Assessing CSR Influence on Stakeholders: Tesco Case Study Report

This report delves into Tesco's corporate social responsibility (CSR) strategies, examining their influence on stakeholders, particularly consumers. It investigates how CSR activities function as a corporate strategy and governance model for Tesco, analyzing the impact of these initiatives on consumer behavior and the company's sustainable performance. The report explores Tesco's approach to ethical business practices, environmental responsibility, and social welfare, including its efforts to reduce food waste and ensure safe working conditions. Through a literature review and research methodology incorporating primary and secondary data collection, the report assesses the significance of CSR practices within Tesco's operations and evaluates the extent to which consumer behavior is influenced by these activities. Key findings are presented, along with recommendations for enhancing Tesco's CSR strategies and their effectiveness in fostering positive stakeholder relationships and sustainable business outcomes.

CORPORATE STRATEGY AND
GOVERNANCE

TABLE OF CONTENTS
RESEARCH TOPIC........................................................................................................................1
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
Background.............................................................................................................................1
Problem statement : ...............................................................................................................2
Aim.........................................................................................................................................2
Objectives...............................................................................................................................2
Questions................................................................................................................................2
Rationale of study...................................................................................................................2
Literature Review...................................................................................................................3
Research Methodology..........................................................................................................3
Gantt Chart ............................................................................................................................5
LITERATURE REVIEW................................................................................................................5
To determine CSR activities as corporate strategy and governance for Tesco......................6
To evaluate influence of corporate social responsibility on Consumers................................7
SECONDARY AND PRIMARY RESEARCH ............................................................................9
CRITICALLY REVIEW ON RESULTS OF RESEARCH .........................................................14
RECOMMENDATION ................................................................................................................24
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................28

RESEARCH TOPIC
“To assess the influence of corporate social responsibility on stakeholders: A case study
on Tesco”.
INTRODUCTION
Background
Corporate social responsibility (CSR) is a sustainable approach which helps the business
in governing environmental, economic and social benefits for key stakeholders. This is
strategical approach which helps the company in managing economic and social welfare which
on other hand helps in managing stable performance of business (Hoi, Wu and Zhang, 2013).
There are different types of CSR strategies which aim at managing different areas and functions
of firm like, ethical business practices. In accordance with ethics it is responsibility of an
enterprise to ensure safe and health practices with regard to stakeholders as well as environment.
It comprises values, system, people a nature of entity towards its micro and macro business
environment.
The motive behind CSR governance in Tesco is quality of practices, safe working
conditions, effective production process and shared employee perspective. It is considered as
voluntary initiative where principles and values govern process of firm. Tesco focuses on
managing CSR strategical governance to serve society in effective and fair manner (Tai and
Chuang, 2014). Further, it aims at creating wealth and welfare for different communities of
society. In addition, it supports respect for human rights for which focus of retailer is on
providing safe working conditions to all employees.
Implementation of corporate social responsibility helps Tesco in promoting health and
safety of workers which is the best strategy to managing employees' motivation and productivity.
On the other hand, compliance with policies and procedures of CSR helps the business in
enabling respect for environment by promoting focus on minimizing waste and use of natural
resources and making proper use of all resources (Frederick, 2016). Apart from this, CSR polices
supports mandatory compliance with governmental rule and regulation which are enforced to
maintain commitments and contracts. For example, as per corporate responsibility update of
Tesco it is determined that food that is not safe for human consumption should go to waste
because of which the firm has focused on incorporating practices to reduce food waste (An
update on our Corporate Responsibility commitments, 2016).
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Problem statement :
The problem is that consumer in the market have perception that that food products
offered by Tesco is not healthy and due to which the food is going waste. This factor has great
effect on the image as well as performance of company.
Aim
“To assess the influence of corporate social responsibility initiatives on consumer
behaviour: A case study on Tesco”
Objectives
 To determine CSR activities as corporate strategy and governance for Tesco.
 To evaluate influence of corporate social responsibility on consumer behaviour.
 To ascertain impact of CSR on sustainable performance of Tesco.
 To determine the significance of CSR practices in business.
 To evaluate extent to which consumers behaviour get influenced by CSR activities.
Questions
 Why CSR activities are termed as corporate strategy and governance for Tesco?
 Explain the influence of corporate social responsibility on stakeholders.
 What is the impact of CSR on sustainable performance of Tesco?
Rationale of study
The motive behind choosing corporate social responsibility as corporate governance
strategy is management of responsibility practices. This will assist scholar in developing critical
understanding over sustainable practices, stakeholders, etc. Further, the study is for academic
purpose and therefore will help in boosting knowledge over different organizational polices,
corporate strategy and ethics. Thus, exploring research topic with the help of determined
objectives and questions will help in gaining insights over different strategical issues and
stakeholders requirements. The impact of Corporate social responsibility is might be positive and
negative on the working performance of the company. The present study will be showing the
impact of CSR on consumer behavior. That helps to identify the involvement of CSR in within
the organization level.
Literature Review
According to the view of Schwartz, (2017), an enterprise has some responsibilities
towards group of people those who are directly as well as significantly affected by business
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operations. As per the opinion of Grayson and Hodges, (2017), Corporate social activity has
great effect on the relationship between company and its stakeholders such as employees,
communities, clients etc. The author also states that ethical as well as purpose of fulfilling
corporate social responsibility by company is to increase the moral of stakeholders and assist
them in improving their living standards. As per the view of Claire, (2017), Corporate social
responsibility can be considered to be as an organization response to the concerns of stakeholders
related to operation of business. According to the stakeholder theory, an organization can
achieve success and maintain sustainability through effective management and also by fulfilling
the demands or needs of internal as well as external stakeholders. As per the view of Flammer,
and Luo, (2017), business entity by fulfilling the corporate social responsibility can deliver high
value to stakeholders. The author also states that by adequate governance and fulfilling the
corporate social responsibility, an organization can meet the expectation of its stakeholders
which is very much crucial for business growth. According to the perspective of Newman and
Brucks, (2018), by executing the ethical business practices company can easily influence
customers to buy products or services and can gain their loyalty. As per the view of Visser and
Tolhurst, (2017), company through corporate-governance can attract investors and easily
encourage them to make investment in business.
CSR is the most significant factor in order to improve the company brand and make
company popular in the market. SCR helps to make the company perspective more effective
towards the company. CSR also significant in terms of engaging customers, retaining top talent,
helping companies stand out from the competition as well.
Consumer get influenced by the demand of the company, weather company sells
productive product or services or not. From these factors customer get influenced by CSR.
Research Methodology
The different methods will be utilized by researcher in present investigation. Few
techniques, methods that will be utilized by scholar in present study includes :
Research type: The selection of the research type is based on the nature of the topic. In present
study, investigator will conduct qualitative research.
Research approach : Choice of research is completely based on the nature of problem found
during the investigation procedure. There are basically two types of research approaches these
are inductive and deductive (Alase, 2017.). In present study, scholar will use deductive research
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approach. The reason for selecting the deductive research approach is that it will help researcher
in reaching to specific conclusions.
Research philosophy : Interpretative and positivism are two research philosophy. In present
investigation, researcher will utilize Interpretative research philosophy (Stubkjaer, 2017). The
reason for selecting interventionism research philosophy is that it will help investigator in
conducting in depth study.
Sampling: It involves selecting the few participants from the wide population. Among the
different techniques of sampling in present study researcher will select 20 employees working in
Tesco randomly (Xu, He, Ai and Qiu, 2017).
Data collection : In present study, scholar will use both primary and secondary method of data
collection. Interview and questionnaire will be used as technique for collection of primary
information. The secondary information will be gathered using books, journals, magazines etc.
Data analysis : Both qualitative and quantitative technique will be used for data analysis.
Thematic analysis will be used in present study (Habersang and Reihlen, 2018). Graph, chart
will be utilized for presenting the data in systematic manner.
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Gantt Chart
LITERATURE REVIEW
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To determine CSR activities as corporate strategy and governance for Tesco
As per (Frederick, 2016) Corporate government aims to hold balance between both social
and economic goals of Tesco and it achieves balance between communal and individual goals as
well. The framework of the corporate governance encourages the use of efficient resources as
well as it equally requires accountability for these resources' stewardship. Along with CSR,
Tesco's corporate governance implements and enhance the company's sustainability. It ensures
that the organisation is running responsibly from ensuring its transparency, accountability and
compliance regarding its key stakeholders. It is a set of institutional, legal and cultural
arrangements which determines what Tesco can do, Corporate governance helps Tesco in its
profit maximisation and provides shareholder protection which have provided the company its
capital. Tesco manages to earn quality in its products and overall services with the help of CSR
activities. The company deals with its management and overall provided services efficiently with
the help of CSR. Along with different sets of value added services are determined by the help of
Corporate Social Responsibility. Such as to ensure that the organisation is moving along with the
required measures without causing environmental challenges. Along with it, the company tends
to ensure smooth functioning of its overall operations with the help of CSR.
As per Flammer and Luo, (2017) The corporate social responsibility is a key element in
Tesco's business strategies and its governance model as well. The goal of Tesco is to ensure
CSR's higher integration used in it business operations along with a more systematic approach in
its management practices. The organisation tends to provide top priority to opinion exchange and
in regular communication with its group of Stakeholders. This helps Tesco to improve its
understanding in issues which are defined as key priority areas of Corporate Social
Responsibility. Along with it, it helps the organisation in understanding the provided solution
efficiency and effectiveness. The key roles of Corporate Social responsibility in corporate
strategy of Tesco includes ensuring the safety and health of all employees. It also safeguards
human right and strengthen the overall organisation's transparency. Along with it, it adapts to the
climate change and environment protection with supporting the local communities. To improve
labour practices it constantly takes care of the organisational structure with upholding the ethical
market practices. The all practices help Tesco to ensure a better management and safe
organisation structure. Corporate Social Responsibility tends to make the organisation
functioning smooth so that it can move towards better markets and grow its business and move
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towards higher probability. It has been seen as an important aspect for the organisation in making
it more resourceful towards a good leadership and management. Tesco has seen rapid changes
with these developments and improvements that has made the organisation reaching towards
greater heights. The strategies adopted under CSR are better and clear for the organisational
growth and leadership activities.
To evaluate influence of corporate social responsibility on Consumers
As per Wang and Sarkis, (2017), Consumer play a major role in taking the organization
further. In Tesco, the corporate social responsibility tends to make its stakeholders follow the
rules and regulation implied by it. For Tesco, it is important that its Clients work with the
required freedom to achieve organizational goals and objectives. If not provided with the
necessary freedom these stakeholders might feel bounded and will not be able to achieve
required organizational goals and objectives. CSR has seen to imply strict regulations on the
organisation's Consumers which makes it difficult for them to oversee the work independently.
Along with it, the Consumer have to take necessary things into consideration while creating new
strategies and making the organist more resourceful (Taylor, Vithayathil and Yim, 2018). These
strategies have to be based on the implied rules and regulations by CSR. The management of the
organization tends to developing strategies based on the following approaches of CSR, which
later are put into perspective to achieve organizational growth. The key Consumer feels bounded
while taking the laws and implications of CSR into perspective (Jamali and Jain, 2017).
The CSR also impacts the organisations planning as while planning necessary guidelines
and regulations the corporate social responsibility needs to be undertaken. These guidelines
create an impact on the organisations overall capabilities to increase its market value or
customers. The stakeholders of Tesco make sure that the organisation reaches to its goals and
objective and impacts necessary consumer markets with CSR's compliance.
The CSR also impacts the organisations employees’ performance when the responsibility
and skills which they tend to have differs from the ones they have. This makes the organisation
suffer in terms of getting the best out of its stakeholders. It has been as these stakeholders are not
able to achieve organisational desired goals because of less effective skills and not having the
required knowledge of CSR's abilities (Hofman Moon and Wu, 2017). It makes Tesco to teach
and coach its stakeholders along with its leaders and managers to ensure that they have good
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knowledge of Corporate Social Responsibilities and their actions within the organization are
based on the knowledge provided.
The stakeholders tend to develop their abilities as per the given guidance and coaching
and they make the organisation grow as per its needs and requirements. Along with it, the laws
and implication of corporate social responsibility seems to take away the power of organizations
stakeholders and with less power they are not able to perform freely (Lyon, Delmas and Toffel,
2018). Tesco is developing its management systems are per the requirements of the Corporate
social responsibility from which it can create a system that already following the regulations and
guidelines set by the Corporate and later they can provide essential freedom to its stakeholders to
perform as they desire and operate the organizations functions freely (Flammer and Luo, 2017).
Influences of CSR on Consumers
Corporate social responsibility is the great influencing factor that affect different
stakeholders of the Tesco. Major stakeholder of the company are customers, suppliers,
government, mediators that highly affect by the company strategies. For example, Customers are
highly get affected from those companies who involved in investing the funds in corporate social
responsibility. It makes company image more sustainable and achieving in terms of taking
customer benefits. Besides, government also get influenced from the company who highly
engaged with the social responsibility to gain the country profit as well. Employees are also very
stakeholder of the company that maintained the profit level. Company should always taking care
of their employees so that TESCO can easily sustained their potential clients as well.
According to Clark, Feiner and Viehs, (2015), business performance was traditionally a
topic that leaders of large companies paid a good deal of attention. For Businesses it is necessary
for the companies to make concerns towards the integration of social and environmental
concerns in their business operations and their good interaction with their potential stakeholders.
CSR is the most essential activity and function which is required for the betterment of the
company. It is also very necessary for the long term sustainability development for the company
which is essential for the new development process. This process has always linked up with the
company strategies and goals in order to meet out the best productive outcomes and best
development material growth for the betterment of the company purposes. Corporate social
responsibility is beneficial for the company to retained the potential employees within the
organizations.
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As per the Tingchi Liu and et.al., (2014), been suggested that, CSR sustained business
growth by satisfied its customers or buyers. It improves customers’ positive attitude towards the
company. With maintaining better CSR will enhance the chances of better sales volume. The
major of the businesses believes on the corporate social responsibility. As per some benefits of
CSR on business stability has proved that, it gives positive impact on the business development
process or goals. Some of the other positive impact has been given by CSR such as Costs
Reductions, Positive PR, Business opportunities, Long term future for business.
According to Edinger-Schons and et.al., (2018), CSR activities are more focused on the
protection rather than competitive advantages. It helps to avoid+tory pressure from the company.
Through which Tesco can easily meet out the needs of company objectives. In case of non -
focusing on the corporate social responsibility, Tesco might be facing issues in terms of low
ineffective pressure of the stakeholders or the investors as well. It impacts in negative manner, in
case they avoid paying attention towards the maintaining CSR activity growth.
Suppliers and employees, supplier’s employees all are get take different aspects due to
not following the proper effective growth management task.
As per the Vermeulen, (2015) Impact of CSR on Companies sustainability is true in
terms of managing company effective activities and also guide company to keep sustained the
manage in the company performance.
SECONDARY AND PRIMARY RESEARCH
Research Methodology is known as a process which is used to collect data and information
for the purpose of making decisions in a business. The particular methodology explains the
importance of the research and how it is done within the given scenario. It includes various
approaches to prepares an overall methodology. Below mentioned are the key techniques and
methods used in preparing a research methodology:
Research Approach: The choice of research is based on the problem's nature which is
found during the investigation. One needs to understand the problem and the scenario in which it
is occurring. The understanding is later used in identifying the approach which is going to be
used in the overall research. Types of research approaches include deductive and inductive.
Deductive approach tends to test the assumption's validity or the hypotheses and theories which
are in hand. The inductive approach tends to expose new generalizations and theories. The
present study will use the deductive approach of research (aylor, Bogdan and DeVault, 2015). It
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is going to allow the researcher in reaching to the particular conclusion which later will
showcase the overall research analysis. The deduction approach in the study will use techniques
such as logic, generalization, usage of data, theories etc. These techniques will ensure that the
research is done right and it is effective to consider along with that it can be used in the next
required approach. This research approach helps to fulfill the aim and objective of the study that
to identify the impact of CSR on Tesco customers.
Research Philosophy: There are two research philosophies in main. These are interpretative
and positivism. The interpretivism philosophy allows its researchers to interpret the elements of
the study and thus this philosophy is seen to integrate a human interest in a study. The positivism
philosophy includes factual knowledge of the things which is gained through the sense
observation. In present report the interpretative research philosophy is used. The reason it has
been selected because it would allow the investigator in performing depth study for the research.
That helps to identify the role of stakeholders in corporate social responsibility. While
conducting a research it is important to have a depth knowledge of the topic on which the
research is going to be done (Wills and et.al., 2016). The used philosophy will help the
investigator to identify the issues in depth and understand the scenario entirely. Also, it will
make understanding those core issues which are required to present the overall research and will
maintaining the efficiency of the done research.
Sampling: Sampling refers to the selection of a particular number of people from a wide
population. The research will select 20 random skilled employees of Tesco. The selected
employees are based on the set of skills acquired by them, things which make them different and
how efficient they are at teamwork. These employees will later determine the success of the
overall research as well. It has been seen that the employees which are being selected for the
sampling purpose require the set of skills which are compatible for the research purpose. This
employee capability includes skills such as effective communication which is important because
without effective communication it is difficult to achieve best results. Other skills include good
management skills, if the employees are not having good management skills they tend to suffer
from management issues that is going to make the research slow and ineffective. Sampling
research method helps to explore the further importance of CSR in terms of customer satisfaction
needs.
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