Should companies continue their investment in CSR or spend the money elsewhere?

A newly released study on Reputation and Corporate Social Responsibility  by Reputation Institute suggest that there is actually a strong business case when it comes to CSR.

According to CB Bhattacharya, E.ON Chair Professor in Corporate Responsibility at European School of Management and Technology, “The conclusion is clear. There is a strong business case for CSR. It has direct impact on business performance. We see that from the CSR RepTrak® but also from other research studies. This RepTrak® study shows for example, that for every 5 points you improve your CSR perception on a 100 point scale, recommendation will go up 9%. This data will make your CFO interested in CSR. So companies should continue to invest but do it with a strong focus on strategy and business implementations. When creating social value is a prerequisite to creating business value then companies need to do more in monitoring and quantifying the returns on CSR.”

Executive Partner at Reputation Institute Kasper Ulf Nielsen says, “Results from the study demonstrate that 59% of consumers would also go out of their way to communicate something positive about companies they see as being good corporate citizens, compared to only 23% for companies perceived to be weak in this area. In a world where word of mouth is becoming your number one marking tool, this is a key business driver that companies need to leverage better. But companies are not getting the return on investment because they have not developed strong enough systems to communicate, measure, and influence stakeholder behaviors. This leaves too many companies acting on feelings rather than facts. And in this economic environment that is not a sustainable strategy,” says Kasper Nielsen.

Reputation Institute’s 2013 Global CSR RepTrak® 100 study surveyed more than 55,000 consumers from 15 countries.

>> Click here to read more about the study and download the report.

Source: Forbes