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Since much of civil society groups’ attention has been on pressurising specifically corporate companies to take up their responsibility towards society, it has been an area of focus that is attracting increasing debate. Today companies’ corporate social responsibility (CSR) ranges from ‘going green’ to supporting local charities. However, one thing is increasingly clear: it is not a choice any longer. Employees expect it, and companies need it. What used to be considered good public relations, or window dressing for community relations, is in fact linked to how well a company's employees perform. In fact, in a Global Workforce study done by Towers Perrin (2009) it was found that CSR is the third most important driver of employee engagement overall. For companies in the United States (US), an organisation's stature in the community is the second most important driver of employee engagement, and a company's reputation for social responsibility is also among the top 10 drivers. Importantly, this is one example of the increasing authoritative influence of a rising global civil society in international affairs.

Güler Aras (www.guleraras.com) is a professor of Finance and Dean of the Faculty of Economic and Administrative Sciences at Yildiz Technical University, Istanbul, Turkey. She has published 16 books and has contributed over 150 articles to academic, business, and professional journals and magazines and to edited book collections. She has also spoken extensively at conferences and seminars and has acted as a consultant to a wide range of government and commercial organizations. Her research is into financial economy and financial markets with particular emphasis on the relationship between corporate social responsibility and a firm's financial performance.

The aim is to explore the impact of new menu labels on consumers' actual meal purchases with a field experiment undertaken in a local restaurant.

The author used a field experiment in a natural eating environment at a restaurant to investigate the effect of restaurant menu labelling on consumers' meal choices and opinions on the use of nutritional labels on menus. The experiment included control and treatment conditions in which we offered customers unlabelled and labelled menus, respectively. After individuals' dining experience, the data on meal choices and attitudes to menu labelling was collected via a brief questionnaire. The author then performed inferential statistical analysis to test differences between the control and treatment conditions and logistic regression analysis to explore further what predicts the probability of labels being influential on meal choice.

The study finds that the information provided to the consumers on restaurant menus matters. The more useful the information is perceived by consumers, the more likely the labels will influence their choices. Calorie content and the walking minutes to burn those calories on labels were considered the most useful aspect of the menu labels.

The study contributes to a better understanding of the impact of menu labelling on actual meal purchases, as well as the best way to communicate calorie and nutrient information to consumers. The author also shares her experience designing a field experiment with a restaurateur for future research.