Measuring corporate personality with social responsibility bench marks

Abstract

Purpose

Responding to the growing amounts of power that corporations exert within society, stakeholder groups are increasingly placing companies under pressure to prove their commitments to the idea of corporate social responsibility (CSR). Despite various mechanisms such as codes and principles being implemented in order to guide corporate actions, a clear need has been identified for better measuring tools of CSR. The bench marks is one of the most comprehensive CSR frameworks available and was chosen by this study to develop into a practical measuring instrument. The purpose of this paper is to report on the development process of the instrument.

Design/methodology/approach

Two main research methods have been applied, namely a literature review and an empirical study which included theoretically recognised phases for measuring instrument development. One of the phases involved a survey with questionnaires administered on 189 randomly selected respondents.

Findings

Apart from successfully measuring CSR performance in line with the bench marks, the developed instrument has been found to be useful as a measuring mechanism for corporate personality (CP).

Originality/value

CP valuation is achieved by measuring company behaviour in terms of the theoretical dimensions of CSR and sustainable development. In doing so, this instrument provides companies with a unique way of identifying their status of being true corporate citizens.

Citation

Cronjé, F. and van Wyk, J. (2013), "Measuring corporate personality with social responsibility bench marks", Journal of Global Responsibility, Vol. 4 No. 2, pp. 188-243. https://doi.org/10.1108/JGR-03-2012-0010