Analysing CSR Strategies: A Case Study of Commonwealth Bank

This case study examines the corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities of Commonwealth Bank Australia (CBA) and their impact on stakeholders. It begins by introducing the concept and importance of CSR, highlighting CBA's background and research objectives, which include determining the significance of CSR, evaluating its benefits for CBA, and identifying related issues. The literature review covers CSR's role in gaining a good reputation, the elements of CSR, and the benefits of CSR strategies, such as increased competitiveness and improved stakeholder management. It also addresses concerns like competitors spreading rumors and the need to balance profitability with social responsibility. The research identifies gaps in the existing literature, such as the lack of information on the company's motivation for CSR and the impact on stakeholders. The methodology section explains the research approach, data types, and research strategy, noting that the study uses secondary, qualitative data. Findings and analysis discuss ethical issues, like societal skepticism towards CBA's motives. Recommendations emphasize aligning CSR with genuine concern for society and maintaining honesty. The study concludes by summarizing the key findings and recommendations for improving CBA's CSR practices.

Corporate social
responsibility and
stakeholder

Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................3
Background of the topic..............................................................................................................3
Company overview.....................................................................................................................3
Research aim...............................................................................................................................3
Research objectives.....................................................................................................................3
Research questions......................................................................................................................4
LITERATURE REVIEW................................................................................................................4
Concept and importance of CSR within the organisations.........................................................4
Benefits of considering CSR strategies for Commonwealth Bank Australia ............................5
Concerning issue that occur within the Commonwealth Bank Australia...................................5
Research gap...............................................................................................................................6
METHODS .....................................................................................................................................6
CASE STUDY FINDINGS AND ANALYSIS...............................................................................7
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................9
REFERNCES:................................................................................................................................10
Books and Journals:..................................................................................................................10

Introduction
Background of the topic
Corporate social responsibilities (CSR) are the activities which are performed by
companies with the main aim of betterment of society. Companies contribute a small part of their
total earnings to focus on serious concerns of backward people in society and environment by
providing them those thinks which make their conditions better then earlier (Franco, and et. al.,
2020). Planting more trees, reducing the usage of plastics and many others activities by a
company is the example of CSR activities performed by them for concerning about environment.
Providing company's product to poor people on free of cost is also the CSR activity by a
company concerning about society.
Company overview
Commonwealth Bank Australia (CBA) is an Australian multinational bank which is
headquartered in Sydney, Australia. It is founded in 1911 by Andrew Fisher and King O'Malley.
They have more than 1000 branches in Australia, UK, New Zealand, Asia and US. Its present
Chairman is Catherine Livingstone and CEO is Matt Comyn. It has more than 43,000 employees.
Their main facilities to customers are funds management, insurance, investment, broking
services and many others. The following file covers literature review on CSR case study of CBA,
research gaps, research methodology, recommendations and justification for innovative ideas and
processes.
Research aim
The main aim of this research is “to identify the issues related to corporate social
responsibilities and its impact over the reputation of an organisation”. A study on
Commonwealth Bank Australia.
Research objectives
 To determine the concept and importance of CSR within the organisations
 To evaluate the benefits of considering CSR strategies for Commonwealth Bank
Australia
 To identify the concerning issue that occur within the Commonwealth Bank Australia

Research questions
 What are the concept and importance of CSR within the organisations?
 What are the benefits of considering CSR strategies for Comm Commonwealth Bank
Australia?
 Explain the concerning issue that occur within the Commonwealth Bank Australia?
LITERATURE REVIEW
Concept and importance of CSR within the organisations
According to the perspective of Perkins Cheung (2010), CSR is considered as company's
essential activity to gain good reputation. As commonwealth bank Australia is serving banking
facilities, it is essential for them to serve their society for gaining more customers. According to
this bank CSR activities are performed for the welfare of poor people and for development of
society (Bian, and et. al., 2021). There are three elements of CSR, first one is CSR activities
within the organisation which tell what all actions a company is performing within their
organisation for the betterment of their employees. The second element is corporate social
responsiveness which is uses to make concerns about environment and stakeholder management.
Third element is corporate social behaviour which include development of astern community by
providing charity support. CSR requirement of CBA bank is recognize by societal and
stakeholders expectation from the bank. They expect that bank will provide better facilities to
them which will help them in their life standard development. It is essential for performing CSR
within CBA bank because this is the way they can motivate more people to use banking facilities
with them. Here, they provide many facilities to backward society like helping them to start their
own business by providing them loan which contain less interest rates than normal. They also
makes sure that their customers will understand how these facilities for their development will be
used appropriately. Secondly, in context of making their employees happy, they allow discounts
on the interest rates of those loans which was taken by their employees. They also allow
discounts on mortgages and credit card bills from the same bank in which they are working.
Hence, CSR activities by CBA bank is important for gaining trust of customers, employees and
shareholders (Vishwanathan and et. al., 2020).

Benefits of considering CSR strategies for Commonwealth Bank Australia
According to the point of view of Christopher J. Reining (2009), Society is becoming
more interested in CSR activities and today most of the companies are engaging them self to
contribute to their society for their betterment. Customers get more attached to those companies
only who are having good CSR strategies to perform and employees also improve their
performance in case companies provide benefits to their employees (Wang, Hsieh and Sarkis,
2018). CBA bank has performed CSR activities due to increase in competitiveness in their
industry and common service are also not jelp[ing them to distinguish them from their
competitors. Hence, for gaining a good amount of customers they recently helped those
community which are unemployed by explaining them the different business ideas and how to
start a business. Their advisory facility help[s many people to develop their own business and
provide employment to others so that they6 will develop their standard of living. CSR activities
help CBA bank to gain more customers, manage their stakeholders properly, gaining better
reputation and many more.
Concerning issue that occur within the Commonwealth Bank Australia
According to the perspective of Dianne Thomson (2008), CBA bank is one of the oldest
bank of Australia and have good reputation. New emerging banks provide tough competition and
due to this reason CBA bank competitors are starting spreading wrong humours about this bank
on media. Secondly, the rise in the concept of CSR is also acts as forcing factor to adopt CSR
activities (Barnett, Henriques and Husted, 2020). Accordion to stakeholder theory, it helps to
determine the stakeholders view of strategy integrated as resourced based view that how they
manage them appropriately for organisational profit. The basic concept of this theory is to
examine how shareholders behave and take decisions within the organisation. In CBA bank, their
shareholders are responsible to make the strategies for CSR activities. The team of shareholders
of CBA banks are including top management employees, customers, employees and many others
who purchases their shares. CBA banks are more famous for their stable condition which is
consist with less expensive and due to their less expensive on their tasks and activities they are
able to perform CSR activities by contributing a small part of their earnings to society. They are
facing issues to convince the society that they work for betterment for them. Whenever they
introduce some new strategy like low interest rates as usual to backward people then they get
highlighted in media that they are taking advantage of poor people by brain washing. Their

competitors gain opportunity to spread wrong humours and due to this their most of the
customers shift their loyalty to other bank. Due to this they make strategies to perform those
activities which will help them to develop their image (Mao and et. al., 2020). For this first of all
they focused to provide better facilities to their shareholders and employees who are working
with them for longer period of time. Secondly they started donating in charities and providing
food to needy people. This type of CSR activities help them to eliminate their issues and regain
their reputation again.
Research gap
Research gap are the questions and statements which are not been answered by studies. Hence,
from the above literature review it is clear that few essential points are missing like-
 The study is missing the idea and concept of CSR which is generated by company. In
simple words author is unable to share the importance and requirement of CSR in their
company and from which year they started CSR.
 This study also unable to mention that how interested parties like customers, employees,
suppliers and many more will get impacted with their CSR activity.
METHODS
 Research approach- It is the plan of conducting the process of research by considering all
aspects like data collection techniques, analysis and interpretation of data (Ramesh and
et. al., 2019). According to this research it is a historical study because historical data of
company is used to describe this study.
 There are two types of data, primary data and secondary data. Primary data are those data
which is used to collected by researcher by them self through questionnaire, survey,
interviews and many others. On the other hand secondary data are those data which are
taken from internet sources, published articles, books and many other. This data is
collected earlier and get reviewed recently. In relation to this study, it is based on
secondary data because whole data is collected from internet sources and especially from
google scholar.

 Research strategy- It is step by step plan of conducting a research paper (Ali, Frynas and
Mahmood, 2017). In context of this study, it is planned in a sequence which is explained
below-
1. Analysing the topic of research and problems statement of research.
2. Secondly, gathered information from internet sources for analysing organisational
overview and topic introduction.
3. Study objectives, aims and questions is formed after analysing problem clearly.
4. Google scholar is used to collect information for literature review of the topic.
5. Finding gaps and understanding research methodology is essential which is determined
after analysing whole study clearly.
6. Findings and recommendations are essential part of this research paper because it help to
analyse how the issues get solved and what all strategies will adopted which will help to
take sustainable benefit.
7. At the end conclusion helps to analyse what all is done in study. It is a type of a brief
study.
 There are two types of data, first is quantitative data and the second is qualitative data
(Jackson and et. al., 2020). Quantitative data is those data which consist of some
numerical informations and statistical data in the study. On the other hand qualitative data
represent the theoretical data which represent behaviours and attitude of people.
Qualitative data is used in this study because it examine the behaviours and attitude of
interested parties after and before CSR activities. In short it provide theoretical data to
readers. Hence, it is a qualitative research.
CASE STUDY FINDINGS AND ANALYSIS
Ethical issues are those issues which is created after taking some decisions and society is
standing against the taken decision. Many companies take correct decision from their point of
view but society did not accept due to their morale, values and beliefs (Schoeneborn, Morsing
and Crane, 2020). According to literature review of case study discussed at above, CBA bank is
providing solution to the growth of backward people by providing loans at least interest rates but
the society did not accept as their mind set is that company is doing it so for only gaining more
customers and misleading customers to take loans for wrong decisions to earn their own profit.

Recommendations
Recommendations are made on the basis of achieving discipline of business ethics. It
means that those decisions are taken which results for positive outcomes after analysing the
decision properly.
According to case study mentioned above, it is mentioned that one of the reason for
adopting CSR activities for them is to compete with their competitors and another is following
other companies as they are also engaging themselves in CSR activities. Hence, it is
recommended for CBA bank to engage themselves in CSR with the main motivation to develop
the life of backward people of to solve the environmental issues. Therefore, concern for others
principle of business ethics will be achieved when they surely set their mind that they have to
perform CSR activities for the betterment of society and not for their personal profit (Kim, Yin
and Lee, 2020).
Secondly, it is also recommended for CBA bank to be loyal and honest to their society by
providing them all required information so that they will get to know that this bank is working
for their betterment. Hence, by providing true and actual information CBA bank is performing
loyal and honesty principles of business ethics.
It is also recommended for them to become law abiding because sometimes by
concerning about ethical issues many companies ignores legal laws which are made for CSR
activities. Hence, unlawful activities should not be performed by any company. CBA is required
to understand what all laws are there related to CSR and then they should decide their CSR
activities. Hence, according to international law of CSR, no company is allowed to force the
community to accept their services which they are offering to them and misguiding the people
for self benefit is strictly restricted. Therefore, CBA is required to follow all laws to perform law
abiding principle of business ethics.
Evaluation
It is evaluated that best solution is adoption of best knowledge for the issue of wrong
humours spread by CBA competitors. Gaining knowledge about competitive world will help
them to compete strongly in their industry (Kucharska and Kowalczyk, 2019). Secondly gaining
the knowledge on CSR activities will also help them to analyse which best suited CSR activities
will provide more benefits to their society. It good for them to adopt environmental CSR
activities by planting trees in Australian forest because in the currowan fire the whole forest was

get destroyed. Hence planting more and more trees to form that forest again for making it better
place for animals. Therefore, proper knowledge is required to perform CSR activities. Secondly,
it is suggested for CBA bank to use advanced technology of virtual reality to show their
community that how they can use their loans to make a better life for them. They can explain
them by showing how they can use a fix amount of loan for starting their own business and
provide employment to others. This will help them to explain their society that they are
providing loan on least interest for societal benefit only.
Justification for innovative idea
The above two ideas of planting more trees at Australia forest which was destroyed in
2020 fire and adoption advanced technology of virtual reality is effective for CBA bank because
due to Australian forest fire many animals left homeless and almost whole forest get burnt on
fire. Therefore degradation in plants and trees will cause many issues like reduction of fresh air
to breathe, soil erosion and many more. Hence, planting more trees is the best solution for
society as well as for environment. Second, innovative idea is concerning with adoption of
virtual reality to show their society that how they are getting benefits to use least rate loans to
start their own business. People understood better when they can see their ideas to be
implemented through virtual reality. This will help the society to build more self confidence
among themselves that they are able to develop their life standards by them selves.
CONCLUSION
I t is concluded that CSR activities are most essential activity to be performed for gaining
many benefits like having customer's trust, gaining more reputation and etc. The following file
consist of case study of CBA bank which is performing CSR activities and they so faces issues
regarding it. It is found that adopting new and innovative ideas for betterment of society as well
as for their bank is helpful. Adoption of new technology like virtual reality for explaining society
about the process of loan will help them to understand it better and influence them to start their
own business by having new ideas and getting funds easily by banks. There are risk for
implementing this idea and that is it is very costly to Install the device of virtual reality and it’s
maintenance is also considered as expensive. Secondly, backward people may not believe the
technological information.

REFERNCES:
Books and Journals:
Ali, W., Frynas, J.G. and Mahmood, Z., 2017. Determinants of corporate social responsibility
(CSR) disclosure in developed and developing countries: A literature review. Corporate
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Barnett, M.L., Henriques, I. and Husted, B.W., 2020. Beyond good intentions: Designing CSR
initiatives for greater social impact. Journal of Management, 46(6), pp.937-964.
Bian, J., and et. al., 2021. Analysis of firm CSR strategies. European journal of operational
research. 290(3). pp.914-926.
Franco, S., and et. al., 2020. Are you good enough? CSR, quality management and corporate
financial performance in the hospitality industry. International Journal of Hospitality
Management. 88. p.102395.
Jackson, G. and et. al., 2020. Mandatory non-financial disclosure and its influence on CSR: An
international comparison. Journal of Business Ethics. 162(2). pp.323-342.
Kim, M., Yin, X. and Lee, G., 2020. The effect of CSR on corporate image, customer citizenship
behaviors, and customers’ long-term relationship orientation. International Journal of
Hospitality Management. 88. p.102520.
Kucharska, W. and Kowalczyk, R., 2019. How to achieve sustainability?—Employee's point of
view on company's culture and CSR practice. Corporate Social Responsibility and
Environmental Management. 26(2). pp.453-467.
Mao, Y. and et. al., 2020. Effects of tourism CSR on employee psychological capital in the
COVID-19 crisis: from the perspective of conservation of resources theory. Current
Issues in Tourism, pp.1-19.
Ramesh, K. and et. al., 2019. Consumer's response to CSR activities: Mediating role of brand
image and brand attitude. Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental
Management. 26(2). pp.377-387.
Schoeneborn, D., Morsing, M. and Crane, A., 2020. Formative perspectives on the relation
between CSR communication and CSR practices: Pathways for walking, talking, and t
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Shahzad, M. and et. al., 2020. Relation of environment sustainability to CSR and green
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Vishwanathan, P. and et. al., 2020. Strategic CSR: A concept building meta‐analysis. Journal of
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Wang, Z., Hsieh, T.S. and Sarkis, J., 2018. CSR performance and the readability of CSR reports:
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