Csr As A Tool For Brand Making In China

CSR as a tool for brand making in China

Sevara Tadzhibaeva

Haseeba Zormati

American University of Central Asia

CSR as a tool for brand making in China

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Literature review

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is important for any organization’s

performance. It helps to stay competitive and earn customer loyalty. The main concern of this

paper is to compare different CSR strategies in different countries. This source is used to support

the arguments that CSR is a tool for brand making in all over the world, especially in China. The

source also cites the Committee for Economic Development CED’s contribution to CSR.

Moreover, there are also arguments mentioned against CSR. For instance, Milton Friedman

argues in the source that management has only one responsibility and that is to make profit for

the owner. This leads that some companies do not invest into CSR programs and focus on profit

only, and later suffer from long-term outcomes. Later on, the company loses customers and stay

less competitive than those who have done some CSR programs. The given source will

CSR as a tool for brand making in China

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contribute to analyze how CSR can be a real tool for Chinese companies and why it should be

included into business models of an organization. (UK, 2018).

The journal written by Paolo Popoli, about the Linkage of CSR strategy and brand image:

Different approaches in local and global markets have been discussed and the different between

CSR strategy used in global and local markets are explained. In the article a proper framework

has been described that why global markets should not use the strategies used in local markets in

which particular and selective approaches are undertaken. The article then use exact examples

measuring multidimensional approaches to design strategy for global markets considering its

multi stakeholder perspective. “For a global firm, adopting many different local CSR strategies

that differ from country to country can bring about a fragmented and incoherent comprehensive

strategy that tends to be limited to the minimum CSR standards required by a single local context

(Muller, 2006); Vice versa, the adoption of a global CSR strategy, integrated and valid for all the

countries in which the company is present, could bring about the ‘harmonizing towards the top’

phenomenon of CSR standards.” (Popoli, 2011)

Research Topic

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) as an American concept that has been applied

into business strategies. It has rapidly been adopted in Western Countries. Yet, CSR has been

introduced to Chinese companies not long ago; Historically, CSR was driven by exogenous

CSR as a tool for brand making in China

factors, and first made its appearance in China in the mid-1990s (Tan-mullins, 2014). ‘With the

sustained and rapid development of economy and the economic globalization trend from 1990s,

the concept of CSR originated in the West was widely spread in China in recent years (Lijie

Yang, Zhanhal Guo , 2014). However, experts identified positive impacts of CSR. This paper

will conduct research on various CSR programs that have been affecting the performance of the

companies in China. To be more specific, the paper will take a close look at CSR as a tool for

brand making and overall improving the wellbeing of an organization.

Statement of the Problem

CSR is rapidly gaining importance in the society. According to Ramanathan (1996),