The role of social responsibility in the purchase decision of customers in a saturated market

Master's Thesis

Abstract

One of the effective techniques in today's era and in saturated markets, according to the goals of value-oriented marketing, is the development of the concept of corporate social responsibility in the body of products and services. The purpose of this research is to investigate the impact of corporate social responsibility on the way consumers make decisions in the market that is becoming saturated with food companies. This research is descriptive-survey in terms of applied purpose and in terms of method. The statistical population is the consumers of food products including dairy, meat and frozen products in Gilan province. The sample size is equal to 199 people. In order to collect information, a standard questionnaire and library and field methods have been used. For data analysis, data normality tests and confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation model were used in LISREL and SPSS software. The results indicate that the social responsibility of the company in the food saturated markets, both directly and through the mediation of the promotion factor, has an impact on the consumer's decision making.

Key words: corporate social responsibility, consumer decision making, saturated market

1-1 Introduction

Marketing is always accused in the society of using lies, fraud, violation of people's privacy, pollution Environmentalism has been promoting consumerism and neglecting the weak and vulnerable sections of society, while marketing has been formed with the aim of helping the economy of countries and satisfying the needs of consumers. On the other hand, some experts believe that the marketing perspective emphasizes the demands of selected customers too much and does not consider social welfare. The main cause of these accusations is the neglect of most companies from the social aspects of marketing, which has led to major violations and deviations from the ideals of marketing in order to increase profitability. Violating companies have thought that compliance with ethical principles in marketing reduces their access to economic goals, therefore their performance in the past has always had violations that have caused a negative view of marketing. Therefore, it can be concluded that not only the presented image of marketing has been distorted, but with the passage of time, contrary to the managers' utilitarian ideas, the profitability of the offending companies has also decreased. Therefore, it must be said that what can rebuild trust and confidence between the two parties and lead organizations to accumulate capital and profitability is the existence of an atmosphere full of trust in business. In recent years, the attention of management elders has been directed to the human spirit and society. Paying attention to the non-physical dimension of man, which is his truth-seeking soul, leads to a fundamental change in the vision, mission, goals, strategy and functioning of organizations. In fact, instead of only paying attention to the consumer's needs, we should also pay attention to the interests of the society and the regulation of creation. 1-2 Statement of the problem Along with the process of globalization in all fields, the doors of global markets have been opened to companies. Competitors from all over the world compete with each other with different cultures and facilities and equipment. Markets gradually become more competitive and are filled with goods and services of competing companies, until the market reaches a degree of saturation (Kotler, 2010). Among the characteristics of this type of market is the increase in production volume and variety of products by competitors, the increase in the speed of technology development, the high flexibility of industries and the diversification of consumers (Hambrick, 1983). On the other hand, companies today are faced with extensive advertising activities from competitors to attract consumers, so that every consumer faces a large amount of advertisements daily (Story & French, 2004). Few of these advertisements are noticed and fewer of them are analyzed by consumers (Hoch et al, 1992). It is very clear that consumers go through a decision-making process before they understand a message (Wansink et al, 1998), as a result, previous strategies will no longer work, companies should seek new and more creative techniques so that they can not only maintain their market share, but also take the market share of their competitors. One of the effective techniques in today's era is the special influence of companies on the behavior of consumers, which is used through responsible commercial, ethical, humanitarian and environmental activities to influence consumers and society.. One of the most effective techniques in today's era is the special influence of companies on consumer behavior, which is used through responsible commercial, ethical, humanitarian and environmental activities to influence consumers and society. These activities are called corporate social responsibility activities (Gu et al, 2013; Margolis et al, 2007; Lee et al, 2013; Kacperczyk, 2009; Velaz et al, 2007; Paek et al., 2012; Carroll A., 1979). In this way, they will be able to influence the sense of responsibility and philanthropy of consumers and find a way to penetrate the overly competitive and sometimes saturated markets (Kotler, p. 158, 2013).

A cursory look at the corporate social responsibility literature shows that previous studies mainly sought to describe corporate social responsibility and discover its dimensions (Gu et al, 2013; Margolis et al, 2007; Wong & Wong, 2012). A group of researchers investigated the impact of corporate social responsibility on the type of view and attitude of consumers (Brown & Dacin, 1997; Murray & Vogel, 1997), others analyzed the consequences of positive and negative social behaviors of companies on consumers (Baron, 1999; Pits et al, 1991) and some researchers also explored the impact of corporate social responsibility factors on the intentions of buyers (Gupta & Sen, 2013; Irwin & Naylor, 2009; Liberman & Trope, 1998). We discussed the impact of corporate social responsibility activities on consumers' purchasing decisions with the mixed mediation of promotion in the saturated market of dairy, meat and frozen food companies in Gilan province. The proposed model consists of three main variables. First, the concept of corporate social responsibility, which is considered as an independent research variable. Consumer purchase decision has also been chosen as the dependent variable of the research, and finally promotion is the mediating variable of the research. All these variables were measured separately in previous researches, for example, in Luo and Bhattacharya's research in 2009, the relationship between advertising and corporate social responsibility has been examined, in their research, advertising variable was considered as a mediating variable (Luo & Bhattacharya, 2009). Also, in a research conducted by Ayanwale and his colleagues in 2005, the role of advertising on consumer buying behavior was investigated (Ayanwale et al, 2005) and in a research conducted by Mohammadian and Khataei, the relationship between psychological, social factors and consumer behavior was measured (Mohammadian and Khataei, 2010). In line with the research done, we also presented the proposed model which is visible in Figure 1-1 and investigated the three variables of social responsibility, promotion, consumer purchase decision and the relationship between them in the form of a model.

(Images and diagrams are available in the main file)

-3 Necessity and importance of research

During the last few decades, new cultural values ??have emerged as a result of gaining awareness of the dependence of organizations on society and the environment. People have gradually realized that the actions of organizations bring benefits and losses to the society, and therefore a lot of attention has been paid to improve the net results of the organizations' impact on the society. In other words, society expects to receive more net profits from organizations and these profits are distributed fairly. In fact, social responsibility is the method by which companies offer suitable products to the demands of customers and even set prices in such a way that it is valuable for both the buyer and the producer to make a reasonable profit. Social responsibility goes beyond a positive attitude towards the environment because it considers all aspects of product and service consumption by customers. The social responsibility of marketing is the correct orientation to the consumption taste of the society, which requires a long-term perspective (Dea'ei, p. 30, 2015).

Along with the process of globalization in all fields, the doors of global markets have been opened to companies. Competitors from all over the world compete with each other with different cultures and facilities and equipment and quickly take the market share. Markets are gradually becoming more competitive and filled with goods and services from different competing companies, until the market reaches saturation levels.