corporate social responsibility strategic integration and competitiveness for vietnam companies

CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY: STRATEGIC INTEGRATION AND COMPETITIVENESS FOR VIETNAM COMPANIES BY NGUYEN THANH HUYEN E0600081 Graduation Project Submitted to the Department of Busin

CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY: STRATEGIC INTEGRATION AND

COMPETITIVENESS FOR VIETNAM COMPANIES

BY NGUYEN THANH HUYEN

E0600081

Graduation Project Submitted to the Department of Business Studies,

Help University College, in Partial Fulfillment of Requirements for

The Degree of Bachelor of Business (Accounting) Hons

OCT 2010

DECLARATION

I hereby declare that the graduation project is based on my original work except for quotations and citations which have been duly acknowledged I also declare that it has not been previously or concurrently submitted for any other course/degree at Help University College or other institutions The word count is 10,007 words

NGUYEN THANH HUYEN

28 Oct, 2010

CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY: STRATEGIC INTEGRATION AND

COMPETITIVENESS FOR VIETNAM COMPANIES

on Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and its reporting, as well as whether the attitude of Vietnam customers toward CSR is positively The results of the study

indicate that while a large proportion of managers express a highly positive attitude toward CSR and its reporting, consumers perception is at low state and questionable; it point out a week of companies’ communication on consumers’ perception Nevertheless, the willingness to learn and gain more knowledge about CSR found from the survey have drawing a bright future for CSR in Vietnam “Well implement social responsibility

in business” is effective strategy to enhance the competitiveness of products on

international markets, and also the conditions for Vietnam companies

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Page

2.1.1 Elkington's 1999 triple bottom line conceptualization 10

2.4.1 Management’s perception of CSR and its reporting 18 2.4.2 Consumer’s perception of CSR information and disclosure 19

4.1.4 Overall management’s responses analysis 34

The number of consumer response Consumer category

Descriptive statistics from management survey (2) Distribution of consumers’ responses towards statements Percentage of consumer’s response towards CSR by five scale Descriptive statistic from consumer survey (1)

Descriptive statistic from consumer survey (2)

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

Abbreviation Full name

CSR Corporate Social Responsibility

CSP Corporate Social Performance

IAS International Accounting Standard

VSA Vietnamese Accounting Standard

VCCI Vietnam’s Chamber of Commerce and Industry SMEs Small and Medium-sized companies

NGO Non-governmental Organization

WTO World Trade Organization

CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION

1.1 CSR in the world

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), also known as Social responsibility of business, is no stranger to the developed world, and it has become increasingly gaining important with enterprises, shareholders and investors, employees,

customers and entire society Over the world, giants companies are devoting their time and resources to incorporate CSR activities in their overall strategies to become

an ideal business model, and to be accountable to society In the United States there

is “One PERCENT Club” that is a collection of businesses committed to use at least 1% of their profits into social work; the Group's U.S manufacturing light bulbs, Haitech Group investment $ 4.3 billion on controlling environmental pollution Also

in France, a series of cultural funds of enterprises such as France Télécom (France Telecom), RATP (Subway Company) were among the sponsors of contemporary French art In addition, “Google”- Web search engine- with headquarters called Googleplex behaves their employees like gold pearl General Electric uses $2 billion annually for researching technologies to protect the environment World Bank, World Bank and Merck pharmaceutical company has launched an initiative to develop a fund of U.S $ 50 million to donate the Mectizan medicine to help 28 countries in Africa Shell Co set up a Shell Foundation to help educate the

community’s children and adults (Saga Vietnam, 2008) The billionaires such as Bill

Gates also built a charity fund to the development of community Prahl Paul, Deputy

Head of Public Relations of Best Buy, has stated that „We are successful in the marketplace because we take social responsibility into business operation” (Saga

Vietnam, 2008)

In short, more and more companies in the world are getting involved in CSR

activities strategy to ensure the quality of life for employees, environmental

protection and development of products that create benefits for consumers and the

society Schiebel and Pöchtrager (2003) reported that “it makes good business sense

to fully integrate the interests and needs of customers, employees, suppliers,

communities, and our planet - as well as to those of shareholders - into corporate strategies”

1.2 CSR in Vietnam

CSR is a topic which is quite attractive in over three years for enterprises in

Vietnam And the concept of CSR is best known in the two major export industries, namely textiles and footwear The reason is that the importer, especially in the U.S

and Europe, always requires businesses to have a“completed CSR evaluation panel”

before exporting goods Recently, the concept of CSR in Vietnam became more popular as a serious infringement cases on the environment occurs (Vedan Co., Ltd discharging waste into the Thi Vai River for 10 years) and many products were found to have substance hazardous to human health (milk with melamine, a 3MPCD sauce) Such immoral companies are failing to rebuild trust from the community

According to Mr Florian Beranek, chief advisor of the project Industrial

Development Organization United Nations (UNIDO Chief Technical Advisor - CSR), some Vietnam businesses in small and medium-scale (SMEs) considered social responsibility of business is a burden and the responsibility that must be

implemented more than an opportunity He stated that “More and more foreign enterprises apply the implementation of CSR into business strategy Meanwhile, some enterprises in Vietnam, especially small and medium enterprises, have not yet found the opportunities and benefits that CSR can bring” (Saigon Economic Times Online, 2010)

Besides, in the last two years, financial and economic crisis in the world has a little impact on operations and policies of many Vietnam businesses, as well as the

public’s attention to CSR Therefore, some companies cut off the cost in social activities or reduce the size of community projects For businesses trying to keep CSR activities, they also have faced many difficulties in carrying on a business This situation prompted the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Vietnam (VCCI) launched the CSR Award to encourage enterprises to social responsibility

Consequently, the awareness of the problems of workers and the environment are increasing rapidly due to the efforts of the Government, industry associations as well

as strict requirements from the foreign partner In addition, CSR appearances on several studies, seminars, articles, websites which help the perception on CSR is gradually improving

In recent years, many Small and Medium-sized companies in VN put CSR into their business strategies, in which, they launched some CSR activitiesto support the take-

up of CSR as a means to enhance their competitiveness For example, Vinamilk, Dutch Lady, two famous milk producers, built social programs such as “6 million cups of milk for children Vietnam “and funds scholarships “fireflies light” that are resonated and supported from the consumer Besides, Kirin Acecook - Latte

Beverage Company, a joint venture between Vietnam and Japan implement CSR in a different way of focusing on maximum product quality They are the pioneer in applying technology Vietnam pouring Aseptic sterile, process design and bottle blowing was conducted at the factory to ensure hygienic source of plastic bottles These proved that implementing CRS is a major concern of businesses According to Nguyen Hong Ha, deputy director of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Vietnam (VCCI) in HCM City, CSR must be placed on the business strategies of each business It was, is and will be an indispensable part of decision success of the business

With the context of Vietnam joining the World Trade Organization (WTO) as well

as the fact that Vietnam's enterprises are small and medium businesses, to achieve a balance of economic, social and environmental, business must also consider all other relevant issues to improve the competitive advantage as well as better opportunities

to export goods to the international market

open-door policies, Vietnam has had many chances to joint into the world economy

in which Government has strengthened its legal implementation mechanism,

promoted Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) and has raised awareness of the business and stakeholders on CSR This is regarded as an important content in the agenda of sustainable development

Vietnam Government has expressed Agenda 21 of Vietnam as a special attention on CSR in Orientation Strategy for Sustainable Development in Vietnam on the basis of harmonious incorporation between economic development, social development and environmental protection

Besides the Labor Code legislation, Government has created new regulations,

represented by the new Environment Protection Law that strengthened enforcement measures to fight against immoral companies Along with these, the Government is relatively calling on businesses to perform their tasks for the environmental

protection and concern for the interests of workers As to help SMEs make effort on CSR, Vietnam government, along with the VCCI and several international Non-governmental Organizations (NGOs) offered them consulting services, conferences and training programs in order to enhance the need to implement CSR and to

improve their competitiveness through CSR, in particular in SMEs operating in footwear and textile & garment industries

1.2.2 Vietnamese Accounting Standards (VAS)

Vietnam has issued 26 Vietnam Accounting Standards (VASs) in five phases since

1996 with the assistance of the World Bank and European Community Generally, the VASs are set up by the Ministry of Finance that based on the International Accounting Standards (IAS) to support adjusting economic, finance and accounting issues In Vietnam, many VASs are still unclear and flawed They also have some conflicts among standards and do not consist between standards and guidelines for such standards Besides that, many Vietnam enterprises lack of transparency in accounting activities, especially in State companies and Banking system Moreover, CSR information of enterprises is not required by Vietnamese Accounting Standards Board (VASB) to disclose to public

1.2.3 CSR practice and challenges

While CSR is gaining more attention throughout the world Vietnam is left behind to realize that it is a matter of business survival A quite many business in small and medium-scale in Vietnam do not really see the importance of CSR People’s

awareness and the management about CSR is actually still slightly poor and weak state than other countries on the world, legal documents are not realistic, and the enforcement is sporadic These have lead to business spleen law easier, denied business ethics responsibility or pollute the water environment in the long times without treatment

In addition, Vietnam goods are obviously hard to compete on price or quantity with many countries on the world such as China, Thailand, etc Some recent researches

indicate that CSR’s meaning is not really understood by some SMEs These entire roles have answered the question of “which ways that can help the domestic

enterprises have advantages in the market?” CSR may be the answer if businesses really understand the meaning and turn into a CSR culture, style of thinking and working methods CSR can be a key tool to increase benefits for their brands and their overall reputation, or as a means to improve the business-relationship or the way to promote business operation effectively So, there is a need of integrating CSR

in day to day business affairs as PhD Doan Duy Khuong – Vice Director of Vietnam

Chamber of Commerce and Industry state “Vietnam companies must embrace CSR

as a necessary requirement to approach the global market” (Saga Vietnam, 2008)

In the current economic integration, CSR is gradually becoming a concept that many people are more interested and have strategic importance for business It may be considered as a competitive advantage for a company It not only refers to CSR as

"the right thing to do" but also "wise to do" Embracing CSR, business could get many benefits; such benefits as enhanced reputation, improved relationships at work, motivated work forces, ability to attract desired employees, and convenience in calling for investment, especially foreign investment (Schmidt Albinger & Freeman, 2002)

1.3 Reasons for further investigation

Although CSR is really hot subject in the world, SCR in Vietnam is still weak with very few studies are taken place However, CSR has become even more important

for Vietnam companies to develop sustainably since Vietnam has joined into World Trade Organization (WTO) This paper aims to explore how companies in Vietnam view CSR and its disclosure as a strategic integration and competitiveness, and whether Vietnam consumer behavior is affected by CSR information

CHAPTER 2 LITERATURE REVIEW

2.1 Definition and conceptualization of CSR

There are many different definitions of CSR Each organization or company,

government recognizes CSR under its own perspective and opinions, depending on conditions and characteristics and their level of development Keith Davis (1973) gives a rather broad view of “CSR is the interest of the organizations and react to issues beyond satisfying the legal requirements, economic and technology”

Meanwhile, Carroll (1999) argues that CSR has a larger scope of “all matters

economic, legal, moral, and other areas of social expectations on businesses in each period of time” According to Matten and Moon (2004), “CSR is a concept cluster includes many other concepts such as business ethics, business philanthropy,

corporate citizen, sustainability and environmental responsibility It is a concept and always challenging in the context of each economic, political and social

characteristic”

The definition defined by The World Bank and the World Business Council on

Sustainable Development (WBCSD) is one of the most cited definitions, in that, “the commitment of business to contribute to sustainable economic development –

working with employees, their families, the local community and society at large to improve their quality of life, in ways that are both good for business and good for development” (SIDA, 2005)

Various theories about CSR have been introduced, but only two CSR

conceptualizations from different authors will be highlighted in this paper Both of them are the most cited and most used conceptualizations that facilitate a basic understanding of CSR concept: Elkington’s triple bottom line CSR conceptualization and Carroll four-part definition of CSR

2.1.1 Elkington’s 1999 tripe bottom line

The triple bottom line (TBL or 3BL) theory of CSR is known as a common way for companies to conceptualize CSR (Crane & Matten, 2004; Cornelissen, 2008) In

1999, Elkington, author and founder of the consultancy firm sustainability,

introduced this concept that refers to three aspects of organization when carrying on business, namely companies’ economic, environmental, and social performance In the study of Crane and Matten (2004), they has summarized Elkington’s key idea to

be that businesses do not have only one goal on economic value, but have further goals on environmental and social value In other words, company must to fulfill all three things at once to achieve the sustainability Under this theory, organizational activities are composed in three categories: people, planet, and profit; such

categories present for the social issues, environment issues and healthy financial performance respectively The figure 2.1 below visually illustrates these bottom lines are being interdependent and interrelated:

Figure 2.1 Triple bottom line of CSR (adapted from Crane & Matten, 2004)

People affected by a company are often called stakeholder groups, such as

shareholders, non-governmental organizations, consumers, and governmental

regulators and agencies are trying to call for information related to the social and environmental dimensions However, quite large companies that usually figure out how much they to be social responsible and how they are attempting to help the world by advertise their “green” practices on media actually mask community to reduce social and environment debt (Darrell Brown, Jesse Dillard, R Scott Marshall, 2006) Not all businesses are really achieving the TBL Elkington and others argued that consumer are becoming more aware of damaging practices, and then their choices to use or invest in companies are being changed

As said above, business practitioners use TBL to define CSR From The Global Reporting Initiative (2010) the TBL sets directions and principles to evaluate and

report business economic, social performance and environmental conduction That the reason why it is described as a “frame of social sustainability in the language of business”

Figure 2.2 A hierarchy of CSR (adapted from Carroll, 1991)

In the first category - economic responsibility, Carroll says that produce goods and services that society needs and wants, and making profit are the primary

responsibility of an organization For example, organization has the responsibility to offering good products at the right price for consumers, to generate returns for the investors, to set up safe working conditions for the workers, to promote advances in technology, product development, etc Economic aspect of social responsibility of a business is the basis for the operation of the business Most of the economic

obligations in the business have been institutionalized into the legal obligations

The term, legal responsibility, expresses that society expects businesses comply within the legal framework, and fulfills the “social contract” with the society by adhering their economic interest to the laws and regulations Under the Caroll’s

conceptualization, lawmakers created fair operation concept as a basis of “codified ethics” reflected in legal responsibility However, it is difficult to determining the

level application of fair operation of businesses since they always try to force by regulations Pratima (2002) In the long time, the business cannot survive if they do not perform their legal responsibility

Different from the previous two responsibilities that are considered mandatory, ethical responsibility reflect the expectation of society members to company’s activities and practices that are not codified into laws (Novak, 1996)

And the final category - discretionary responsibility, compose corporate actions in response to public interest to become good corporate citizens In comparison

between ethical responsibility and discretionary, society’s expectation on business is

not based in ethical or moral sense on behalf of discretionary area; i.e if companies

do not satisfy the expectations of communities in contribution firm’s resources to social purposes, they is not regarded as immoral So, discretionary responsibility is more voluntary by nature

Most recently, Carroll reproduced his 1991 CSR pyramid in terms of which

economic responsibility means to “do what is required by global capitalism”, legal responsibility holds that companies “do what is required by global stakeholders”, ethical responsibility is to “do what is expected by global stakeholders”, and

discretionary responsibility means to “do what is desired by global stakeholders” (Carroll, 2004)

As this part has shown, Carroll’s CSR Pyramid is both a useful and timely model for defining and exploring CSR, however, Carroll’s pyramid is quite complex and difficult to use in developing a methodology, in the field of collecting, organizing and evaluating data that because it contain three dimensions Clarkson (1995)

2.2 Stakeholder theory

There are a number of forms in Stakeholder theory which is the first introduced by Edward Freeman in 1984 Its concept was initially defined by Freeman as “any group or individual who can affect or is affected by the achievement of the firm’s objectives” The core idea in this theory is that economic value is the target of organizations, and stakeholders are the provider of resource that are capable to influence strategic objectives of the organization Companies’ practices and actions

are primarily generating returns to shareholders; hence, corporate management has a major role to assess the affection of stakeholders and plans to do mitigate negative impact on their owners

Baron (1995) had divided the stakeholders into two groups, called market and market While the customers, competitors, employees, partners and suppliers often seen as the market group; NGOs, government, regulators, environmental safety and standards organizations, media, society or community are consider as the non-market group Both these groups have affected differing level of social responsibility

non-pressures or motivations on the company These groups are shown in figure 2.3 below:

Figure 2.3 Stakeholders of a company: Motivations for CSR (adapted from

Baron, 1995)

Ethical and managerial are the main branches of the stakeholder theory From the ethical perspective, stakeholders’ rights and their legitimate interests is concerned, as well as strictly required by law in manager-stakeholder relation (Mele, 2008) In essence, organizations have an obligation to treat fairly among stakeholders

(Deegan, 2009); i.e, organizations are not managed the interest of shareholders alone, but a wide range of stakeholders who have a legitimate interest in the

corporation as well In the case of stakeholder’s interest conflict, business has an obligation to attain optimal balance among them On the other hand, managerial branch of stakeholder theory attempt to explain when corporate management likely attend to the expectations of particular stakeholders that are deemed to be

“powerful” (Buhr, 2002) According to Gray, Owen and Adam (1996), this

perspective tends to be more “organization centred” From this perspective, many

activities taken by the organization are related to stakeholder’s expectations

(Friedman and Miles, 2002) It is meaningful to see that the concerning and

satisfying the interest of stakeholders help to improve corporate governance and accountability

consists of journalist at the local newspapers, the word of mouth from employees, and consumers and local community persons

CSR reporting is a process that becoming increasingly popular among businesses as Van der Laan (2004) and Woodward et al (1996) view that CSR report is one way for business to communicate information to different stakeholders, especially to deliver promised results to their customers by sharing annual CSR report Dierkes and Antal (1985) state that by publicly disclosing information about how company conducts its social responsibilities, a company could show with stakeholders how sustainable organizations are Under stakeholder perspective, social disclosure is viewed as type of dialogue between the stakeholders and the company (Gray et al, 1995)

Besides, Elkington (1997) suggest that the TBL reporting is really important for business to provide information to stakeholders their concern and actions relate to economic, environmental, and social performance Organizations might use TBL reporting as a means to improve their image in favorable and make differences from other companies This also helps organizations in developing strategies to

continuously increase the competitive edge and take advantages of the opportunities the CSR provides

In line with a growing trend of CSR reporting, companies have many different voluntary initiatives, such as reporting models or frameworks in order to

communicate effectively They appeared to provide guidelines or standards relating

to procedure and contents of reporting For example, the Global Reporting Initiative

(GRI), Social Accountability 8000 (SA 8000), Accountability 1000 (AA 1000), International Organization for Standardization 14000 (ISO 14000) are often used by companies in order to satisfy the stakeholders’ demand on CSR information of which those information must gain relevance, timeliness, reliability, measurability, transparency, neutrality, consistency, and comparability In a highly competitive environment, Vietnam is trying to achieve these CSR standards and requirements although CSR standards are still pretty strange

This study will investigate two groups of stakeholders that will possibly contribute to determining the overall CSR strategic and competitiveness from a sampled of

Vietnam companies It examines how Vietnam executives and consumers perceive and interpret CSR and CSR reporting, and whether their perception on CSR is

correlated to the firm’s performance The hypothesis for the study will be developed

on the next section

2.3 Hypothesis

2.4.1 Managers’ perception of CSR and CSR reporting

Hill and Jones (1992) argue the relationship between managers and stakeholders as

“Managers are the only group of stakeholders who enter into a contractual

relationship with all other stakeholders Managers are also the only group of

stakeholders with direct control over the decision making process of the firm” Base

on this theory, the stakeholders’ point of view in a manner is affected by the

managers’ behavior Manager has an important role to corporation conductions In essence, for the CSR issues, it is necessary to have managers’ agreement and commitment to conduct and improve CSR

There are many excessive pressures exists for management related to CSR, which influenced the managers’ attitude Such pressure come from the profitability incentive goals or trend level expectations of investors or significant creditors Besides, the community also influences managers’ attitude There is excessive pressure on management to meet the requirements or expectations set up by the Community

The two important questions of management perception are crucial with respect to

conductions of doing business: “how much do managers think sustainability is an important part of how they do business” and “why managers address CSR as their strategic integration and competitiveness”

Then, the first hypothesis is analyzed:

: Managers’ perception of CSR and CSR reporting is positive

2.4.2 Consumer’s perception of CSR information and disclosure

Consumers are increasingly engaging in ethical or socially responsible purchasing

behavior They are described as “consumer responsibility” because of significant

impact on business behavior (Hansen and Schrader (1997)

If consumers perceive how the important of CSR is, they might concern more the responsibilities of companies Then, effective communication has a potentially important role for engaging consumers who care about production conditions, global standards and more broadly for enhancing companies’ conduction on CSR activities Besides, a study of Cone Inc (2004) concludes that majority of U.S respondents (86%) want to examine companies’ actions on CSR and their strategies And, the study of Dawkins (2004) indicates 74% of UK respondents mentioned that their purchasing decisions are influenced by company’s CSR behavior in delivering information to public These surveys’ findings show a high consumer demand for CSR information of companies

This study investigates how consumers are informed about the social and

environmental conditions under which products have been produced Drawing on the above argument, a hypothesis for consumer behavior is developed and tested:

: Consumer behavior is influenced by companies’ CSR practices and

disclosures

CHAPTER 3 RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

3.1 Research objective

The research is designed to discuss and examine the role of CSR in helping Vietnam companies to achieve competitive advantage, and explore different ways in which companies can incorporate societal and environmental perspectives into strategic thinking It takes a look on the managers’ perception of CSR and its reporting,

managers-shareholders relationship, business and its community, and the engaging of CSR in business affairs Furthermore, the research purposed to expose accountants from different industries to show their point of view on CSR reporting And, the research aimed also to collect customer’s responses to examine the degree of their perception of CSR and how CSR impact on their actions

3.2 Research methodology

The research method used for this study is based on qualitative research obtained through personal interview with directors, evaluating their business annual reports and the questionnaire survey on both directors and consumer

3.3 Data source

Both primary data and secondary data used to gather the information

3.3.1 Primary data

Primary data are information gathered for some specific purposes at hand (Amstrong

& Kotler, 2007) The main methods of collecting primary data include survey, observation and experimental Primary data include many advantages Firstly, the data can be collected from a number of ways Secondly, the researcher can interact directly with the customers Besides, obtaining primary data, researchers can collect information across the national borders through emails and posts Furthermore, this type of data is more reliable, trustworthy, and less biased than secondary data Nevertheless, it is usually more expensive and wasted time It also requires the skill effort of researchers Additionally, it has design problems like how to design the surveys, which matters a lot And sometimes, the respondents may try to cover up the realities If not, the wrong results will be occurred Moreover, there is no control over the data collection in this method

more time and cost Furthermore, it can also be helpful in the research design of primary research and the collected primary data results in which it helps to make primary data collection more specific, and identify what additional information needs to be collected However, the problem regarding to secondary data is that the reliability, accuracy and integrity of the data is often uncertain We do not know whether the information obtaining is taken on faith or not Besides that, data may be outdated Or even when the data is collected, its quality is questionable for a

particular occasion Data quality is always a concern because its source may not be trusted So, the researchers must review secondary data carefully in order to get relevant and useful information

3.4 Research method

This section describes the research method that is being used for this project It describes the concept of primarily descriptive The survey method used in this study consists of questionnaire and personal interview to collect primary data Besides that, this study carries out of the reviewing secondary data in the annual reports of those selected companies The previous researches and surveys in Vietnam give useful information to generate the questionnaire and evaluation

3.5 Research tool

3.5.1 Questionnaire

This section carries out three patterns of survey for managers and consumers from different areas and sectors This is illustrated in Appendix A For each pattern, the survey includes eight questions that focus on their perception of CSR and its

reporting Some additional questions and opinion part are asked to find out the respondents’ opinions on a given situation All of three survey patterns use Likert five-point interval scale that provides a battery of attitude statements The

respondent then says how much they agree or disagree with each statement (the scale ranges from (5) denoting “strongly agree” to (1) denoting “strongly disagree”) These results will be answered how deep their think about the CSR value

chosen companies This shows the degree of actual information of CSR reporting in each company

The questionnaires for customers are distributed to students in Foreign Trade

University (FTU), Vietnam National University Hanoi (VNU), Hanoi University (HU), customers of Vietnam Dairy Products Joint Stock Company (Vinamilk), Asia Commercial Bank (ACB), and Legamex Corporation

3.7 Sampling

3.7.1 Sample population

In order to obtain reliability of the research, the study about the role of CSR on competitive strategic should have been done many researches Nevertheless, due to the time and cost this study only focuses on citizen in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City

CHAPTER 4 FINDINGS AND ANALYSIS

In this chapter, the findings of the research will be presented And, the calculations

of Chi-squared test used to test the hypothesis are shown in Appendix B

4.1 Management

4.1.1 Results of questionnaire survey

There are 100 of questionnaires distributed to the Banking, Food & Drinking and Clothing & Textiles sector However, only 32 respondents replied the questionnaires The figure 4.1 summarizes the number of managers’ response after the

questionnaires are distributed:

Figure 4.1 The number of manager Response

Sample Number of

respond Management pattern

- Banking

- Food & Drink

- Clothing & Textiles

Figure 4.2 have given out a list of statements Figure 4.3, figure 4.5 and figure 4.6 respectively illustrated the percentage of response distribution and descriptive statistics that including median and mode They have addressed manager’s

perceptions toward CSR and their attitude for or against CSR

Figure 4.2 Distribution of managers’ responses towards the statements

1 Organizing and participating in public

welfare activities are the social responsibility

of the company

2 Company has incurred extra costs for healthy

and safe working environment of employees 11 13 7 1 0

3 CSR provides a favorable public image

4 Involvement by a business in improving its

community’s quality of life will also improve

long run profitability

2 12 10 7 1

5 Firm perceived as being socially responsible

can improve industry-labor relation 2 16 10 4 0

6 CSR is good for strategic competitive