BUSN20019 | Relationship Between CSR Initiatives and Financial Performance : Woolworths

BUSN20019 Professional Project T1 2020 Tutorial 1 activity (assessment 1.1
template)
1. Title: A study to explore the relationship between corporate social responsibility initiatives and
the financial performance of the corporations: A case study of Woolworths
2. Background and problem statement.
As stated by Wang and Sarkis (2017), an interesting trend seen with the contemporary business
world is the fact that the different corporations are increasingly taking the help of the different
corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives for the improvement of their brand image. Kumar
et al. (2018) are of the viewpoint that this enables the corporations to influence the buying
behaviour displayed by the customers which in turn improves their financial performance. For
instance, Woolworths in the recent times is taking the help of different CSR initiatives like
community development, gender inequality, poverty and others which will are intended to help
the corporation to fulfil its social obligations as a corporation (Woolworthsgroup.com.au, 2020).
However, the corporations subtly use the same for the improvement of their financial
performance (Gangi, Mustilli & Varrone, 2019). Thus, it can be said that this is an important topic
since it will bring to light the manner in which the corporations in the name of fulfilling their social
obligations are trying to improve their financial performance.
3. Data source(s) and research methodology:
The researcher will take the help of qualitative research strategy for the conduct of this study and
thereby the annual reports of Woolworths, its CSR reports and other secondary sources of
information related to the financial performance and the CSR performance of the corporation will
be used. For instance, the below given annual report was used by the researcher and also key
words like corporate social responsibility, financial performance, brand image and others were
used for extracting the relevant data related to the study-
https://www.woolworthsgroup.com.au/icms_docs/195582_annual-report-2019.pdf
Furthermore, the researcher also took the help of Google Scholar for finding relevant peer-
reviewed articles, textbooks and others related to the topic selected for analysis in the study. In
addition to these, the researcher intends to take the help of the data analysis method of thematic
analysis for the analysis of the secondary collected for the study.
4. Research question:
How the corporate social responsibility initiatives undertaken by Woolworths had affected its
financial performance?
5. Short literature review.
Giannarakis et al. (2016) are of the viewpoint that the contemporary customers because of the
plethora of product or service related choices which are available to them are focusing on the
aspect of brand reputation or the brand image of the corporations. Adding to this, the research
works of Platonova et al. (2018) and Hou (2019) indicate that the contemporary corporations in
order to improve their brand image and thereby to influence the buying behaviour of the
customers positively are taking the help of different kinds of CSR initiatives which in turn had
helped them to not only enhance their sales volume but also their financial performance as well.
References
Gangi, F., Mustilli, M., & Varrone, N. (2019). The impact of corporate social responsibility (CSR)
knowledge on corporate financial performance: evidence from the European banking
industry.
Journal of Knowledge Management.
Giannarakis, G., Konteos, G., Zafeiriou, E., & Partalidou, X. (2016). The impact of corporate social
responsibility on financial performance.
Investment management and financial
innovations, (13, Iss. 3 (contin. 1)), 171-182.
Hou, T. C. T. (2019). The relationship between corporate social responsibility and sustainable
financial performance: Firm‐level evidence from Taiwan.
Corporate Social Responsibility
and Environmental Management,
26(1), 19-28.
Kumar, A., Sinha, A., Arora, A., & Aggarwal, A. (2018). Impact of CSR activities on the financial
performance of firms.
MUDRA: Journal of Finance and Accounting,
5(1), 75-89.
Platonova, E., Asutay, M., Dixon, R., & Mohammad, S. (2018). The impact of corporate social
responsibility disclosure on financial performance: Evidence from the GCC Islamic
banking sector.
Journal of Business Ethics,
151(2), 451-471.

BUSN20019 Professional Project T1 2020 Tutorial 1 activity (assessment 1.1
template)
Wang, Z., & Sarkis, J. (2017). Corporate social responsibility governance, outcomes, and financial
performance.
Journal of Cleaner Production,
162, 1607-1616.
Woolworthsgroup.com.au, (2020). Woolworths Group: Quality Brands and Trusted Retailing.
(2020). Retrieved 30 March 2020, from https://www.woolworthsgroup.com.au/