Importance of CSR and Organizational Growth: Virgin Group Analysis

This report provides an in-depth analysis of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) within the Virgin Group, examining its importance and impact on organizational growth and success. The report begins with an overview of CSR, its purpose, and a literature review exploring the concept's significance. It then presents a conceptual and theoretical framework, detailing the design and justification of research methods, and outlining a plan for the research. The report investigates the CSR activities adopted by Virgin Group, such as charity, campaigns, and providing food to the poor, and assesses their influence on the organization and society. It also explores how Virgin Group maintains a high market position through cost control, efficiency improvements, and employee recruitment. The research methodology is qualitative, focusing on analyzing data and providing recommendations and conclusions. The report offers a comprehensive understanding of CSR's role in business strategy and its contribution to long-term benefits and shareholder value, using Virgin Group as a case study to illustrate these points.

ADVANCE RESEARCH
METHODS

Table of Contents
TITLE: ............................................................................................................................................1
INTRODUCTION : ........................................................................................................................1
Overview of the Research ..........................................................................................................1
Purpose of the Research .............................................................................................................2
Literature Review........................................................................................................................3
Conceptual and theoretical framework ......................................................................................3
Designing and justification of research methods .......................................................................4
Plan for research .........................................................................................................................6
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................7

TITLE:
To analyse the importance of Corporate Social Responsibilities within an organisation
and its impact on developing organisational growth and success. A case study on Virgin Group
Ltd.
INTRODUCTION :
Overview of the Research
Corporate social responsibility can be considered as a most essential element for
business. In this modern era each small as well as large business organisations are concern on
adopting various CSR activities as to developing organisational performance at market place.
CSR activities are effective in gaining attention of people towards their firm and offered goods
and services. These activities are also beneficial for organisation and society as well. Large
number of people are concern on attaining satisfaction through consuming variety of goods and
services. Corporate social responsibilities are the growing and most developing phenomenon in
the world. CSR can be described as an effective concept which has become dominant in the
organisational reporting (Wang,and Anderson,2011). Every business corporation has a policy
which is concerning about CSR and produce an annual report with proper detail of its activities.
In the recent timing corporate social responsibility has become one of the standard business
practices. Through implementation of CSR activities the reputation of company can be enhanced
at market place so each business organisation are concern on adopting them as their major
responsibility. This is beneficial for an individual as well as society. Virgin Group Ltd is a
British multinational corporation venture capital conglomerate which is funded by entrepreneurs
Richard Branson and Nik Powell. The major purpose of firm is to gaining attention of large
number of customers towards their firm through implementing various operations and strategies.
As a popular and large business enterprises company is focused on implementing various CSR
activities as to attaining higher brand image and position at market place. CSR activities are
beneficial for company as well as society so people are very much attracted towards he firm who
are vastly implementing CSR as their essential tool. It is important for organisations to attract
customers in order to gaining high growth and success at market place.
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Purpose of the Research
The major purpose of conducting the particular research is to enhancing the skills and
knowledge of learner in the select area of study. The implementation of CSR activities are
effective in developing organisational productivity as well as performance at market place.
Corporate social responsibility is consist to be a broad concept that has various concepts and
approaches (Shauki, 2011). Further more mainly business models of CSR includes various
similar activities such as environmental consideration, ethical practices, philanthropic activities
and volunteering. Virgin is a large business enterprise and deals in various sectors as to
sustaining higher position at market place. The company is conducting various operations and
strategies as to creating awareness among the mind of people because customers attraction is
beneficial for firm or its growth. Through the developing recognition that CSR can be
instrumental to organisational success, businesses are concern on implant CSR principles as their
strategic business plan in respect to increasing long term benefits and shareholders believe
through taking responsibility for corporate action (O'Donnell, 2011). Firms are focused on
implementing CSR activities because these are having some positive impact on business
environment, society and economy.
Research Objective
 To identify the importance of Corporate Social Responsibilities at work place.
 To determine the influence of corporate social responsibilities within an organisation and
society.
 To ascertain the various CSR activities that are adopted by organisation as to attaining
growth and success. To recommend ways by which organisation can sustain high position at market place.
Research Question
 What are the importance of Corporate Social Responsibilities at work place?
 What are the influence of corporate social responsibilities within an organisation and
society?
 What are the major CSR activities that are adopted by organisation as to attaining growth
and success?
 What are the ways by which organisation can sustain high position at market place?
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Literature Review
Importance of Corporate social responsibility at workplace
According to Popoli, (2011) Corporate social responsibilities allow the firm for their bit
for community, society, customers, environment to the stakeholders. The term corporate social
responsibility provide an opportunity of an enterprise for contributing towards their society,
country, environment and many more. It is very important for the company to operate in that way
which help in demonstrate towards social responsibility. This activity does not need to legal
requirement and it can seen as good practices for taking into account for social and
environmental issues. Social responsibility and ethical exercise is play a crucial part for the
business success and growth in proper manner. There are various importance of corporate social
responsibility that are described as under:
 Improved public image- It is very necessary for customers which assess the public image
when deciding to purchase the products from them. For doing charity and other services,
they can improve their firm reputation in large market place. It is much effective for
business growth and success.
 Increasing brand awareness and identification- For doing ethical practices, this news will
be expanded. Most of the people are hear about the company brand which make or create
an increasing brand awareness.
 Cost saving- Major simple changes are in favour of sustainability, such as using limited
packaging that will assist in reducing the cost of manufacturing.
 Taking advantages to competitors- For embracing the CSR, the company stand out from
their rivals in the industry. Also they require to consider social and environmental factors
in effective manner.
 Enhancing customer engagement- For using sustainable system, the customer base will
continuous increasing at regular time period. The social media channels will make and
create perfect story for describing the major efforts. Customers require to follow this and
engage with their effective brand and its main operations.
Influence of corporate social responsibilities within an organisation and society
There are various factors which determine the impact of CSR that are explained as
follows:
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 Customer retention- Customer can choose the business of the specific company who have
reputation in the society. Business will show the commitment and the environment can
gaining attention of large number of buyers who can share the values. The effective firm
do not take part of perceived values for their goods and services and can make result in
higher satisfaction to their customers..
 Access to funding- The capital is required to launch the organisation and various capital
infusion can be needed to fund expanding plans. Taking mechanism which maintain the
stability of organisation that can assist the business for continuous progress towards
achieving desired goals and targets.
 Positive image- Organisation who have ethical lapses like ignoring environmental rules
or standard for employees which should treated and can suffer from harm or damage to
their good reputation. A firm image affects its major relationship with their stakeholders
and remake a company difficult image in one stability for controlling the damage in given
time period.
What are the major CSR activities that are adopted by organisation as to attaining growth and
success?
According to Hah and Freeman, (2014) every business organisation have to perform CSR
activities that concentrate on developing society in various ways so that proper work process can
be conducted effectively and efficiently. They have to perform several actions that aids in
running the work process smoothly and properly. As they are established in society, hence there
are number of duties that have to be played by Virgin Ltd is described below:
 Charity: They donate large amount of revenue in charity events so that they can perform
good deeds in society and that is directly linked in sustainable development of nation.
 Organising campaigns: This is run to provide assistance to their workers by establishing
events that will help non profit organisations that work on no profit no loss concept.
 Providing Food to poor people: They also aid in delivering eatables to number of poor
people hence contributing in eradicating poverty (Pollach, 2012).
What are the ways by which organisation can sustain high position at market place?
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Virgin Ltd adopt so many ways in order to secure high position and share in current
market area. Some methods are discussed below:
 Control Company cost: It is essential to make cost effectiveness process so that extra cost
cannot be occur and there is no issues regarding it.
 Increasing Efficiencies: This is very important to improve and enhance working process
so that final outcome can be accomplished in proper time frame.
 Recruit best employees: This step involve that company have to gain prospective
employees into their system so that they can able to contribute best of their efforts and
gain final set targets.
 Examine customer's needs: It is indispensable to study clients behaviour so that their
wants can be met out accurately.
Conceptual and theoretical framework
Research is an appropriate technique which is adopted by organization for acquiring deep
knowledge about specific subject area (Groves and LaRocca, 2011). However, investigation is a
concept whose main objective is to support corporate world in various complex situations by
highlighting accurate or precise facts or figures in order to minimize the probability of mistakes
and errors. Beside this, it helps learner in analysing corrective data which aids company while
making final decision at workplace. Main objective of research concept is to attain company
goals in minimum time frame by following appropriate steps or procedures. Thus, suitable
framework of research is described as follows:- Introduction:- Initial step of investigation is to understand the motive of subject area in
deeper sense by considering necessary facts or figures. Main objective of first step is to
focus on specific reason behind selecting certain topic. For example; present proposal is
depend upon significance of CSR activities that is introduced by Virgin group for
developing their organization across the international boundaries. Mainly, overall
research is rely on introduction part because it highlight the actual aim of entire
assignment (Blombäck and Scandelius, 2013). Literature review:- Secondly, viewpoints or opinions of distinct authors are expressed in
this section in order to understand the topic in more deeper sense. Along with this,
healthy discussion between experience persons are also mentioned in this for comparing
the difference between distinct scholars.
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 Research methodology:- After assessing the opinions of distinct authors its time to
identify the various useful tools or techniques of gathering relevant facts or figures which
is used by researcher while accomplishing further activities (Esen, 2013). Data analysis:- Consumers are seen as a indispensable asset for company because
products are finally consumed by them only. Thus, due to which investigator needs to
select certain individuals on random basis for understanding their views or opinions on
subject area.
 Recommendation and conclusion:- At last, after gathering accurate information its time
to suggest appropriate area of improvement by considering facts or figures. Along with
this needs to summarize entire project for reaching at final decision.
Designing and justification of research methods
A research Method is can be called a systematic plan for conducting a research. It is a
very crucial part of any research project (Hilson, 2012). It plays a major role in completing the
whole research project in the most efficient way possible. It requires application of various tools
and techniques which are important for research work. It is divided into different parts.
Type of Investigation
Research are of different types. The onus is on the research to select the type of research
that has to be conducted. It can be qualitative and quantitative in nature. Qualitative research
involves research based on quality of data. The method selected for this research is qualitative
method because in this various facts and figures are being considered to arrive at conclusion. The
type of investigation selected will shape the future of a research project and how it will be
conducted because the kind of data collected will depend on this and hence the outcome will also
change accordingly (Yakovleva and Vazquez-Brust, 2012).
Research Design
It is a framework which lays down the framework for conducting a research project. It
specifies objectives, data collection as well as method of analysis, time ,costs, responsibility, the
outcomes that may occur and action etc. There are three types of research designs like
Exploratory research Design, descriptive research design and casual research design or
experimental research design. For the purpose of this project, the researcher has taken
exploratory research design because this research is based on qualitative research (Grafström and
Windell, 2011).
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Descriptive Research design is basically concerned with describing solutions as well as
its problems. It can be said as a more specific as well as purposive study.
Research Philosophy
It is the basic philosophy which is taken for the purpose of research. It deals with source,
nature and development of knowledge. It is divided in to two sections that is interpretative and
positivism. In recent scenario researcher uses interpretative research approach as it gives
qualitative report which is very helpful for researcher to analyse the data at various different
stages of a certain phenomenon. Its role is to interpret the social role of other people in
accordance with the meaning of researcher. In this researcher tries to analyse the feelings,
emotions of human and social role.
Research Approach
Research approach can said to be an effective tool of research which helps a researcher in
carrying out the activities of research in a perfect manner so that result can be obtained. There
two different categories of research approach these are inductive approach and deductive
approach, for the purpose of this research project inductive method of research is selected by the
researcher as it is based on the qualitative data.
Data Sampling
Under this, samples are selected from population and public. The sample selected is
basically a representative of the whole population and it is based on the information obtained
from such sample. The size of the sample taken for the purpose of research is 40 respondents
who were continuously taking services of the firm. Researcher have the option to select whether
probabilistic and non-probabilistic sampling technique based on suitability of that particular
project. For this research Non-probabilistic or purposive technique has been taken (Galbreath
and Shum, 2012).
Data collection
It refers to the collection of data for the purpose of conducting research. There are two
types of data collection method. Primary collection method and secondary data collection
method. For the purpose of making this research report Both primary and secondary data has
been taken into consideration.
Ethical Consideration
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It is an important part of the whole research project. It aims at imposing moral
responsibilities on researcher to conduct research in the most ethical manner possible. A
researcher usually faces many problems and issues which has to be addressed by the researcher,
it includes time in which research should be conducted and there should be a proper availability
of the resources so that researcher does not face any issue while making the project. A researcher
come across various personal information of respondents that needs to be kept personal by him
as it is personal in nature. These information should not be shared with anyone and should be
used only for the purpose for which it was gathered.
Plan for research
Gantt chart is a graphical representation of overall task or activities whose main motive is
to break down the overall work into various sections as well as assigned it for numerous days.
However, it is very useful for company success because it aids in completing specific project in
much better way by considering each or every aspect of research. In fact, one of the appropriate
technique that is adopted by researcher team while splitting their job in between different
employees in order to complete it in a minimum time frame. Basically, graphic representation
aids workers in understanding their job role in a much better way. Thus, some of the major
benefits of Gantt chart are :-
 Multiple tasks are described in a single document which helps employees while
performing their job role in much better way.
 Time management strategy.
Activity name Number of days Predecessor
Determination of issue 4 days 1
Designing aims and
objectives
3 days 2
Monitoring of key references 5 days 2
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Research methodology 7 days 4,2
Accumulation of data 10 days 5
Data analysis 12 days 6
Recommendation and
conclusion
7 days 7
Submission of report 2 days 8
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REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Wang, A. and Anderson, R.B., 2011. A multi-staged model of consumer responses to CSR
communications. The Journal of Corporate Citizenship, (41), p.51.
Shauki, E., 2011. Perceptions on corporate social responsibility: A study in capturing public
confidence. Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, 18(3),
pp.200-208.
O'Donnell, F., 2011. Introduction. Corporate Social Responsibility and Shell in Ireland: A Thin
Veneer, 3(11), p.9.
Popoli, P., 2011. Linking CSR strategy and brand image: Different approaches in local and
global markets. Marketing Theory, 11(4), pp.419-433.
Hah, K. and Freeman, S., 2014. Multinational enterprise subsidiaries and their CSR: A
conceptual framework of the management of CSR in smaller emerging economies.
Journal of business ethics, 122(1), pp.125-136.
Pollach, I., Johansen, T.S., Ellerup Nielsen, A. and Thomsen, C., 2012. The integration of CSR
into corporate communication in large European companies. Journal of Communication
Management, 16(2), pp.204-216.
Groves, K.S. and LaRocca, M.A., 2011. Responsible leadership outcomes via stakeholder CSR
values: Testing a values-centered model of transformational leadership. Journal of
Business Ethics, 98(1), pp.37-55.
Blombäck, A. and Scandelius, C., 2013. Corporate heritage in CSR communication: a means to
responsible brand image?. Corporate Communications: An International Journal, 18(3),
pp.362-382.
Esen, E., 2013. The influence of corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities on building
corporate reputation. In International business, sustainability and corporate social
responsibility (pp. 133-150). Emerald Group Publishing Limited.
Hilson, G., 2012. Corporate Social Responsibility in the extractive industries: Experiences from
developing countries. Resources Policy, 37(2), pp.131-137.
Yakovleva, N. and Vazquez-Brust, D., 2012. Stakeholder perspectives on CSR of mining MNCs
in Argentina. Journal of Business Ethics, 106(2), pp.191-211.
Hawani Wan Abd Rahman, N., Mohamed Zain, M. and Hanim Yaakop Yahaya Al-Haj, N.,
2011. CSR disclosures and its determinants: evidence from Malaysian government link
companies. Social Responsibility Journal, 7(2), pp.181-201.
Grafström, M. and Windell, K., 2011. The role of infomediaries: CSR in the business press
during 2000–2009. Journal of business ethics, 103(2), p.221.
Galbreath, J. and Shum, P., 2012. Do customer satisfaction and reputation mediate the CSR–FP
link? Evidence from Australia. Australian Journal of Management, 37(2), pp.211-229.
Sheldon, P.J. and Park, S.Y., 2011. An exploratory study of corporate social responsibility in the
US travel industry. Journal of Travel Research, 50(4), pp.392-407.
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