knowledge remains to be addressed.
89
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APPENDIX A MANAGEMENT INTERVIEW SCRIPTS
103
CSR – MRes Major UK Retail Centre
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
SIDE A
Ryan: The first question that I’m going to ask is: If as far as you’re concerned or you believe “Does the Major UK Retail Centre
have an explicit definition of Corporate Social Responsibility”?
Ryan: Because what we’ll do as we go through, i.e. the next question is “what do those terms CSR mean to you”? What we’re
looking for is what we will draw the key points from that you need and we will build around that and as it grows. Then we will do
what do people think, and the methods of communication.
What does the term CSR mean to you? What do you perceive to be the characteristics and attributes of CSR?
HR Manager: My view of corporate responsibility, social responsibility and then corporate and social responsibility. So, in terms
of corporate responsibility and the managers and the senior directors, within a business, have got a responsibility under corporate
law and legislation to, you know, to sort of run their business and according to the parameters that are laid down.
Ryan: You would prefer to describe it as a legislative and legal responsibility then?
HR Manager: Yes
Ryan: Ok
HR Manager: But also, they’ve got responsibility to assure that the organization, that they’re managing needs, its overall objectives
which for the majority of organizations is going to bring it down to the bottom line and profitability. That the management of all of
that structure is done in such a way that its fair, its equitable and that the company’s bottom line objectives have been achieved.
In terms of social responsibility, my understanding of that is that, along side the corporate responsibility, there is the responsibility
for the social aspects. On the one hand they could be ultimately the welfare of the employees and that could cause an overlap of the
two, because of the legal aspects etc.
But also, I think the Major UK Retail Centre does that very well. It takes a degree of responsibility for social factors within the
environment and the surrounding environment and takes responsibility for that.
So, for example, we’ve got an environmental policy. We have a charities committee that donates the money out of the fundings and
we do the fund raisings events for charities. In actual fact, when you meet with Alison Reid, I think that out of anybody’s role
Alison’s is the (What’s the word I’m looking for?) closeness that struggles for corporate and social responsibility. She is going out
there.
HR Manager: Yes. That kind of culture, a corporate and a social responsibility, the two, being engendered within the management
team, right from the very outset. Understanding the essence of culture, that’s the way the Major UK Retail Centre operates. The way
it values and the way that we sell ourselves. In my own rules I’m involved in quite a number of committees, which ultimately stand
out of the corporate responsibility side of things, but ultimately have, I would say, a social responsibility agenda.
Ryan: So, the CSR staff must be relieved by their ultimate ... Its kind of a key point you’re coming out with. Ok. By judges, does it
need to be in a different kind of method? In a pond and organized way, that CSR, its characteristic isn’t at hawk?
HR Manager: I think it is at hawk, at the moment, within the Major UK Retail Centre because we don’t have an explicit definition
of corporate social responsibility. As to the culture, it’s up to each individual manager to take on additional social responsibility. But
most of us have obviously have to around bottom line and will consider that in line with sort of business needs.
Ryan: Well, from your personal viewpoint, would you believe that CSR is something that is practiced generally at hawk in
organizations or something that should be practiced or is practiced in most organizations in an applying manner?
HR Manager: Well, it’s organizations then. I don’t think I know the answer to that one. However, I think there are a few high
profile organizations where corporate social responsibility is practiced, and it is quite high on the agenda. I would imagine that in
those organizations that it is very much structured and every manager has an explicit responsibility.
Ryan: Ok
HR Manager: Those organizations that I can think of, just thinking quickly, McDonald’s, and the reason why I choose McDonald’s
is there’s something recently on the television about McDonald’s more on the welfare and social side of things, I don’t know if
you’ve seen it. It was on a few months ago. A company I worked for previously, Granada, that I know that they contribute an awful
lot to the community and that it’s high on the agenda. I suppose other organizations, Mark’s & Spencer’s is another one. They have
a very strong social responsibility. I think, I would imagine that some other organizations, like ourselves, it’s sort of new to them
and they probably don’t fully understand the concept. We sort of do things on a local level (local charities).
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Ryan: Would you say that CSR is, for most organizations, still is a new concept?
HR Manager: Possibly
HR Manager: Not, really. Hang on. I got a bit mixed up there. For most organizations is it a new concept? Good question. Possibly
for most organizations, yes. Organizations such as Cadbury’s, Clark’s are they another one? Those kinds of organizations have
come a long way haven’t they? Going back to the 40’s and 50’s they did do some kind of social responsibility for the workers.
Ryan: So then, these are the ones you would describe as an example like Cadbury’s. So then Granada is the one that comes to mind
for the community challenge?
Ryan: Are there any other characteristics that jump to mind? You said some welfare for employees, social factors, the conceptual
states of examples, legislative/legal responsibilities, achievement of organizational goals including profit. Also that staff that must
be believed by management. Are there any other things? Characteristics that you feel describe and make up CSR?
Ryan: Yes, and other social factors. You have an environmental policy, a dedicated community
Ryan: Yes, but we’re talking about what you believe CSR is.
Ryan: Ok. CSR do you believe it’s a bad thing or a good thing?
HR Manager: I think that if it’s managed correctly and that everybody has an involvement in the process, then it could only be a
good thing. To be good it has to be marketed and publicized, and implemented and followed in the right way.
Ryan: So, to a point you think it is a good thing. So would you think that CSR is something that cannot be communicated or would
you believe that in order for corporate social responsibility to be there it has to be communicated?
HR Manager: Without a doubt. If the communication is not there you’re not going to balance. You have a group or committee
there, and without communication those people not going to know what the company’s aims and objectives are in relation to it.
Ryan: Ok. So if managed correctly, what do you perceive are the benefits that make it good?
HR Manager: Contribution back to the environment, contribution back into the social factors that we talked about.
Ryan: So by environment, you mean kind of green, like the natural environment?
HR Manager: Yes.
HR Manager: Contribution back into the community, contribution back into welfare of employees and customers. I want to show
the fact that if it is marketed, it can show that the organization has been a good caring organization.
Ryan: So, one is organizational benefits and the other is reputational. Do you think there’s other benefits to the organization?
HR Manager: If a company, or an organization, I don’t know if it is believed, but if a company seems to be doing a good thing and
makes a contribution back into the environment and community, or whatever, it’s more likely then that you’re going to appeal to a
particular group of customers who will, maybe, help build some confidence in your approach.
HR Manager: Yes
HR Manager: Yes
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Ryan: Anything else? In terms of the financial aspects?
HR Manager: Yes. Well, I’m thinking in terms of new business potentially, maybe helping people who are from smaller
organizations to reach the larger organizations. So for example, like ten years ago you don’t see a n organic pear or apple on the
shelves. But now what they’re doing, they are promoting organic products and also promoting that fact that they are helping the
smaller farmers.
HR Manager: There are benefits ultimately for Sainsbury’s. Bu,t also there was customer pressure and customer demands.
Ryan: Ok, so you’re saying that CSR has an element of consumer demand?
Ryan: So there is this element of consumer demand. Would you say it works on both corporate and social level?
HR Manager: Yes.
Ryan: Ok. So it results in new business. Any other organizational benefits? Right now we have perceptual, reputation, financial, and
new business.
HR Manager: Employees.
HR Manager: No.
Ryan: So we’ve got benefits to the organization. We’ve got financial, new business, HR, which with the attraction of new
candidates, organizational benefits, perceptual, reputation.
HR Manager: Yes. When you say a new business, do you mean a new financial business, or new business meaning a customer’s
new business?
Ryan: Yes that’s right. Is there anything else? There are no right or wrong answers. Now, what caused you to adopt this viewpoint?
What I mean, what things helped to forge that these things are perceived as the benefits?
HR Manager: I don’t suppose there’s only one thing really. Kind of working for, in particular for the Major UK Retail Centre.
Because of the culture and the company’s philosophy right from before the centre’s opening. It’s not all about me, me, me although
we do have a close eye on costs and all the key indicators that we need to keep an eye on that show our business objectives. We sort
of developed between us, I think, quite a nice approach of contributing back into the community through various challenges.
HR Manager: Yes
Ryan: Your experiences here have helped and the work you’re doing to achieve those organizational objectives?
HR Manager: Although we’re keeping an eye on the organizational objectives, we’re also very conscious about the impact of that
on the environment and the whole of people.
Ryan: Again, we have a kind of perception of how other people see it but also that social responsibility where there are important
organizational objectives. But it is also weighing those organizational objectives versus impacts. So CSR is definitely not a one way
thing, it has to be sometimes a give and take. So you imagine that CSR is a two-way process?
HR Manager: Yes.
Ryan: Society’s wants and organizational wants against each other. Ok. Other than those are there any other places or any other
experiences that are forged that come in to CSR?
HR Manager: Yes, things you read in the paper, the television, the magazines that you buy, recycling.
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HR Manager: I can’t think of an actual trigger, although for a long time now we try to recycle as much as possible. I think our local
council encouraged it at the time for householders to recycle newspapers. They came and collected them on a regular basis.
HR Manager: Yes.
Ryan: Own desire and lifestyle. So from a contributing view point your personal lifestyle outlook?
Ryan: Would you say then that your personal lifestyle outlook is an attribute of CSR? There seems to be an aspect of individuality?
Do you agree with that?
HR Manager: I think that within a big organization. I suppose an aspect of individuality is more difficult. But with an
organizational lifestyle like the Major UK Retail Centre we are our own managers. Head of HR, you know sort of rolling out
programs, so there is a large aspect, although, I’ve never really thought about the fact that bottles, or my gardening adjustment. I’m
very conscious and all the publicity with holes in the ozone layer and.
Ryan: Why do these things weigh on you? Obviously it’s a personal choice. Why do you perceive that it is important at all? Cause
obviously you do. Why at the end of the day do you perceive it to be important?
HR Manager: I believe that things must be recycled, like old clothes and I have been doing that for quite a few years, but it’s a
concept really that bothers me.
Ryan: I see that bothers you. Why don’t you think it bothers other people?
HR Manager: I’m not sure about that. Possibly because other people haven’t got the same attitude, or maybe haven’t got the
facilities to make charity shops or whatever.
Ryan: So CSR to a point it depends again on .. It’s weighing society against organizational? Let’s move on. Can you tell me a bit
about this viewpoint that you talked about. How does the Major UK Retail Centre put CSR to practice? So we have the development
officer.
Ryan: Ok. And you mentioned that management puts it into practice quite a lot.
HR Manager: Practically putting CSR into practice is the kind of thing that we do.
HR Manager: Yes.
Ryan: Ok.
HR Manager: In fact, just recently in our staff awards a couple of staff have been rewarded for coming up with an idea for
something we had problems with. They came up with an idea about getting some committees on site to help re educate those that
were in a delinquent status and it worked very, very well. So that was an idea that staff thought of, came up with an idea we
implemented, I put it into practice and it worked.
Ryan: And you also said you have an environmental policy, and the charities committee. Anything else?
HR Manager: Alison’s role is a bit more detailed on the education side of things. Alison in particular either visits schools or has
schools coming here to find out more about the Major UK Retail Centre. Obviously there are benefits for the individuals as well at
no cost to them. And schools and any other organization that, sort of, may be interested.
Ryan: So we have consultations. What kind of responsibilities legislative and legal would you describe as being tied up with CSR?
HR Manager: Certainly on the employment legislation side of things, we have friendly policies.
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HR Manager: Legislation, which roots back to travel and transport, which hasn’t been mentioned as yet. The Major UK Retail
Centre has a travel, transport, or group travel we talked about. They have corporate element but also social element.
Ryan: So you have a policy, a transport plan. Anything else you can think of? So we have welfare, driven by staff and management,
dedicated community, development manager, education, visiting schools, you meeting legislative and legal responsibilities, HR
employment, travel and transport, which you have a separate policy on, agreed transport plan, your family/friendly policies,
consultations..
HR Manager: And communication to all of the people that we are actually doing this for.
Ryan:. We’ve talked about that to a point, we’ll do more of that explicitly, but with which stakeholders and we’ll start by listing
these activities under CSR specifically related?
HR Manager: Our employees, stakeholders of the Retail centre in the financial sense of the word stakeholders.
HR Manager: The members of the board and shareholders. Charities, local community, and other organizations who we interact
with.
HR Manager: Like the environmental policy we can’t operate that alone, we need to interact with other organizations, like ‘the big
waste’ organization for example.
HR Manager: The travel and transport part we couldn’t operate that alone, we need to interact with the large bus companies,
GMPT for example.
Ryan: Is there any of these stakeholders that you need to further break up? Or are there any major ones you’d add? Is there any
other major headings of people you deal with?
HR Manager: Under employees you have third party contractors. Local government and national, local business communities.
Ryan: So would we break down these ones at all or is it kind of the complete stakeholder view. I mean for some of them we have,
like government local and national, and financial we have the members of the board and shareholders, business community, schools,
we have the main heading you wanted to put. So next question. Which of the Trafford stakeholders would you say are involved in
the operatlinization of CSR?
HR Manager: The employees, some elements of the local business community, customers.
HR Manager: I would imagine that there are customers who don’t fully understand and appreciate the work that the Major UK
Retail Centre does. Everyone in the financial stakeholders, relevant government departments local and national, are some examples.
We helped to invite CNBC’s recently to identify some needs, towards environmental policy, national government, national
employment committee. One of the objectives is to encourage and train people who are long term unemployed or who have
particular difficulties in getting jobs. To encourage training programs for those people and get them into employment.
Ryan: Any other ones?
HR Manager: Third party contracts in helping to deliver and retailers again in helping to deliver and trying to encourage them on
board.
HR Manager: Bus companies, but they also have their own policies like travel plans. As do the local government have their own
and national government have their own green travel policies. We then are to encouraged to develop our own policies.
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HR Manager: Charities.
HR Manager: Kate has about 2 or 3 charities that we have for the charity of the year.
Ryan: What about suppliers and local community? Are they CSR proactive, are they involved in the operalization?
HR Manager: Yes, and some of them have their own environmental policies which we also apply to.
Ryan: The next question is why does the Trafford put CSR into practice?
HR Manager: Wanting to develop all of that, but those are the benefits that we get out of it.
Ryan: So welfare, environmental policy, and dedication to the community. So would you say that these benefits that we have here
are the same benefits that you’re looking to achieve but why?
HR Manager: Not necessarily not for doing it. Those benefits are the results of implementing the policy.
Ryan: So there is this element of these benefits then in what you’re saying that there is…
HR Manager: The desire for the Major UK Retail Centre and I suppose again PR comes in, but the desire is to be seen to be doing
the right thing.
Ryan: Why do you need to be seen to be doing this?
HR Manager: It’s a the result of government policies, and procedures and individuals feelings about preserving the environment
and developing all these issues that we talked about.
Ryan: So you need to be seen to be doing the things that make up CSR and that’s because of government pressures and individual
pressures?
Ryan: Would you say that customer pressure is individual, because individuals are customers?
HR Manager: Yes.
HR Manager: They might have a perfectly brilliant idea on how the company could.
Ryan: But does one customer drive a policy, is that your viewpoint?
HR Manager: Possibly, but not necessarily drive a policy. But they may contribute to developing that policy. If they came up with
a really good idea or somebody mentioned a particular aspect on what we’re doing then we would have a look at it. It’s something
that the Major UK Retail Centre wants to get involved in.
Ryan: If it was costly would you do it for one person or would you it for 100?
Ryan: Individuals. I thought you meant individuals or society? I’m starting to get this feeling that when you say about individuals
and customer pressures, there is this feeling I’m getting there, there’s this element of CSR, is this of societal expectations? Because
you say benefits but you do it because you try to achieve these attributes and pressures, legal and legislative? I’m trying to look at
what’s the force that has formed these attributes?
HR Manager: If we go back to Alison Reid then, in her role of community development manager, that wasn’t her role when she
started working in the Major UK Retail Centre, that wasn’t her job title, but was part of her development under the Major UK Retail
Centre. Her job title was changed. She reflects the majority of what she got involved in, most of management team operate or work
very closely as part of the team, there isn’t any head office that tells us what to do. Alison in particular has forged a fantastic liaison
with educational committees, local community groups to develop the whole corporate and community development within the
Major UK Retail Centre. An awful lot, a massive contribution to the individual.
Ryan: I’m stressing what the corporate responsibility is, the expectations of different societal things being fulfilled. Is that how the
community development manager defines societal expectation? To be responsible towards the community?
HR Manager: Yes ok
Ryan: I keep getting the feeling that in some cases we’re talking about the individual but in some cases you meant that there was a
societal pressure.
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HR Manager: Kate will be able to tell you more details about this about the history, but there was a lot of negative publicity about
the Major UK Retail Centre. This was right from its members of the board and people in place at the time to turn the whole thing on
its head. There was a lot of negativity around. It affected retailers in Manchester city center and the local communities around. So,
the members of the board put a different PR spin on that and said absolutely not, we believe the Major UK Retail Centre will further
reinforce Manchester and greater Manchester, and will be a visit destination and an attraction to the area.
Ryan: To which of these stakeholders does the Major UK Retail Centre communicate it’s CSR definition, the definition though it’s
not explicit, it’s activities and its expected or achieved results?
HR Manager: You are right it’s not explicit, I think communication could be better, but we do communicate it to our employees, to
elements of the local business community,
HR Manager: If we can maybe just go back to link examples together. I’m on the national employment panel, regeneration of jobs
for people who have been unemployed for a length of time. I will then sort of reiterate my role and what I’m doing to various
networking, HR networks for example. Our travel and transport plan I know we have gone out to the business community.
Ryan: So let’s see who you communicate with. We have employees, local businesses, members of the transport that you
communicate with transport, who else do you communicate with?
HR Manager: Customers, obviously members of the board, stakeholders and shareholders, local and national government with
what we’re doing, and third party contractors and retailers and suppliers, and the local community and charity. Some of them are a
bit more detailed.
SIDE B
HR Manager: Right let’s go for employees, it’s the easiest one, through our induction process, we have regular team briefings,
meetings, with these kind of issues we discussed, training, general day to day work is communicated in the way that we do, website
…
HR Manager: Alison told us recently how many people, how many students have been on school visits to the Centre.
Ryan: Anything else? In terms of what do you communicate as far as CSR is concerned?
HR Manager: Business activities, how many work experienced students we had, we communicate that which is going back to
education. Our environmental policy, travel and transport policy, and also questions for retailers to help identify how we implement
policies in particular, practical elements like…
HR Manager: To comment on policies, health and safety on both corporate and social responsibility, meeting legislative
requirements as well.
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HR Manager: It’s more. It’s being proactive and taking preventive action.
Ryan: So you say that legislative has a meeting element, of going beyond? Is that HS or is it CSR as a whole?
Ryan: But your viewpoint. Do you perceive CSR being going beyond legislative or do you perceive CSR as just legislative?
HR Manager: By Alison
HR Manager: She goes to various committee meetings or the local communities come here and visit the Major UK Retail Centre.
We have a various number of local community groups coming in to the Centre, via the various networking groups that most of the
management team are on, HR for example.
HR Manager: We have an info pack which goes to all employees and anybody else word for word, everyone can go on the website
as well.
Ryan: So you have an info pack or an induction pack? Or is it the same thing?
HR Manager: Actually it’s the same thing. Annual reports and website
HR Manager: An annual AGM for shareholders, board members meetings on a regular basis. On the government side of things
there are formal reports you have to complete.
HR Manager: Yes
Ryan: AGM?
HR Manager: The kinds of reports I see are on number of vacancies, whether business and vacancies are filled down, number of
vacancies. Number of people recruited for employment.
Ryan: So HR information, ok. Third party contractors, how are you communicating with them?
HR Manager: I suppose with each individual manager, the sort of liaising with the contractors.
Ryan: Retailers?
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HR Manager: Various memos distributed, we also have a retailers board, for example if I wanted to get people for an
environmental committee, cause many of the retailers are possible…
HR Manager: Charities committee we have representatives for the charities committee we also have a retail forum,
Ryan: Transport?
HR Manager: Again in case of retailers we communicate by the forum, also we have questionnaires
Ryan: Here they do committees but in North America the committee process is very different. It’s through discussive and integrated
forms.
HR Manager: Gloria has been with us 6 months now and she is being very proactive in trying to get more public transport to the
Major UK Retail Centre mainly for potential workers and existing workers. And she’s been working with local government
departments and actions committee, which is part of job center, and between them they’ve organized something from an area of high
unemployment, it’s not ready yet but it’s almost there. So that’s part of the corporate responsibility.
HR Manager: Again, I’m not sure we have the third party contracts on that one.
HR Manager: When they come in to the center or Alison goes out, or representatives of the center go out to talk about various
issues. These kind of things. So we have for an example, a teacher placement day coming up, and the objective of that is to
communicate what we do to teachers to get a handle on what’s new and open, so I can go back and relate it to the students.
HR Manager: Part of that is communicating the environmental policy, Allison’s role and other people’s roles within the
organization.
HR Manager: Verbally
HR Manager: Yes
HR Manager: Campaigns, our impact on those charities. We review the charities on a regular basis. Also, inviting applications
from charities we haven’t supported before.
Ryan: What do you perceive to be the benefits of this communication? We’re going back now. Do you perceive these to be what
made it good or do you also perceive that these are the benefits of the Major UK Retail Centre? Now about making contributions to
the environment and communicating these to the community. What are the benefits of this communication? You said why you are
doing it?
HR Manager: Not only for the benefits but also communicating because of the responsibility to communicate to all of our
stakeholders
Ryan: So there is responsibility communicated?
HR Manager: Yes to tell all of our stakeholders what we are doing, why we’re doing it, the impact on the business, and individuals
…I don’t understand the question
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Ryan: What are the benefits of it? Why are you communicating it? What do you perceive to be the benefits to the Major UK Retail
Centre of communicating this information? Let’s talk about the question. I mean why does the Major UK Retail Centre
communicate this CSR, because you have to or is it a desire?
Ryan: So it’s a requirement, so required for everyone, for the government? For financial and business
HR Manager: Yes
Ryan: Are there any requirements for you to communicate these things to your employees or is it a desire?
Ryan: So we have legal requirement of consultation. Ok. Anything other than what is legally required to communicate or is
everyone else a desire?
Ryan: Ok. Out of these communications … let’s go stakeholder by stakeholder What do you perceive to be the benefits of that
communication? We will start with employees and look at the benefits.
Ryan: Now I want to know what are the tangible benefits and what are the intangible benefits that you perceive the Major UK
Retail Centre gets out of communicating CSR activities and CSR to employees?
HR Manager: Increased moral, low staff turnover, ideas from staff, I suppose everything is not just profit, profit, profit. The
employees can see that we along with them are giving back to the community Part of our philosophy is teamwork and a lot of it
involves doing just this to implement.
HR Manager: It positively relates the information to customers, it might encourage them to think again.
HR Manager: Again acceptance within the local business community because of their activities, we put the contribution back.
HR Manager: We gain acceptance and they are possibly positively thinking of us within the local business community. Helping to
gain acceptance. Positive feedback, increase of customers, possibly to change the negative perception to positive perception
because of the activities and positive word of mouth.
Ryan: What are the benefits you receive from them? Why are you communicating your CSR activities to them? If you don’t know
it’s ok.
HR Manager: With financial stakeholders we want to know what the Major UK Retail Centre is doing in that respect.
Ryan: That’s your expectations but why are you communicating it?
Ryan: Government?
HR Manager: Some elements have to be communicated to the government, the meeting of meeting targets and criteria. If the
government set targets, for example, the green travel plan
Ryan: What’s the benefit of hitting a target?
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HR Manager: Probably not to get penalized financially. There are financial penalties.
HR Manager: I don’t know. I know why we communicate to our retailers, having them buy into our philosophy and they also like
the third party help us to deliver what we wanted to deliver.
Ryan: Transport partners, why do you communicate with them the benefits?
Ryan: What are the benefits of communicating the green travel plan?
HR Manager: They also have a corporate and social responsibility in terms of adopting the green travel plan.
Ryan: I mean benefits to you, Why are you spending money going to committee and time resources?
HR Manager: They also have ideas, some of the people have been there before. We are very new in that respect. It’s to pick up
ideas.
HR Manager: Qualifications of good legislation, also networking with people in similar roles in other organizations, gain ideas for
a new launch.
HR Manager: All of these people are stakeholders, and the benefits of that they need to know..
Ryan: If it is fact, how do you know it’s a fact? What makes it factual and how is it factual?
HR Manager: Some of the ideas that the employees have help assist some elements of CSR, low turnover, intuitively and the
moral.
Ryan: Is there anything other than the fact that you know you got ideas and benefits, feedback is received that’s a fact.
Ryan: Do you know for a fact that it is tied to CSR? Other than those two perceived as benefits, is there anything that you know for
sure that’s a benefit or is the majority of that intuitive?
HR Manager: Intuitive
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CSR – Mres Major UK Retail Centre
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SIDE A
Ryan: First question “Does the Major UK Retail Centre have an explicit definition of Corporate Social Responsibility. If yes what
is it?”
Marketing Manager: Ok well I’ll bring it down to a very sort of brief statement of what I think it means to me. I think CSR is the
responsibility of the company to protect and care for its stakeholders. Although I think, that includes the health and safety of its
consumers, retailers and employees. The great development and training of its staff and the current support of it’s consumers,
retailers, employees and the community.
Ryan: Ok.
Marketing Manager: Yes, I said it includes the health and safety of its consumers, because obviously these are the people that are
shopping in our building. The retailers, including the staff, employees. But also I feel that an important part of that responsibility is
the development and training of its staff and also the care and support towards its consumers again, retailers, employees and the
general community.
Ryan: So you bring all that to the health and safety of stakeholders
Marketing Manager: Yes, care and support, which you know, could mean a variety of things.
Ryan: What kind of things care and support of stakeholders? What kind of things would you say that could mean?
Marketing Manager: In terms of whom? Would these be the consumers, the retailers, the employees or the community?
Ryan: Ok.
Marketing Manager: So for instance, with the consumers we look at their security supervision and make sure that they are safe.
Marketing Manager: Yes, and services supervision. So in terms of ensuring the purchase is more than just meeting their service
requirements as we look to exceed that.
Ryan: So you would say it’s almost products and services that exceed.
Marketing Manager: Yes, cause we don’t have products as such. We are a building you know and the retailers obviously have
their own services, products and prices but as a building we implement services, for instance, we’ve got, the shop ability, the central
solutions unit.
Marketing Manager: Yes and listening to customers. Doing the research, I think, is an important element of CSR.
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Ryan: Shop ability.
Marketing Manager: Yes, the creched children, the toilets in terms having children’s facilities, which means changing rooms, the
individually sized toilets for small children, I think part of that is the cleanliness and it gives an important service factor. People feel
that they are in a clean environment. Services include things like the customer services desks, and the fact that we’ve got a wide
number of staff in them, in a way that they are visible, in red coats. People have a feeling of safety here, because they know about
the customer services desks, they know they can get a wide range of information there. We can help even in terms of state provision.
The fact that we can call on a back up staff that has been trained not just for basics but in an advanced state. So, we can handle any
situation that may occur within a shop, or within the surrounding perimeter of the center. We can instantly call on an advanced staff
member to attend and then soon after that we will call the ambulance service, but that might mean saving somebody’s life.
Ryan: So what you mentioned is listening to your stakeholders
Ryan: So CSR is about communicating but also if we’re listening to our stakeholders I guess we’re listening to their expectations.
So there is an element of meeting expectations in CSR.
Marketing Manager: We’re looking not to simply meet their requirements but look to exceed their requirements.
Ryan: Ok. So exceeding expectations of stakeholders. Are there other things that you see as characteristics and attributes of CSR?
Marketing Manager: Everything. The supporting of the community, care and support of the community. I see that in terms of the
community opportunities we have available. One of them I suppose is the fact that we can employ a vast amount of people from the
local community. We are a major employer within the Northwest. We have 7,000 people employed in the Major UK Retail Centre.
When we first opened we actually worked very close with the local council and all the job centers to try and look on unemployment
black spots. Actually looked at providing training, to actually leading them to get back to work, and even now continuously we are
working with the council and job centers to recruit people and develop and train them. In terms of employment, that’s a huge
community benefit that we provide. And we have concentrated within those unemployment blackspots. Also, I think of community
in terms of general community support we provide in terms of charities that we support. We support local charities through the fund.
We select 4 different charities each year to benefit from all the money coming through the fundings. We go through a very stringent
application process. Although we have a committee in place, we do the research with customers. We say which charity is most
likely to benefit from it like with children’s or the albany or people with disabilities.
Ryan: Sorry to stop you there, but we are still looking at the question what attributes or characteristics you believe that CSR, not
necessarily how the Major UK Retail Centre manifests it, so what personally do you think that CSR is?
Marketing Manager: Because, it generates…well the thing is we are a business. It’s a relationship you have with all your
stakeholders which ensures that your business remains or is profitable. So, therefore by incorporating the implementing elements of
CSR then you are, I feel, generating a positive perception of your brand. I think it enhances brand infinity and loyalty to the brand
by enhancing the reputation of the brand and obviously increased loyalty means increased vivids. This means increased and overall
profitability and not just for all the retailers who are part of our stakeholder mix, but also for the company who own the Major UK
Retail Centre as well and to all their shareholders.
Ryan: So would you say that CSR has profitability in its attributes?
Ryan: Ok and then I think you also raised that CSR is about reconciling your contract with society that enables…. So would you
say that CSR is about fulfilling a contract with stakeholders so that gives you a license to operate?
Ryan: ok. CSR is a good thing towards positive brand perception, which builds reputation, which helps build and increase loyalty,
which helps increase usage and increase spending.
Marketing Manager: But there’s also something beyond that. Yes retention., That includes our staff retention as well. That’s really
in terms of the consumer. That’s it’s motivation and if they are a well motivated staff then hopefully they will give us very good
service. Better service to the consumer which then goes back to reputation service. Everything else is part of the service mix that the
consumers receive. And then your other stakeholders are your retailers. CSR is obviously a good thing there because if the retailers
are more successful then you’re likely to retain them, and obviously if you are retaining your retailers then you know, they’re paying
the rent, the service charge which is all related back to profitability.
Marketing Manager: But also with retailers. Well I’ll go into this as we go along but
As you know, we offer a lot of training for retailers such as the fair trading which we’ll
talk about later. That also means that we are getting involved with our retailers again
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which leads them to providing a better service to the consumers.
Ryan: Are there any other kind of benefits, other than things with loyalty, with staff, increased loyalty for retailers and consumers.
Are there any other places that you see benefits of CSR making a good thing?
Marketing Manager: In addition to that. Your reputation of how you conduct the business becomes known amongst the business
sector. This could bring business to you. For instance, businesses that are stakeholders in different terms means that we might sell a
space to an arbitrator. Or we might sell that space to promoters. People responsible for that space will get an identity of how the
Centre operates with respect to CSR and then if the reputation is building up further then it might create more interest towards the
Centre in terms of business relationships.
Marketing Manager: Yes in a sense. And then there’s also, you know, Peel Holdings to the landlords of that brand. If you look at
that map up there that’s the land that they own along the Manchester ship canal throughout the whole Northwest, Major UK Retail
Centre is just tiny. But if we can set a good example the Major UK Retail Centre for Peel then it can have positive effect for Peel.
They have a lot of planning applications in place, for all sorts of mixed use development around the whole of the NorthWest. If the
Major UK Retail Centre can set a good example that would surely help in terms of their future planning and development.
Marketing Manager: I thought this was quite a hard question I have to say
Ryan: What caused you personally to adopt this point of view of CSR? Obviously because of the fact the Major UK Retail Centre
doesn’t have an explicit view?
Marketing Manager: Well I work in marketing, and I understand business profitability through communicating key advantages the
Centre has. It’s part of my role. It’s part of what I have developed my whole career within marketing and PR so I understand the
benefits that customer relationship, management or the way you communicate your brand and affinity to the brand and loyalty to the
brand and what that leads to. You know I understand the benefits that brings.
Ryan: So it’s your industry knowledge of PR that gives you the strategy?
Marketing Manager: Yes and my experience and the career I am in really that helps me. You know I’m a big ,big believer in it and
I think sometimes it takes something to do with this but trying to convince a board of directors who are all sorts of financially and
planning and development minded, to try and get them understand its just not only their area its quite a challenge really!
Ryan: Are there other things other than your career experience in the industry that sort of help?
Marketing Manager: Common sense. leads me to things. you know, its like if I’m going to a shop I use my own examples. If I
think they’re giving me a good service and I feel that I’ve been cared for then I know through my own experience, purchasing
something that I will be loyal to that specific brand
Marketing Manager: Yes. Experiences through the Major UK Retail Centre. When you know that through an experience, such as
responding to an e-mail inquiry to a customer in a certain way. The response they get and as a consequence they tell you in what a
brilliant way we handled it. I know through experience
Ryan: Common sense. Well why do you hold this viewpoint, and this perception of common sense? Why don’t other people?
You’ve had experiences but you’ve chosen to take this viewpoint out of those experiences? Why haven’t you chosen to hold the
character of the viewpoint of possibly spending money needlessly? Or is what you’re doing any good? What part of you or what
elements have helped you to take this viewpoint?
Marketing Manager: It’s like the relationships you have with people. Some people adopt different philosophies and different
principles. I guess that I have certain principles
Ryan: So it’s personal principles and philosophies. Would you say that it is an individual moral ethical choice there?
Marketing Manager: As well as through….I know that the people who have had experiences who change their perception.
Although though my experience of being here, I see different elements. It’s actually a good experience seeing how it happens first
hand. It goes along with my own principle. It is if I can give them a bad service somewhere then I have bad principles. So, well yes
to a certain degree it’s manners. The way you’re brought up has probably certain influences. There must be reasons why one, for
example, has a very lazy attitude and don’t really care. And I think that’s because that’s the way they are. Maybe it is a part of the
way they’ve been brought up. Good question really!
Ryan: So we have bits of upbringing, personal experience, your personal principles and the professional experiences
Ryan: Would you say, I heard you say about upbringing that its, I mean your industry experiences and your career experiences and
your upbringing all had different societal group influences
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Marketing Manager: Yes I have a very wide…yes
Ryan: So what are the things, or what would you say that it’s to a point society has helped shape these images? Shaped this
viewpoint or would you say its individual?
Ryan: Well we touched upon those attribute. So would you say that CSR has a characteristic or attribute of individuality?
Ryan: Well I mean. Looking at those attributes so that CSR is meeting or exceeding expectations and the profitability,
communication, care and support of stakeholders, as soon as they go above and beyond, we have a contract with society. But would
you say that there is a characteristic or attribute of CSR there’s also a characteristic of individuality?
Marketing Manager: What do you mean an individuality?
Ryan: I can’t say that. How you had your point shaped, well I’m interested in you telling me if CSR has a characteristic of
individuality?
Marketing Manager: I think that when you work within a certain company and a certain philosophy, there is a certain way that
people are. I don’t think you’re just an individual, I think that your experiences influence you. Well mine at the Major UK Retail
Centre do because I’m working in the Major UK Retail Centre. You do have people who are practicing in whatever way, you know,
in CSR. Well they go out of their way to help the customer and that’s just part of the culture of the Major UK Retail Centre. I don’t
know where it came from or comes from where it’s adopted but I certainly think for me individually, I believe that that philosophy
is right
Ryan: But for characteristics your saying that utility is more organizational rather than individual?
Marketing Manager: It has to be organizational. It’s the whole organization that has to respond to a CSR strategy. And its
individuals within that organization that need to aspire to it not just one person
Ryan: How does the Major UK Retail Centre put CSR into practice?
Marketing Manager: Well, again cause it has so many different stakeholders it’s put into practice in different ways with different
stakeholders. So, for instance, if you are looking at staff, which probably have got a lot of a stake.
Ryan: Go into it because I’m interested in what you think individually. To draw on what you think, not as a company.
Marketing Manager: The Retail centre invests very heavily in training for staff, so staff is a major stakeholder. You know the
reasons why I think staff is a very important element of the stakeholder mix. For instance there is a very through interviewee
process. The actual recruitment and selection process, which is a very done in a very fair way, however whatever HR policies there
are in terms of recruitment and selection, I think what they do is very fair.
Marketing Manager: There is absolutely no discrimination on age. We employ I don’t know how many people aged over 60.
There’s absolutely no discriminative sort of policy with regards to race. And in fact the mix is very, very wide.
Ryan: Within the recruitment policy are there targets for any criteria that you need?
Ryan: What I mean, for age groups or for different racial do you meet targets?
Marketing Manager: What do you mean is that unethical? We don’t go out of our way, we actually treat everyone person as any
individual. But as a consequence we actually have exceeded
Ryan: It’s a good question. One thing I always ask to that question is it ethical? Do you hire to meet those headquarters?
Marketing Manager: Well once we’re through with the recruitment and selection and the interview process then they have a week,
I think it’s a 5 day induction, and this is what they get, I thought this as an example. We go through the induction which 5 days and
all this various training. They have obviously the basic training but, people are given well composed customer service philosophy,
treating people in the right way and they go through basic health and safety training. Also they go through an introduction of the
team and the people. Then they can go on to hear about other training opportunities that they can be rewarded with. You know, they
can apply for specialty training within security. There are a huge number of training opportunities for people within the security
area, whether it be police training, or in terms of undercover operation . You’ve got fire training, you’ve got first aid options, you
have advanced first aid options. Also in the area of cleaning there are special courses There’s special training for staff, even in terms
of marketing like my profession. My team will go through every year, a review to decide if there’s further training needed that they
wish to have. As an employer, I think that training provides for excellent staff and it’s a good motivation factor. We have various
schemes. We have the bright ideas scheme where we invite staff to come up with ideas. It’s their idea that’s implemented and they
are rewarded with some kind of offer. All the participants’ names go into a big final draw and someone gets a holiday of 1,000
pounds. There are a lot of incentives and I think it makes them feel part of the management team. They can also, if they want to, get
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involved in divisions. So that’s the staff’s involvement. There’s the community side. We support the community through the work
of Alison, the community center manager. She invites schools to come in and have a big educational element. This helps a lot of
local schools in terms of their activities. These can be either what they are studying, or they can do practical experience with the
Major UK Retail Centre. I don’t know how many schools we have every month. She invites probably 60 or 70 schools and colleges,
and educational bodies. She’s developed packs for teachers that they can use for study practice. We encourage a lot of students to
come and work here, like placement schemes, which are hugely beneficial to, the career development of the individual himself. We
do student interviews. We provide information packs, which is not just simply been put together. It’s very comprehensive. It gives
you all the history, the design, architecture and the construction of the area, the shop opening hours, the philosophy, the
management approach, team work, communication, how we work in the management, training packages, recruitment, customer
services. That’s quite a comprehensive package information and which I know students applaud. The charity I mentioned…
Ryan: I will pause you there for a second. I can tell you are prepared…
Marketing Manager: I was!
Ryan: Charities?
Marketing Manager: We support local charities that I mentioned previously. This includes funds, sponsorships and projects. We
always provide gift checks, prizes to help sports bodies. In the past we supported a sort of award scheme at a local school. They
have a series of things to meet in a yearly period, a whole trimester. At the end of that we give awards and checks. We supported the
whole project. Another one was a sports project, football clubs, of very low cost. We happily funded, a youth development squad for
rugby, you know a lot of sporting and educational bodies. Again I feel we put CSR into practice on the community side. I did
mention health and safety cause that is an important area really. The Major UK Retail Centre has in place a very, very stringent
health and safety policy. You know it’s a huge building, with a huge number of stakeholders and many consumers that can be here
in any one day. We want to obviously ensure that we operate in a health and safety environment. So in terms of how we implement
that, with our own staff, again that’s incorporated in all the induction, with specific training for security officers. We give training
for any potential threat but also with our retailers have to apply certain policies. We ensure for example basic fire safety issues. We
also provide roll out training if they need to take it further. And with our own staff, in terms of consumers, they might not be aware
of all the various health and safety legislation that’s in place. It’s a fine line between making them feel that potentially anything can
happen here but you don’t want to give them that feeling. You want to make them feel safe and at peace. We know that we have in
place a very strict policy but its not just that we do a rigid assessment in every piece of operation that we do in the Centre. Every
single supplier coming in doing work on the side has to go through risk assessment or they won’t be allowed to do that work. It’s
even with photography and filming, in terms of cables and wires, it all has to be assessed for potential hazardous issues. Customer
issues, which you know how we put into practice We are the only Centre in the whole of the UK, as far as we know, that have in
place fair trading. We have worked in conjunction with Trafford Metropolitan Council, and a specific fair trading officer to
encourage retailers to be fair traders. This means if a retailer has an issue with a specific, if a customer has a specific issue with a
retailer, in terms of price returns or whatever, then if the have r retailer has agreed to fair trading. They have received training, as all
the staff received training, from the fair trading officer. For the consumer they have something in the particular store to show they
signed up. And now we have a big over 90% that signed up to fair-trading and it’s independent advisor. So if there are issues
between a customer and a retailer then the Major UK Retail Centre has an independent body who will try to resolve the issue and to
ensure that the retailer complies, or if the customer has been seeking too much. If the retailer is right then there’s the independent
advisor. But we feel that it gives certain people, you know, customers, it’s a good thing to have and we communicate that in a leaflet
that’s contained at the desk and the staff are all briefed, and the customer services staff are all having to be trained in fair trading.
That’s for all of the staff not just for the staff that work at the customer services desk. It is voluntary, whereas for customer services
it’s a necessity that they understand the law of fair trading and pass it on to people, Investors and people which I’ve mentioned. In
terms of the services, we have a shop ability, so that people can have the free hire of wheel chairs and scooters in the center for
people with those kind of needs, and there’s no cost. There’s also a central solutions unit where by people can access interpreters if
they are hard of hearing, or visually impaired. With these interpreters they can go to various shops and restaurants, and we know
that through that service, for the first time a lot of people who are visually impaired or hard of hearing, or both, have never before
been able to do that before, in any other shopping center. They can through their interpreters; they can have that experience, which
again is the service that I’m not aware that any other shopping center that has that kind of services. In terms of other services that we
provide, we have the desks and offices I mentioned before. We have the first aid, which I mentioned and the training, so if the
consumers happen to have a particular incident in the Centre. But even just in terms of services, such as a prayer room, certain
religions, to have a peaceful room because some religions need to pray any time of the day, so that enables them to come to the
Major UK Retail Centre. As a consequence everybody is welcome at the Major UK Retail Centre. The prayer room can be used by
all people, or to be used as a quite room to reflect in. We do allow community people to use space. For example, to create
community awareness. We had a breast screening unit at the Major UK Retail Centre which was a service not just for the public but
also it helped to generate awareness of breast screening and to try and encourage them with them it being next to the Major UK
Retail Centre. Some people are a little bit fearful of having screenings. They can go have it and then go on and shop. It’s a good way
which people could go to that. But we also have a community corner that Alison operates, which is near the Village. Again, people
raising awareness, whether it is health issues or just general issues, which not only helps customers in terms of services, but also
helps through the Major UK Retail Centre generate awareness of very important issues. We don’t allow ruffles. I know it sounds
selfish, but we protect our customers by having a strict policy so big issue sellers do not approach them. Also, people doing research
or photography do not approach them. Its very strict, but we do have other ways, in which we help raise money and other fund
raising events, but we do have a strict policy so customers aren’t interrupted ,o they can have a relaxing experience. We do an awful
lot more really.
Ryan: Well this isn’t just for CSR, but whom do you believe, for the Trafford, to be all your stakeholders?
Marketing Manager: The customers, potential customers, the community at large, anybody I suppose outside the Major UK Retail
Centre, the staff, the retail staff, and even the head office level. For retailers as well, not just the staff that work here, the suppliers,
transport providers, tram operators, drivers to a certain extend, trainers from external companies, very important, local council or
councils, businesses, advertisers or people coming in using the conference facilities.
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Ryan: Amongst those groups, which of these stakeholders are involved in the operalization of CSR?
Ryan: Yes.
Marketing Manager: Staff, retailers, retail staff, suppliers and trainers, and I think all these bodies should have an awareness of it,
but these are responsible for actually implementing it. That’s my opinion. Oh, and company potential businesses coming in here and
they’re operating services. And local council, it can communicate in terms of employment opportunities. Transport providers.
Everybody really. The customers are not actually operating CSR but they could be telling other people about what we do. We listen
to them so they are responsible then.
Ryan: We talked about how you put it into practice, and who your stakeholders are you put it into practice with, Why does the
Major UK Retail Centre put CSR into practice?
Ryan: Is there anything on here that you would say isn’t included and Why?
Marketing Manager: I think I covered anything, well if they know to do it through CSR, because that’s actually definition of CSR
Ryan: I mean, why? For these the benefits that you do it?
Marketing Manager: Yes I think it is. I don’t think they question themselves, they have just done it.
Ryan: Then we go in the question whether the organization has been intentional?
Marketing Manager: It’s been intentional, but its not because this is CSR and this is why you should do it. With all the training for
example, that’s why, because they know they’re going to get staff motivation, but I don’t think that’s been termed under CSR.
Ryan: With these stakeholders, which are the ones that you communicate your CSR activities?
Marketing Manager: Customers, essential customers, Major UK Retail Centre staff, retailers, retail staff, suppliers to a certain
degree less though, transport providers no we don’t, drivers no, trainers I don’t know, local councils to a certain degree, local
businesses to a certain degree, other businesses limited.
Ryan: Yes
Ryan: And what are you communicating in it? According to what you termed CSR to be what kind of messages and information
that you’re communicating?
Marketing Manager: We tell them about services, shop ability, the children’s services, the help lines, in terms of where they can
get that information from. Also we tell them about our logo. We point it out the fact that we are fair trading. We have fair trade
literature available in its own right, we have awards going down the management, we do press releases,
Ryan: Are those awards communicating to customers?
Marketing Manager: Some times yes. Press release activity, anything we get accredited with, like investing, any awards that
we’ve won. We’ve got to be the more successful with anything to do with rewards. We have any information with regards to all the
services that we provide, the information packages, which are available to students and for presentations. What I have not done is
mention about the environment.
Marketing Manager: Yes that’s actually major for the Major UK Retail Centre because we have a huge recycling in place
Marketing Manager: We encourage retailers and staff. You can’t imagine how much waste they have. We have a big landscaping
team in terms of landscaping around the Major UK Retail Centre. Here we have tree preservation…in terms of the general
landscaping and generally around the Major UK Retail Centre we try to ensure that there is environment. We’ve spent 6 million
pounds on widening the roads from the m60 into the Major UK Retail Centre, for access ability…
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Marketing Manager: Yes. But it doesn’t harm the environment because if you are in a line of free flow access then you know,
would be saving more fuel. It’s major in terms of the environment. It has helped people to live here locally in terms of the
infrastructure we’ve adopted all around the roads around the Major UK Retail Centre. We’ve encouraged a lot of bus operators to
bring their services here. But as a consequence they are also serving the local people who live here.
Ryan: Are you then communicating CSR with your transport providers and the drivers?
Marketing Manager: What we try with all our operators is to encourage them to bring services here. We don’t sort of say, these are
the reasons why, Well we do say there’s demands. For the staff that work here till the evening, they want to have new services,
additional services and we are the persons to encourage them to do that. It’s an element of CSR, but it’ not the full extent of
communicating why in terms of the CSR definition.
Marketing Manager: So going for the information, in terms of communication I thought about what we do about the environment,
and the education groups. We do a lot of recycling. We have receptive bins differently color coded. They get their waste and all goes
to recycling. But we tell of those things through presentations, education, through the information packs, and via the web-site.
Things that are visual as well, such as the shop ability scheme, and even then we communicate what it is and essential solutions they
can see that so it’s actually quite visual.
Marketing Manager: Information. Any information that we produce we tell them about the shop ability service so it’s a way of
communicating. You know, shop ability and access, so from whichever form of literature that we produce we tell them about
services that we provide. With regards to the charities, we do press releases and try to get the press coverage. We do fund raising
events with the big screen and with charity competition we had to sing and dance or whatever. We do a lot of in-store things to tell
customers about what we’re doing in terms of the charity and presentations. We do an awful lot. We tell people about presentations.
People are astounded in regards to how much we do. All the other areas of communication, we do at all the inductions at the
training. They get briefings every morning about anything and we can see how we generate all the awareness of what we do, why
we do it..
Ryan: Retailers?
SIDE B
Ryan: Why does the Major UK Retail Centre communicate CSR in this manner?
Marketing Manager: We communicate in different ways, with different stakeholders, for different reasons. So for instance, with
customers we want to communicate to them the level of service position that we have in place so they can use those to enjoy the
experience of the Major UK Retail Centre, whilst they’re here. We also want to inform them about the CSR practice we have in
place. Whether it be through our own staff, or career development plans. We do a feature, that we use on a regular basis about ‘me
and my job’, so it gives them an idea of the type of services that we provide to staff and again that leads to them enjoying the
experience better. Then the staff is very helpful. We try and tell them about the services because we feel it gives better reputation
and it makes them aware of the services. For people like our suppliers, and retailers we want to try and ensure that they aspire to our
philosophies. They also implement certain services, which will lead to a better level of service, then other retailers in other shopping
centres. By trying to implement one strategic idea of what we should be delivering to the customer to help increase profitability.
Staff we want them to implement operationally the CSR, or the objective of the Major UK Retail Centre and providing a better
service, but also telling them about training opportunities that they can get involved with to going back to staff retention, and
motivation We want to keep them informed regularly. We have a staff notice board, on which to communicate all the various
activities taking place and how they can get involved in various issues.
Ryan: What do you perceive to be the benefits of communication of communicating CSR with these various stakeholders? Or we’re
going back to the charts again?
Ryan: Why do you believe that these are the benefits? I mean these are what you perceive to be benefits. How do you know these
are the benefits?
Marketing Manager: That goes back to my marketing belief, my industry belief, which I’ve said that
Ryan: So we have two elements here, so what gave you that belief?
Marketing Manager: Case studies, through being trained in CSR by employees, telling us about case studies,
Ryan: So case studies and training. So, at the Major UK Retail Centre, how do you know other than this? Is it your belief because of
your PR background and case studies and training?
Marketing Manager: And experience and through actual events that occurred. We evaluate and research, customers, expert
surveys, and not only do we get the usual kind of data, in terms of geographic and socioeconomic profiles, and the way they visit the
center and their behavior but we get down to what they actually like and dislike about the Retail centre.
Ryan: How do you know these are the actually benefits that you get?
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Marketing Manager: I know that through the benefits we’ve provided that the customers actually applaud us. The consequences of
that you know is that they’re coming here more regularly As a consequence of having these philosophies and the fact that they don’t
get disserved by people. The fact they have certain services, the fact that they have a web site they can get information on the UCI
cinemas distinct. It all relates to them coming here more often which goes back to the objective. In terms of staff we have an
evaluation, an interview with every member staff when they are leaving to find out which areas, why it might be that they’re going
onto different places And in a lot of cases its not necessarily because we have fault here. We get feedback from staff to see what
they enjoy about being here. Even in little presentations, we do as a task, as a consequence, we see that the Major UK Retail Centre
is one of the best employers because it’s providing all the training and you can see the experience provided.
Ryan: But what we’re talking about is how that you know the benefits of your CSR activities. What do you believe are the benefits
of communicating it?
Marketing Manager: They know about it. The awareness. If they know about certain services then they will use those services. If
the staff know that they are given training opportunities then they will be encouraged to do the training. If the suppliers know about
the policies we have in place then they will ensure they are operationally implementing those policies. If the community hears about
the community type events that we’re undertaking it makes them feel better about that specific brand.
Ryan: Ok so increased brand perception. Well its an important question because of the fact that what we’re looking at is whether
what’s effective in communicating it and whether if with some stakeholders you need to be specifically communicating it, or just
doing it enough and does that then achieve it?
Marketing Manager: I think it’s a mixture of both really. And I think it depends on stakeholders. It’s almost a different set of
objectives although they are leading into one idealism. The way we are communicating in different sectors …it provides a
background to why we do it. Maybe we need to look at why we’re doing it a little more. Specific cases relate differently to different
audiences.
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CSR – MRes Major UK Retail Centre
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SIDE A
Ryan: “Does the Major UK Retail Centre have an explicit definition of Corporate Social Responsibility”? And if yes what is it?
PA Manager: I don’t think it does, not a written definition certainly, but they have a philosophy, I don’t think that goes under social
responsibility.
Ryan: Ok, what does the term CSR mean to you? What characteristics or attributes do you think make up CSR?
PA Manager: I think CSR is operating in an ethical manner and legal, obviously you have to comply with legislation, and helps
recognize the impacts of the company or its structure on internal and external community.
PA Manager: Recognizing the impact on internal and external communities, the impact on the company and its actions.
PA Manager: Good question, there seems to be circumstances whether the government is open and honest. We do charity.
Ryan: So what you said about the government about being open and hones, it is obviously communicated. So CSR is about
communicating?
Ryan: Ok. Ethical manner. Can you go in a bit more depth on what is this operating in ethical manner? What are the attributes of
operating in an ethical manner?
PA Manager: I find this difficult actually because I say it, I know what I mean, but I can’t communicate it. Done with respect of all
sorts of things, respect of people, customer and safe, with respect to individuals.
Ryan: So individuals?
PA Manager: Yes to other companies we are associated with, and other institutions like schools and colleges and things.
PA Manager: Yes
PA Manager: The ethics is manner in which you operate by being legal, decent, honest, truthful.
Ryan: So legal with respect to what? With CSR meaning relevant legal and regulations?
PA Manager: Obviously we come under a number of different regulations, we operate things like protection, disability,
discrimination, employment, legislation, health and safety legislation.
Ryan: HR?
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PA Manager: Under legislation we have a list to understand different act and regulation to comply with.
PA Manager: Yes.
PA Manager: Yes absolutely because of the recycling elements, and not polluting.
Ryan: Is CSR a good thing or a bad thing? If it’s a good thing what are the benefits of it? And if it’s a bad thing what are the issues
with it?
PA Manager: I think it’s a good thing. For a long time there’s been many companies that haven’t been corporately socially
responsible and unfortunately these things have come back to hit them in the face nowadays. For instance, the company in Chester
dumped the waste and then they build houses on top, while the waste was underneath. That wasn’t corporately socially responsible.
That’s an environmental one.
PA Manager: I have no idea. It may not have been, and they been put things down where they shouldn’t have been.
PA Manager: They thought it would have been yes, probably the local authorities were irresponsible because they build the houses
on top, without checking out what the future might have held or whatever.
Ryan: So with this issue we have this time element , because that thing at the time it probably was legal And we can even possibly
guess it. Accept as practice. So we get back to your element definition of CSR of the corporate CSR?
PA Manager: Possibly yes. You should be looking into the future and the impact in the future of your actions now, possibly. You
should be considering the implications of things that you do now on the future. So for instance CSR is good and I think one of the
benefits are raising the status of the company, in terms of not just being there to get people for the money.
PA Manager: Yes, its actual benefits, thinking ahead might save trouble in the future.
PA Manager: Longer term, people feel warm towards it, they think that we’re putting something back we’re not sitting there.
Ryan: So loyalty?
PA Manager: Yes loyalty. It brings back customers year after year. If we start engaging them now they will come back when they
are adults with more spending power, and carry on spending. Then they may be more affluent in middle aged, or when they are
retired and they will keep spending because they have developed a loyalty to the Retail centre.
Ryan: What has caused you to adopt this point of view on CSR? And whether it’s a good thing or a bad thing?
PA Manager: My job, really. My job didn’t exist when the Centre opened. It has evolved and there seems to be a need for someone
to take on a community role, whatever community means in that particular case. So that has brought me into contact with other
organizations such as Kellogg’s, and people like that who do well. Certainly Kellogg promotes their CSR. Kellogg’s actually, keep
their good deeds under a bush. They do an awful lot of good work that nobody ever knows about. So I’ve seen a lot of other
companies, and I’ve realized that what I’m doing is really what they do, but on a smaller scale than them. But I haven’t seen any bad
things coming out of what they’ve been doing.
PA Manager: Well I don’t go out of my way to shop at shops where they have an ethical policy, but when you see something in the
press about someone has been using slave labour, you think twice about going there. So personal experience as well. Like the
‘Bodyshop’ has always promoted as being ethically brilliant and helping people and …
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Ryan: So is that personal experience, from images projected to you?
Ryan: Any other things? We have personal images projected, not proactive research, current experience, and evolution of work and
new role.
PA Manager: And feedback from things that we have already implemented as well , on a small scale, feedback has always been
very positive. An example would be school resources, all the visits we had this morning.
Ryan: How does the Major UK Retail Centre put this into practice?
PA Manager: We have our community programs, community development, which I think you have a copy for but I can get you
another…
PA Manager: Community development doesn’t just mean me, that’s my job title, because it does go across the company. There are
things that security do and things that a number of the services team do, things that customer services do. Examples would be the
environmental policy. Recycling, which is significantly on the cardboard side and would be a good one for next session. We have
the education programs, there’s awful lot on the website for GMBQ, primary level, secondary level and GMBQ - ABC level.
PA Manager: Plus the visits program for school visits. We do have for travel and transport coordinator, she comes under customer
services another department. We have the HR department with the jobs recruitment
Ryan: One of the reasons is that each one of you get a different act so when we put it together and get a clearer picture and this is
one of the reasons you guys weren’t allowed to really speak to each other about this process I’m doing.
PA Manager: We have the crime prevention, the safety and security, we have things for specific needs and supervision for disabled
people.
PA Manager: We have members a no-smoking policy, you got recruitment there, and the links with the job center and things like
that?
Ryan: So, recruitment. Just remember that everything that everyone else has mentioned hasn’t happened
Ryan: What we’re looking at is all the manifestations not a specific stakeholder.
PA Manager: We have education. There are things like the network for the employers about education and future employment.
PA Manager: Yes, charity work, charity committees. There’s also local regulations and standards off course, with legal matters, or
going beyond compliance and regulations, discrimination, we want to defeat it not follow it. Changes, it evolves it doesn’t stay the
same.
Ryan: So CSR is evolving. It doesn’t stay the same. What other manifestations then, we have community, developed program,
customer services, employee network, and compliance with regulators.
PA Manager: HR, recycling. There’s also our staff awards program which it probably could come under CSR because its
encouraging staff to come up with bright ideas, to improve customer service but also to come up with cost saving ideas and there’s
loads of recycling.
PA Manager: Yes bright ideas awards and we have customer service awards as well, for people who go the extra mile beyond of
their job description or what’s required of them. Training comes under HR as well.
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PA Manager: Yes because we train people a) to be able to do the job and b) they also get additional training which will benefit
them longer term in their own career development. They choose to leave at any point, a lot of them have used the training, and have
gone to other places.
PA Manager: Charity work and we did do financial donations to things like local events, we provide prizes…
PA Manager: Yes, and also equipment donations as well, computers for recycling, which is handled by the IT department but I
know about it, and mobile phones to recycle for charity as well. And we have actually given away furniture to local charities.
Education, I’ve only mentioned it briefly, it’s quite a lot of different factors to it.
PA Manager: Well yes. We do presentations and tours at all levels. We have a primer level and another one for more advanced
students. We do work experience and work shadowing and teacher placement days. They come in and somebody from the HR
department goes and talks about careers, opportunities and how we run the Centre. Also we tell how they can use the Centre as an
educational tool as well. Teaching resources, you got primary level, secondary level, and higher education. I also do a limited
outreach program,. These depend on my available time. I go out and speak to schools, or at school conferences and I do a couple of
days a year with the industrial society as well, where they go out and do challenges. We support local education action zone, we let
them use the meeting rooms in the evenings and we do things with them. Governor of local schools, south, and east, both our
governors of local primary schools, which is the nearest one to the Major UK Retail Centre, which is a nice one. We also have
development committees, with different initiatives, for retailing qualification. I’ve mentioned discrimination, we go the extra mile
on that. Crime prevention and Safety, among crime stoppers. We do a lot with the police and education, the welfare officers they
come around. We have the community, community groups and charities come in. The breast screening unit are coming back, they
were here for a whole year and so successful that they are coming back this year.
Ryan: So Stakeholders as a whole? Who do you perceive to be the main stakeholder groups for the Retail centre?
PA Manager: Staff, and retailer staff, customers and the board who represents the shareholders, the main board, the retailers and
the local authorities that surround the Retail centre. Also sponsorship partners by Nestle and Coca–Cola, charities, educational
institutions, other local and regional community groups, retired people’s groups and thins, the media, I don’t think there’s more
actually
Ryan: Are any of these that you mentioned need to break up into smaller groups or do you think they are encompassing enough?
PA Manager: The charities come under community groups anyway, but I’ve separated them out, sponsorship partners I think, no,
no I think.
Ryan: ok. Out of these groups which do you think are involved in the operalization of CSR? Are involved in your activities?
Shaping and presenting the company?
PA Manager: Right, staff, all staff, sponsorship partners, educational institutions and media. If they communicate what we’re
doing, we communicate especially to them then they will communicate towards others, retailers, community groups, it’s actually all
of them, I don’t think the board do but then you could actually with the funding so actually they are.
PA Manager: Well it could have an impact on them, through health and safety or planning or whatever. Really it depends on what
it is we’re trying to do.
Ryan: Charities?
Ryan: Auditors?
PA Manager: I don’t know. There are two types of auditors. There are the straight forward financial auditors and there are also the
auditors who represent the retailers Their role is to see how we are spending the money that they give us. So yes they could be but I
would say it’s the retail auditors.
Ryan: Why does the Major UK Retail Centre put CSR into practice?
PA Manager: It sort of goes back to the long term benefits. There is always a desire to be as we say in the British ‘Good Neighbor’.
But also to see the commercial sort of side to it, it increases long term loyalty to the brand, I’m sure there’s some philanthropy in
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there or otherwise they wouldn’t pay me to do my job. It’s hard for me to relate that, the financial benefits of my job, to the overall
picture. They put me here for a reason and I do the job. It’s not an easy one.
Ryan: It’s one thing you drew there but there’s also for the organization the objective is financial reward, it’s a good thing that one
of the benefits is that it enables to achieve organizational objectives. Which of these groups do you communicate your CSR
attributes to that are involved?
PA Manager: Charities, education, staff, retailers and therefore retail staff hopefully, the board, customers we do a little bit through
our marketing and PR, like PR story releases major things, employees, local community, other organizations, partners as well, the
media as a group when we want to promote something specific I suppose, .
Ryan: So we have these groups and the next question is ‘How does this communication manifest itself? Is this both in terms of
content and media? So let’s take Retail centre staff.
PA Manager: If we have, sort of news about how much money we raised at charities or educational material coming out for things
they can get involved in, seeking involvement and telling them results,
PA Manager: We rely on and do it via the media if there’s something there needs to be told. For instance if we’re looking for
charities to reply to us we would go to the press, with a press release and then normally publish it locally. Community groups is
more word of mouth really, cause they get to hear that I’m doing a certain project or whatever, I go and talk to them, awards and
money raise for charities, and staff that’s recycled
PA Manager: Regular, monthly reports to the board, indirectly they see stories in the press about the Retail centre, the website as
well works for most, I would think, its accessible to everybody, all the communications.
Ryan: Auditors?
PA Manager: Auditors they get to see the accounts and the support documentation they need.
Ryan: Retailers?
PA Manager: we’ve said that, we have a newsletter that goes out to retailers, we also communicate by memos, and by post, and one
to one conversations, we have managers go around to see them, head office level managers.
PA Manager: Through the managers and from their head officers I suppose, we also put it on staff notice board and they get to see
that newsletter as well.
PA Manager: Mainly one to one conversations, we have designated liaison person with each company, Coca-Cola and Nestle, and
we have a very good working relationship with them we just pick the phone up. We want their support for education, but they also
give us money to do all sorts of things.
PA Manager: Well, through the resources available, website and through the local education authority, we actually use them to
promote our educational program, also through the educational partnerships as well, and direct contact at schools and colleges.
Ryan: Customers?
PA Manager: Customers, we have the Trafford magazine, the promotional literature, through generating news stories, physical, TV
serving, radio, whatever.
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Ryan: Charities committee?
PA Manager: We write to any charities to let them no what is happening, any opportunities.
Ryan: Media?
PA Manager: Media is mainly through personal contacts. They will not talk to you unless you actually try and make friends with
them.
Ryan: Why does the Major UK Retail Centre communicate CSR in this manner?
Ryan: In the manner first cause I think that’s more why you perceive to be the benefits.
PA Manager: PR profile as a company, I think it raises the awareness of things that go on behind the scenes. People are curious
they like to know what goes on.
PA Manager: Yes.
Ryan: What do you perceive to be the benefits of communicating CSR in with the stakeholders?
PA Manager: The intangible warm feeling, the Peel Group factor. It’s, a perceptual, reputation. It’s one of the benefits of having a
good reputation. There are benefits to showing that you go the extra mile. That you go beyond what would be a normal requirement.
These are benefits for the parent company as well.
PA Manager: Projects we get involved in. The reason I say that is because I was actually requested to run through…
PA Manager: Increasing brand loyalty and that should turn out fruitful longer term.
Ryan: Loyalty. So, going back to your original elements of CSR then, you had recognized the impact of these activities, the social
needs and wants versus company objectives.
Ryan: Why do you believe these are the benefits? How do you know?
PA Manager: I don’t know, good question. I can imagine that those are the benefits.
PA Manager: Through research. Whether people understand CSR or if people think of us as being aspirational.
PA Manager: I think so yes. Also from looking at other organizations that have already been down this route and they are years
ahead on this.
PA Manager: Yes I think so. We are relatively to other companies slightly more responsible.
Ryan: So would you believe more of these benefits are because you got awards? That recognizes your excellence in some areas?
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CSR – MRes Major UK Retail Centre
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SIDE A
Ryan: First question “Does the Major UK Retail Centre have an explicit definition of Corporate Social Responsibility?”
Ryan: A definition.
Ryan: Yes
Ryan: In that case, “What does the term CSR mean to you”? Including what are the characteristics and attributes of CSR?
PR Manager: CSR means to me, Corporate social responsibility, so it’s kind of ethics of operating within the community It’s how
we’re perceived by the local community, retailers, our customers and our employees.
Ryan: Ok.
PR Manager: In terms of that being perceived as a …, for example dumping toxic waste on … we work within safe parameters
PR Manager: Yes, laws and regulations. Abiding by laws and regulations. Being a committed employer, a good employer to
people.
Ryan: What are the characteristics and attributes of CSR? What is CSR to you?
PR Manager: Also what you give back to the community in terms of charities, sponsorship, education.
PR Manager: I suppose that links into being kind of, in terms of abiding by the laws and regulations, I think that probably links in
terms of …we’re ethical in terms of, we have ethical practices in terms of being an employer and providing a service to customers.
And I suppose, the protection, the health and safety..
PR Manager: No
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Ryan: What does accountability involve?
PR Manager: If there is a problem, whether it is with an employee, retailer or customer, there is somebody from the Centre that is
accountable to that. There is always going to be somebody ultimately in transport, for any issues that arise.
Ryan: So CSR has accountability, so that means there is possibly, some forms of audit and measurement then?
PR Manager: Yes
Ryan: ok. How do you know that something has been accounted for?
PR Manager: In terms of the systems in place, in terms of the line of feedback. For example, a customer could walk in …
Ryan: How it’s communicated?
PR Manager: Yes, customer service desk complaint and then that complaint would be noted and passed on to the relevant person,
so yes communication
Ryan: Ok. Is CSR a bad thing or a good thing? If it’s a good thing what are the benefits of it? And if it’s a bad thing what are the
issues with it?
PR Manager: I think it’s a good thing and the benefits in terms of it help build positive reputation, and stakeholders.
PR Manager: It can create loyalty to the brand and retain customers, and also retain loyalty among employees,
PR Manager: Yes
PR Manager: I think it helps to attract quality staff if they think you’re a quality organization, there will be certain values
PR Manager: Yes, cause you’re going to attract people with some sort of expectations, but also it kind of retains employees as
well.
Ryan: Which leads to quality staff. You said it retains customers, builds reputation, would you say that reputations attract
customers?
PR Manager: Yes and it builds kind of a positive image as well, your organization kind of has a positive connotation to it opposed
to negative
PR Manager: Yes
Ryan: Why do organizations want good will, good reputation, retain customers, loyalty, attract new customers why is it important?
PR Manager: In terms of the Major UK Retail Centre For having all these positive images and an excellent reputation. It has
ensured that it’s success because people want to return here as a visitor, people will want to stay working here, retailers will have a
good feeling and will want to operate from here so its kind of a holistic approach.
Ryan: Achievement of business objectives. Anything else? We have positive image, attracts new customers, builds reputation and
loyalty, retains customers, quality candidates, retains employability, quality of staff, minimize staff turnover, staff goodwill, all
which leads to enable the achievement of business objectives
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PR Manager: And also attract retailers. Probably it generates an envy factor and retailers want to come into the Centre
Ryan: So positive images and the explicit position of the brand in a way?
PR Manager: Yes
Ryan: What caused you to adopt this point of view? What are the things that caused you to have this point of view yourself?
PR Manager: I suppose in terms of kind of analyzing the whole experience of this place
PR Manager: Well with an organization like the Major UK Retail Centre I am a customer as well as an employee, so that kind of
gives me an idea inside really, I can see it from both sides. And in terms of my role, within PR as well, I’m more aware of what
good PR is.
Ryan: Ok.
PR Manager: And I suppose when we question why you remain loyal to a brand or product, I want to have access to a quality
product and I do think that the whole CSR element has to do with quality
Ryan: Do you have any personal view points that help support this?
PR Manager: Yes I suppose in terms of becoming aware of organizations that have done it badly. We are the ones that did it well
and when you compare those experiences
PR Manager: I always remember the General Rompers example. When he claimed that during the.
Ryan: Next question. How does the Major UK Retail Centre put CSR into practice?
PR Manager: In terms of the retailers side of things we have a fair trading to do which protects both retailer and consumer interest.
We have community programs, in terms of educational initiative, charitable interest and sponsorship, and communicating with other
outside organizations that can benefit from the center. Then in terms of customer services, kind of trading. We’re very proud of our
services, we have good services.
PR Manager: Yes. In terms of our policies and procedures, the health and safety, recruitment and employment, the providing of all
the services as well, in terms of services for disabled people, children etc And I suppose communication as well. And then also work
with outside agencies, such as Manchester Police and other outside bodies, GMP. Also in terms of the environment as well
Ryan: Not just in terms of CSR, but who do you believe the Major UK Retail Centre’s stakeholders to be?
PR Manager: Customers, retailers, employees, potential employees, all the outside agencies that we deal with and organizations
that would take an interest of in the activities happening here.
PR Manager: Suppliers, emergence services, trade associations etc., local councils and potential retailers.
Ryan: Which of these stakeholders are involved in the Trafford Center’s operalization of CSR? What I mean by operalization is the
implementation or interaction with the implementation.
PR Manager: In terms of stakeholders. Ok.. In terms of the trade associations they play a part in terms of our customer service.
Ryan: Customers?
PR Manager: We have customer forums to get feedback from customers, so that can impact on the way we do things here. In terms
of the retailers as well. So they have to follow a set of standards which we set.
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Ryan: So procedures and policies
PR Manager: And then in terms of employees and potential employees, they again have to follow the procedures in place. And then
in terms of the customers as well. They are going to benefit from the programs that take place.
PR Manager: Yes they are in a way, because they can influence in a way
Ryan: Why does the Retail centre put CSR into practice? Is it back to the benefits, is it for the same reasons, is that why the Major
UK Retail Centre puts it into practice?
PR Manager: I think yes, the Major UK Retail Centre cares in its own success because of people. Without those reasons that I gave
earlier, it’s a key really,
PR Manager: Yes
Ryan: With which of these stakeholders does the Retail centre communicate some of the CSR activities?
PR Manager: We haven’t actually got a corporate definition of CSR, so we do communicate what we do but not necessarily CSR
PR Manager: Customers, potential customers, retailers, educational establishment, outside organizations such as all the regulatory
bodies, to certain suppliers but not all, employees and potential employees
Ryan: How does this communication manifest itself? I mean both in terms of content and media?
PR Manager: In terms of communication with customers and potential customers, advertising, arrangement of leaflets and
information. Information packs, a Centre magazine, through radio and to, communicate to the public by the media, in terms of
employees with an in house news letter, center departments have feedback sessions, not all, internet which is a big aspect of
communication, encourage customers to
Ryan: And then again I’m guessing that gets the customers?
PR Manager: Yes
PR Manager: Yes, and then in terms of retailers its again an updated news letter which goes to them and kind of like one to one
communication through individual managers
PR Manager: Yes. That has an information curriculum pack, close work with schools, so again the one to one.
PR Manager: To a certain extent. You know depending on who the manager is and which body they would need to communicate
with.
PR Manager: Again I think that’s more of a one to one. Between specific managers that are responsible for suppliers.
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Ryan: Potential employees?
PR Manager: Well I suppose they could be exposed to things like the stuff that I have mentioned, like the internet, information they
receive from the big screen.
Ryan: And what are you communicating in all these informations? Your advertising. What was your advertising communicating?
Under CSR?
PR Manager: Well I suppose in advertising you have. It’s not directly communicating. With advertising that’s not necessary
communicating any CSR elements. It’s more reflecting the brand values of the Centre. A key message when there is an event or a
particular message.
Ryan: Leaflets?
PR Manager: In terms of CSR they are really useful in terms of communicating all the 1informations that we have but also the
endorsements by the outside agencies.
PR Manager: Very much like retail focused, in terms of encouraging customers to use the retail offering, although there is a part of
that within the section where you can communicate your awards or whatever. But we don’t actually have a CSR page within that.
Ryan: Media?
PR Manager: In terms of informing them the positive thing that we do here in terms of awards, initiative, our commitment to
customers and safety.
PR Manager: Very strong kind of CSR element. Again I would say all the endorsements by outside agencies, it provides customers
feedback mechanisms, communication mechanisms. Also in terms of education resource
Ryan: Why does the Major UK Retail Centre communicate CSR in this manner?
PR Manager: Because it’s important to keep these people informed, I talked about earlier
Ryan: Why do you perceive to be the benefits of communicating CSR with these various stakeholders? Or are we heading back to
that..
PR Manager: Well yes tangible and intangible and what there is to offer.
Ryan: Increase?
PR Manager: Retailer demand you know. The educational interest in terms of if we weren’t getting thing right I don’t think we
would have schools from primary to post graduate level that that would have come into the centre and see what its all about. I
suppose increase in potential applicants, and also kind of staff retention..
Ryan: So you’re coming back to things like positive image, builds reputation, attraction of quality staff, retaining employees,
PR Manager: Yes. And then I suppose intangible perceptions people associate with the Centre which are obviously hard to
measure. Perceptions, you know if you’re seen as a good or a bad organization, a caring organization, again potential attraction,
there may be a great interest among potential retailers and customers and employees.
Ryan: Why do you believe these are the benefits? How do you know?
PR Manager: Again from my direct experience and feedback from all these groups and I suppose the repetition of methods
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PR Manager: Yes
PR Manager: I suppose in terms of me its more interpretation because I deal with the hard part of the research, which is very
positive, it’s more intuitive for me
Ryan: Why do you believe these are the benefits? Or how do you know this is a benefit of doing it? Not doing it communicating it?
PR Manager: It creates an interest to people and it can also create loyalty and support for your organization
PR Manager: No that’s it
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CSR – Mres Major UK Retail Centre
Side A
Ryan: Now the first question is does the Retail centre have an explicit definition of corporate social responsibility?
Ryan: That then leads me onto the second question which is, what does the term corporate social responsibility mean to you? By
this I mean what are the characteristics and attributes of corporate social responsibility as far as you’re concerned?
Centre Manager: My basic interpretation of CSR is that, you know, a company as us the Retail centre, has responsibilities and
those are not just responsibilities in terms of the strict definition of a business, i.e. operating a shopping centre, but they go beyond
that. Those responsibilities extend not only to the individuals that work with and for the company but also those people that are
effected by the company’s presence.
Ryan: So, in that, is it fair to say that one of the characteristics of CSR is your core business?
Centre Manager: Yeah, I suppose we are responsible that we run our business in a responsible manner and with compete
responsibly.
Ryan: But then we’ve also got elements that you’ve drawn out of internal stakeholders, responsibility to those internal stakeholders.
Centre Manager: Yep, we directly employ a large quantity of staff. We have another quantity of employees on site who we have a
duty of care to in many respects. Beyond that the great numbers of the general public to whom again, a duty of care exists.
Centre Manager: That’s what we would focus on in terms of direct responsibility that’s people who are here, people who we
interact with on a daily basis, people who are visiting our Retail centre. But you then go wider than that because of sheer presence
effects other people.
Centre Manager: Well our sheer presence effects people in the locality, the local population and again on different levels. There
are areas where we naturally effect: sheer physical presence, traffic issues, and there are issues that we have chosen to effect.
Ryan: Now that brings me to something there that you have chosen. Would you agree that CSR is about being responsible in the
explicit in what you have to do but also in there is a voluntary?
Centre Manager: Very much so. I mean I don’t think you can take on responsibility in that sense, unless you know. We can all do a
job and do the bare minimum. What makes us good at a job is doing beyond and I think that is CSR in a very simple format. We can
all set a business up, we can all make Smarties, but can we all do that bit extra in terms of the people that we interact with, either
directly or indirectly?
Ryan: Now you used the term responsibility quite a lot. You talk about different responsibilities, what defines a responsibility
within CSR?
Centre Manager: There are two elements. There is the direct, the people you are actually touching, the people that are visiting our
centre, the people that work here. We have a responsibility for their safe keeping, the health and safety side of things, the
communication. But that is more what I would term the physical side. Now there is also the moral responsibility, or however you
want to term it. People in the working community, who we effect by being here.
Ryan: Now other than the explicit, things like the legislation what is your viewpoint of CSR, what is the implicit responsibility,
how to you is that derived?
Centre Manager: I suppose if you’re honest, what you are actually saying is who made the decision that we would take this
responsibility?
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Ryan: Yeah and how this responsibility how did it come about? I mean cause the explicit is quite obvious, I mean the explicit is
really laid down.
Centre Manager: It comes about cause we did want to be seen, I suppose it was a perception problem that we had to over come
which goes back to the history of the development. I mean this development was in many ways not wanted by a lot of people.
Therefore once the decision had been made to create the development, we were very conscious that we had to alter minds. That we
had to convince people that we weren’t a bad thing, that we could be good.
Ryan: So I mean you have used the word communication. Would you try to say that adamant of CSR is its communication?
Centre Manager: Well, you can’t be seen in many respects to actually have responsibility without communicating it on a very base
level.
Ryan: Now also, you said that the impetuous was in order to changing the mind sets, to change the view points. Would you agree
then that your CSR activities, at the end of the day, must be tied to desired business outcomes?
Centre Manager: From day one that was the focus. We were seen as a big nasty developer, building something that lots of people
didn’t want. We’ve now, four and a half years on, established that lots of people want it and our responsibility has been much better
defined in terms of what’s better not just for us, but also the recipients of that responsibility. So we’ve shifted, we’ve gone away
from the early days of ‘ we’ve got to do this because we have to send out a message’ to ‘we are doing this because A) we enjoy it,
and B) so do the people that we do it with’. So we reciprocate in terms of the messages we send out.
Ryan: So would you say that the impetuous of CSR activities is a mixture of business outcome, but there is also an element of
altruism in it?
Ryan: Is there anything else that you would use in terms of corporate social responsibility. By this I mean corporate social
responsibility in terms of internal, external, comminations, altruism, outcomes, activities and moral responsibility?
Ryan: Ok.
Centre Manager: We do that on a company level through these meshes but on a very personal level there’s is a responsibility to
myself due to my position that shows I give something back to the broader community outside this business.
Ryan: Would you say that it is fair to say that this is your viewpoint of CSR. That there is a level of the individual in an
organisation’s CSR?
Ryan: The next question, you have answered in some ways, but is CSR in your view point, a good thing or a bad thing? If it is a
good thing, what are the benefits of it and if it is a bad thing, what are the issues with it?
Centre Manager: It’s a good thing because I believe any company to actually better understand its needs of its customer, and its
customers needs of it, in a very simple format, it’s understandable. Again, going back to the earlier analogy, if you just want to go
out and do the bare minimum, you just want to make Smarties, you make them, you put them on the shelf and someone buys them.
Someone who wants to make that business better would try to understand what the customer wants from the Smarties, talk to the
customer. That’s the sort of analogy I use in strict business. We need to better understand our customers and we hope that our
customers would better understand us so that’s what of the good things about CSR because, in the definition I’ve given it, that
happens. You have to talk.
Ryan: So I mean going back to that then, CSR an element would be that this communication, is two way?
Ryan: Other than understanding both directions are there any other benefits? Is there anything else that you perceive?
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Centre Manager: Yeah, I think that by sheer process managers understand their jobs better so you know, your staff awareness
issues are much higher. It is to be responsible in its own right and brings further responsibility with it.
Ryan: So we’ve got understanding, both in terms of customers and organisations, which better enables managers to understand their
roles which enables better development. What other benefits?
Centre Manager: I think if it’s handled in a sensitive manner then our PR benefits from that in terms of, that you can tell people
that you are responsible, and hope to have evidence that you are responsible.
Ryan: So you would say reputational benefits? Why is it important to get these reputational, perceptual benefits?
Centre Manager: Because we live in a competitive world where choices involve people and we are all about those choices. That’s
one of the first simple choices the customer makes, do I go to the Retail centre this weekend, or do I go somewhere else?
Ryan: So improves competitive advantage and this ties to business outcomes. Anything else?
Centre Manager: I also think as part of a group company I think the benefits are there with issues such as this, particularly with
older more established companies there are elements that the group can be made aware of the benefits. So we are improving our
peers if you like in terms of the group.
Centre Manager: I think quite often people are saying, ‘why aren’t we doing this at Liverpool John Lennon, because they’re doing
it at the Retail centre’.
Centre Manager: Ultimately I think leaving out several of those issues in terms of choices, PR and potentially financial ones.
Centre Manager: Again it comes back to the simple facts of choice. Someone makes a choice, they are going to the Retail centre
because They believe it is a nice place and on the terms that they’ve done this.
Ryan: Anything else? Can the benefits not only work for the parent company to do better by itself? Is it possible that the CSR
activities facilitate your existence with them?
Ryan: Are there benefits with you for the parent company not in terms of a single, but other organisations?
Centre Manager: Yes you’re right. It is used, I suppose the ultimate thing is that a member of Peel Holdings goes to a meeting
where people don’t know them and they ask what do you do for them they say oh well we own and operate the Retail centre. So
there is a benefit there.
Ryan: And does that benefit work for yourselves as well with the parent company?
Centre Manager: It can do in the longer term because again it broadens the marketing for the centre, in very simple terms. We get
marketed better through the group, through people in general, because they know, I hope our responsible profile as an owner.
Ryan: Ok, anything else? Now this is a personal question. What caused you to adopt this point of view, both in terms of it’s a good
thing but what makes up it.
Centre Manager: That was probably heightened by my first job, which put customer service as the pinnacle. Aimed for the highest
status of customer service.
Ryan: Other than your personal/ professional experience are there other things that have impacted on this view?
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Centre Manager: I suppose from a business point of view there has been from past experience. When the business first started with
fourteen experts that had worked on other schemes similar to this, we called on their experience. What lessons they had learned in
the past. I suppose the final thing is the management style here has forced us to adopt a point of view where we have taken on a
team of fairly focused group of individuals and moulded them into a team that are not discouraged from conversation and
innovation. So if there is something to talk about, they will talk about it. If there is something for us to do, lets talk about it. We
meet on a regular basis to enable that to happen.
Ryan: Ok. Other than your professional experiences how has this viewpoint been shaped? Was it by your personal life, experience?
Centre Manager: Yeah probably. Cause I was bastard to my parents early on when I first started work. And you reflect on that I
think. I didn’t show them that I was responsible.
Ryan: One of the questions here is what is your own viewpoint on recycling and things like that? Would you say that your moral
viewpoint impacts heavily on your viewpoint of CSR?
Centre Manager: I would think it would but it comes from quite a cynical side view.
Ryan: Ok.
Centre Manager: Because my view of recycling is that some points of them are right, then some are politicised to make us believe
its right when in all honesty it does not help the issue at hand. I am a very technical person so I need a technical explanation for
things in most respects. Like recycled paper, it’s good to recycle paper. When you actually get into it the technicality is not that
good. It uses a lot of energy, puts a lot of dirty water into the system. You are actually cutting down trees that were specially grown
to make paper to help the ozone. So where is the pressure here? Where is it going? It was the same issue in some respects with
things like unleaded petrol and unleaded fuel. We lost sight of the fact that we were making a product with less calorific value so we
actually use more of it, i.e. leaded fuel and the side issue was lead. What was the big problem with lead? Are we trying to solve the
lead problem? Actually it made problems worse cause we produced and used more fossil fuels.
Ryan: Same with natural fibres. Shall we use natural fibres not synthetic? Synthetic is actually better for the environment, it’s
something like eight times more environmentally friendly than cotton. So I can understand the cynical viewpoint. Now do you think
this viewpoint tempers the public man versus what actually happened?
Centre Manager: Yeah, that’s why if you want to be honest, my viewpoint of the term corporate social responsibility can be quite
cynical because I think it has been quite damning to what’s been going on for years. It just happens to be a buzzword.
Ryan: That’s good ok, well speak about that later. One of my academic presuppositions is that CSR is nothing new, it’s a new term
its purely about relationships.
Centre Manager: I think there will be a proliferation of CSR consultancies in the next few years, telling businesses nothing that in
theory that they either should have listened to before or invented themselves anyway.
Ryan: How does the Retail centre put CSR into practice?
Centre Manager: Again in very simple terms, in terms of our business and customers we focus on business service, in terms of
trying to give those customers what they want and listening if there is something they haven’t got. Listening to what they say, to
their complaints. I always tell the story about how M&S people used to say they get more complaints abut the food than others. I say
yes they got more complaints but they actually listened. Companies that say yeah, ‘thanks madam that’s great, but that’s just the
way it is’ always gets more complaints than companies who sit down and ask what about the problem. But that was the way it was.
That’s why the Retail centre focuses on customer services. From that we have grown as a team first 2-3 years here .At first we were
so inwardly focused here it hurt because it was a difficult site. It was a difficult experience. We were trying to prove people wrong,
and we were so self focused it was painful and that hurt us due to the messages we were sending outside. We weren’t as involved
with the outside world as we should have been. It took some relaxation of that emphasis to say, well actually what were doing and
now its quite good. It’s given us a reputation. Let work with the broader field. Let’s work with more people who we effect.
Ryan: So the main focus of the team is customer service. What are the other ways, like listening to the customers?
Centre Manager: Well that gets us very directly to the members of the local community. These include business, education and the
general community.
Centre Manager: Primarily on the education front. We are doing things now like special publications for schools and sponsorship.
We supply the prizes for the national magistrates’ junior challenge. Also we have involvement in schools, Alison sits on the school
government. Alison talks to the business community. We host meetings and we make our facilities available to the people of the
local community.
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Ryan: So you make yourself accessible?
Centre Manager: Yes. We try to make our expertise available to the local groups.
Ryan: The decision to get involved with the scouts, is that for business or is that longer term were you a scout?
Centre Manager: I was a scout but it was driven by my wife’s connection. I was approached because they needed some business
advice.
Centre Manager: Other manifestations on the press front. We do try and tell people that we are good at new things. On the PR side
of things broadcasting our is one of our strengths. We market a message that this is a good place to be. This is done through direct
and implied marketing.
Centre Manager: I suppose our charity funding, will hopefully manifest itself. People put money in our banks and we said, well
let’s put that money to good use. And we make that money available for local charities.
Centre Manager: Customers, 7 thousand retail staff. We have 360 directly employed staff. That’s in terms of personnel and then
we have the company, Peel Holdings have 280 tenants.
Ryan: Retailers?
Centre Manager: Yep and there also local authorities, police, fire, and ambulance, Trafford Borough Council.
Ryan: Ok.
Side B
Ryan: Anyone else? You know there are other people here who help the Retail centre operate that should be on the list?
Ryan: Anyone else? I mean we may come back to those people. Now which of those stakeholders do you believe are involved in the
Retail centre operation of CSR?
Centre Manager: I think they are all involved on different levels. They may be in involved in terms of receiving evidence of CSR.
They may by involved in understanding a responsibility.
Ryan: Ok. Now why does the Retail centre put CSR into practice? Are we going back to the benefits that we have looked here?
Centre Manager: I would say it comes back to the fact of what would happen if we didn’t put CSR into performance. We put
elements into practice that we felt were going to be issues of best practice for the shopping centre industry. These were driven
primarily by the desire to give our customers the highest levels of service.
Ryan: Of the motives, the financial and the loyalty the business outcomes. Which of these stakeholders would you perceive to be
involved in the communication of the central CSR activities?
Centre Manager: Our customers, retail staff and our own staff, and Peel Holdings.
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Ryan: By Peel Holdings do you mean the group company?
Centre Manager: Our tenants, local authorities, we would talk to our competitors about it. And I talk to my family about it.
Centre Manager: We do talk to our suppliers about it. We sometimes put pressure on them to achieve certain aims to again further
our responsibility issues.
Ryan: Ok. How do you communicate with these? Lets start with customers. How are you communicating and what are you
communicating?
Centre Manager: We communicate word of mouth. From the shop floor if you like. With the staff we talk directly. Also we
communicate via marketing.
Centre Manager: We are trying to market the fact this is a nice place to be and a nice company who owns it in those respects.
Ryan: So with what marketing materials would you say that you are communicating your CSR?
Centre Manager: We show in some of our guides the fact that we have children’s facilities. The fact that we are able to care for
people likes. That we have facilities on site that perhaps they wouldn’t expect to see, like prayer rooms. Issues like that.
Ryan: So when you say prayer rooms, one of the things you’re doing is taking account of religions and the needs of individuals.
Ryan: Any other ways, you said word of mouth, customer service?
Centre Manager: Through our PR we are sending out positive press messages. Stories into the press etc.
Centre Manager: Well its multi-faceted. A lot of our customers benefit either directly or indirectly through the community issues
we do. Their children may go to school and be involved in a presentation.
Centre Manager: Well again word of mouth, talk to them and meet them. We have a newsletter, and obviously they are also
customers with us as well, so it is a double edged sword.
Ryan: Now in the newsletter and via word of mouth what are you communicating?
Centre Manager: Charity involvement, events that we might be doing. New members of the team like our travel co-ordinator who
takes on transport issues.
Ryan: Dedicated people for certain issues? Issue driven roles. Community and travel as two separate ones? Ok, so who is the travel
person liasing with?
Centre Manager: There’s liasing with our customers, with our retail staff, with our own staff, and the local authorities.
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Ryan: Are they communicating with anyone else other than national and local staff? Who’s implementing the travel plan?
Centre Manager: We are. They are consultants I suppose we always have consultants who would contribute toward the travel plan.
Ryan: But who is implementing the travel plan? Is the Retail centre physically moving people?
Centre Manager: In some respects we are putting measures in place that would directly effect the means of travel for our
customers.
Centre Manager: We are currently active in the progress of the metro links.
Centre Manager: Buses yes. We have our own bus station. We have an on site place for taxis.
Ryan: So you don’t physically move the person. That’s what I was getting at. But what about the travel plan?
Centre Manager: The transport co-ordinator is talking to the bus station managers and he is talking to the bus operators.
Ryan: So the transport company is involved? Would you say that the national authorities, the bus companies are all involved in the
CSR activities?
Centre Manager: We wouldn’t be going down the travel plan route if we didn’t have some form of a conscience. It would be all
too easy to say, 1000 car parking spaces so when they’re full, use your own. The travel plan is the overt issue in CSR.
Ryan: The travel plan is the manifestation of the CSR activities. Ok, going back to the communicating to Retail centre staff. How
are you communicating?
Centre Manager: Word of mouth, predominantly driven by meeting at every level. So we start off on a Wednesday with senior
operational mangers meetings and work down.
Centre Manager: Notice boards. The travel co-ordinator now has a notice board where she can put details and travel initiatives.
And other notice boards for general information.
Ryan: And when you say general do you mean achievements, events?
Centre Manager: We have staff awards for customer service, general excellence.
Centre Manager: I can’t take credit for that. It was set in place from day one and came about from our core sponsors, When I
started it was just a pat on the back every month for one person, and then every year we chose someone really good and gave them a
prize. I have evolved it to a big off site party, more of an award ceremony.
Ryan: Ok. Peel Holdings. How are you communicating with Peel Holdings?
Centre Manager: Word of mouth and via our board. We report to the board on a monthly basis.
Centre Manager: We probably begin by showing the benefits the Retail centre would achieve and the potential benefits from that.
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Ryan: Benefits achieved. Tenants?
Centre Manager: Word of mouth, direct mail, we write to them quite often. We have these forms that they can fill out to discuss
current issues. Again, we are communicating our need for them. By e-mail, we have a database contact for the residents and talk to
them to let them know the issues.
Ryan: And the local authorities, how are you communicating your CSR activities to them?
Centre Manager: We obviously have regular contact with the emergency services, police, fire and ambulance. So for instance this
weekend we have a training exercise. So they will use this site for training. We do the same for the police. We allow the police to
use the site for training and operational issues. In terms of the ambulance service we are first responders for the ambulance service,
so our response form our first aiders who can aid their response. So they know we have advanced first aiders on site.
Ryan: So you have pro-active health and safety. With first aid, what do you mean by advanced?
Centre Manager: We train an awful lot of the staff who learn basic first aid so they can keep the person alive if they collapse. Then
we have the advanced first aiders who can administer oxygen. The advanced first aiders have the first days of paramedic training so
the ambulance services recognise their presence as optimum response time.
Centre Manager: Four in total. There are usually two or three on duty.
Ryan: Any other ways that you communicate with the local authorities?
Centre Manager: We have regular meetings with most of the local authorities.
Centre Manager: Some, but that is a manifestation of our responsibility in some ways. There is some statutory reporting goes on,
things like reportable incidents in health and safety.
Centre Manager: Again, yes I met with both local and national area “competitors”. I meet quarterly with the other five big regional
shopping centres where we freely exchange information about operational acts and issues such as corporate responsibility. I also
meet locally with the operators of the Arndale Centre, the Lowry Centre and the Manchester shopping centre group. .Again we have
the same exchange. I also meet with the British council of shopping centres on a regional basis. These are verbal meetings, word of
mouth.
Centre Manager: Mostly through the departmental managers and mainly thorough word of mouth. This is usually driven by need
The need to talk to a particular supplier about a particular issue. We let them know what our responsible line is and we will then let
them know what issues have come up.
Centre Manager: We have discussed with our landscaper’s suppliers that we want to maintain the landscape to be environmentally
friendly and to use fertiliser that meets the criteria.
Ryan: Sometimes you specify how you want them to do the job on your property?
Ryan: I was told every supplier has to do a risk assessment, which is very impressive. Your family, how do you communicate with
them?
Centre Manager: Word of mouth. Although with my immediate family its also presence because they come here quite often.
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Centre Manager: Constantly communicating the efforts that you are making in terms of general issues, which go to form part of
that responsibility that you are talking about.
Ryan: Why do you communicate in this manner? Why does the Retail centre communicate in these manners as a whole, for
example the notice board or the word of mouth method? What were the deciding factors for adopting these methods?
Centre Manager: Again going back to day one, experience of others those who were setting up the system said this was the most
effective way. We then evolved that to suit what we see as the best needs of the business. Nothing stands still in this place, it does
evolve and a team of people drives that evolution.
Centre Manager: Yes, absolutely! There are issues that we would look at now, that we would not do again.
Ryan: Now, this evolution would you say one of the things that have made the communication change is because CSR has
changed?
Centre Manager: I don’t think the evolution has been driven by CSR as such. Well I suppose it has, the difficulty is in your mind
you are getting it mixed up with the term which is new, and the process which isn’t. We evolve lots of things primarily because we
want to do a better job for the customers
Ryan: Would you say the expectations of your customers’ change and evolve?
Ryan: Would it be fair to say that, using that as your logic theme, that CSR is something that evolves then, that it is not static?
Centre Manager: Noting in this business is static. We never claim to be perfect at anything. I think that is an important factor. Any
member of the team wants to tell me they are working absolutely bloody perfect can…
Ryan: Hand their notice in? The benefits of communicating to these stakeholders, would you perceive them to be looking back on
the issues that we have discussed?
Centre Manager: I think and I hope that it allows us to build trust with a lot of these people. The fact that we are open and are
willing to discuss the facts and the measure s that we have taken, yes at certain points, hopefully it builds trust.
Centre Manager: I suppose in some respects it is because of the degree of mistrust in our presence. So it is over coming some
fears.
Centre Manager: There were very large elements of the community who thought who are these evil bastard developers building
this monstrosity shopping centre. We sucked the life out of every other part of retail around us. We were killing it all off and also by
the way we were creating traffic gridlock on all the roads so hat no one else could move about when travelling by car to Manchester.
Centre Manager: Some of the primary functions were to be accepted as part of the community.
Ryan: So it’s helped you gain acceptance? Gaining acceptance within the local community. What are the benefits? Are they only
local?
Centre Manager: We go nation-wide. Some of the press issues see us featured in national articles.
Centre Manager: Yes, it helps the profile. Discussing our elements of CSR with other people also helps us to understand where we
have missed out. It helps us to assess our own abilities if you like and spot weaknesses. And again, that comes back to the fact that
we don’t believe we are perfect, people always have a valid criticism to make. We can dismiss it but we listen to it and always allow
the person the option.
Ryan: Ok. And you believe that these benefits are connected to experience, are intuitive?
Centre Manager: Absolutely. You assess the public perception of the Retail centre. I mean in some ways through Kate and her
research that looks at the publics’ perception of the Retail centre. If it’s seen as friendly and warm, then that’s great we are doing our
jobs.
Ryan: Research studies. Would it be possible to get a copy of the study that was done?
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Centre Manager: You would have to speak to Kate. We do two batches of research a year, at the same time each year. Kate has
also done some focus group work. Have a chat with Kate.
Centre Manager: I suppose the word of mouth of others and those telling us what they think we have done a good job of or tell us
about their issues.
Centre Manager: We put ourselves in the position where we can defend our position quite often. We have here a lot of people that
will put in claims. These can be accident claims, damage incident claims about the Retail centre .I think that CSR is seen as a means
to some companies as a way of mitigating those offers really. In terms of say standing up in court and saying, we endeavour to do
the best for our customers. You have to understand that unfortunately being in court with this company, when we were told we had
done something wrong, and it cost the life of a boy is not something we are very proud of at all. Even though in its very simplest
forms, as the coroner agreed, it was an accident, an accident that could have happened anywhere. But they very much made us
aware of the fact that we had some responsibility and what we were actually prosecuted for in the end was [unclear] but that wasn’t
how you were meant to feel. When you saw a family that had lost a child and you realise that we are responsible for every member
of the public that walks thorough the doors, every member of staff that comes into work it’s something that really affects you. If
something goes wrong someone wants to hold someone responsible and ultimately I know what that pressure is in this environment,
in this 50 acre site.
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APPENDIX B MANAGEMENT COGNITIVE INTERVIEW
QUESTIONS
145
APPENDIX C MANAGEMENT COGNITIVE INTERVIEW
OVERALL MAPS
146
1) Does the Retail Centre have an explicit definition of corporate social
responsibility (CSR)? (If yes what is it?)
Definition?
NO
147
2) What does the term CSR mean to you? (Including what are the
characteristics and attributes of CSR, as far as you are concerned.)
Tackling social
issues
Evolving to meet
expectations
Being run in a
profitable manner
Communicating
with stakeholders
(2 way i.e. listening Being accountable
CSR to
You?
Operating in an
ethical manner How organisations
run their business
Organisations going
Community
beyond the laws and
involvement/corpo
regulations of Organisations rate citizenship
obeying the laws and
regulations of
H& S
Commitment to quality of
products and services Human Rights
Practices
Environmental
Practices Corporate
Governance Employment
Practices
148
3) Is CSR a good thing or a bad thing? (If it is a good thing what are the
benefits of it, and if it is a bad thing what are the issues with it?)
CSR Good or
Bad?
Increased
customer loyalty
Benefits to
parent/associated
companies
Produces a GOOD
competitive Increased staff
advantage loyalty
Builds/enhances
reputation Increased
customer
trade/purchases
Builds
relationships with
stakeholders
149
4) What caused you to adopt this point of view?
Influence of
friends and family
Upbringing/parents-
guardians ethical
Personal Life viewpoint
Personal Moral
Outlook
Self Reflection
on personal
experiences
Cause of
Viewpoint?
Current
organisational
culture
Ethical standpoints of
previous
superiors/mentors
150
5) How does the Retail Centre put CSR into practice?
*Note as the centre had no explicit definition of CSR, these where the activities which
the management felt where doing based on their own definition of CSR.
Charitable giving
(Fountain Fund)
Donation of used
equipment
(computers etc)
Proactive staff and
employment policies
Green Transport
Policy
Fair Trading
Programme
Working to guidelines
CSR into (investors in people,
practice? etc.)
Recycling
Programme
Local
Authorities
Prayer room
Proactive Children’s
Regulators
programmes (Play areas,
face painting, child sized
Award winning toilets, id tags, strollers, wrist EMS services
facilities for the link, baby changing areas.)
disabled (toilets,
Shopmobolity,
sensory solutions) Other local
businesses
151
6) Who do you believe the Retail Centre's stakeholders to be?
Shoppers/Visitors
Media (Television,
Radio, Print, Centre
Internet) suppliers
Outside Staff of
regulators centre
retailers
Special
interest Management of
groups centre retailers
152
7) Which of Retail Centre’s stakeholders are involved in the operationalisation
of CSR.
*Note as the centre had no explicit definition of CSR, these where the
stakeholders with which the management felt where involved in the
operationalisation of CSR.
Shoppers/Visitors
Outside Staff of
regulators centre
retailers
Special
interest Management of
groups centre retailers
153
8) Why does the Retail Centre put CSR into practice?
To increase
customer loyalty
(visitors)
To develops goodwill
that could help the Enables customers to
centre in time of crisis, better understand the
scandal or significant centre
issues
To benefit
*note the retail centre did parent/associated
not undertake activities in companies
the name of CSR but
believed what is was doing
To produce a to meet the definition of
competitive To increase staff
CSR was done to; loyalty
advantage
To build/enhance
reputation To increase visitor
footfall with aim of
resulting in increase
To build of trade/purchases
relationships with for retailers
stakeholders
154
9) To which of its stakeholders does the Retail Centre communicate its CSR
definition, activities and expected results?
*Note as the centre had no explicit definition of CSR, these where the
stakeholders with which communication activities where being carried out and
the management felt they where doing to communicate activities being
undertaken to satisfy their definition of CSR.
Shoppers/Visitors
Outside Staff of
regulators centre
retailers
Special
interest Management of
groups centre retailers
155
10) How does this communication manifest itself? (Both in terms of content
and medium.)[If you have examples of this it would be useful if you could
provide them.]
1- Word-of-mouth 2-Experience 3-Staff training
4-Staff handbook 5-Staff newsletter 6-Customer magazine
7-Customer service team 8-Centre Internet site 9-Schools pack
10-Centre brochures 11-Signs in centre
12- Face-to-face meetings with centre management 13-Staff boards
14-Big screen TV in centre
15-Centre community development officer
16-Centre retail liaison officer
17-Correspondance with Centre
18-On TV 19-On the radio 20-In the newspaper
21-In a magazine 22-On the Internet
Communication
activities span and 1
target stakeholders 7
2
as a whole.
8 13 6 Shoppers/Visitors 12 13
15 12
15
10 5 Front of
Centre management house/customer
5 service centre staff
11 4
173 3
14 16 16
4
17
5 12
Regulators of retail centre 4
(Parent Company, Accountant, 13
3
etc) Back of house/non
Stakehold customer facings
15 12
ers? staff
15
16
Media (Television, 12
Radio, Print,
Internet)
Centre
12 suppliers
18 15
19 Outside Staff of
regulators centre
retailers
20 15 6
Special 6
12 7
interest 16
21 groups Management of
9
centre retailers
22
12 15
7
12 16
156
11) Why does the Retail Centre communicate CSR in this manner?
Experience tells
they are the best Affordable within
method budget
Why
communicate
in this
manner?
External Advice
157
12) What do you perceive to be the benefits of communicating CSR with these
various stakeholders? (Tangible and Intangible)
Increased
customer loyalty
(visitors)
Develops goodwill
that could help the Enables customers to
centre in time of crisis, better understand
scandal or significant the centre
issues
To benefit
parent/associated
Benefits of companies
Communicating
Produces a CSR are?
competitive Increased staff
advantage loyalty
Builds/enhances
reputation Increased visitor
footfall that results
in an increase of
Builds trade/purchases for
relationships with retailers
stakeholders
158
13) Why do believe these are the benefits you will reap?
Intuition
From conversations
with other
professionals
Why do
believe these
are the
benefits?
Results of marketing
surveys
159
APPENDIX D MANAGEMENT COGNITIVE INTERVIEW
INDIVIDUAL MAPS: EXAMPLES
160
Example 1
161
Example 2
162
Example 3
163
APPENDIX E QUANTITATIVE QUESTIONAIRE
164
INSERT PAGE 1 OF QUESTIONNAIRE
165
INSERT PAGE 2 OF QUESTIONAIRE
166
INSERT PAGE THREE OF QUESTIONAIRE
167
INSERT PAGE 4 OF QUESTIONAIRE
168
INSERT PAGE 5 OF QUESTIONAIRE
169
INSERT PAGE 6 OF QUESTIONAIRE
170
INSERT PAGE 7 OF QUESTIONAIRE
171
APPENDIX F SPSS OUTPUT
172
APPENDIX G REVIEW OF 2001 ANNUAL REPORTS
Appendix A
Element of CSR
In Directorate’s Statement
element Indicated
Addresses Social Issues Directly 7 7
173
Annual Reports
174