| dc.description.abstract | Corporate social responsibility (CSR) is one of the marketing strategies that are
widely used in the industrial arena for the purposes of creating customer awareness,
enhancing product penetration into the market and boosting firm’s profitability. The
overriding question, therefore, the study asked was what effects CSR has towards
sales volume increase, product extension into the market and consumer increase in
numbers in organizations? The specific objectives guiding the research were; to
establish the understanding of CSR among company practitioners on brand equity
among listed companies; to assess the effect of CSR on sales volume increase among
listed companies; to determine the effect of CSR on product extensions in the market
among listed companies and to evaluate the extent to which CSR affect consumer
increase in numbers among listed companies. This timely study was carried in the
area of CSR because it is so rich, current, on going and challenging. The study is
underpinned on the theory of Corporate Social Responsibility or Carroll’s four-part
model. A census technique of 52 listed companies was used. Data was mainly
collected through questionnaires and analyzed through descriptive and inferential
statistics. A Multiple Linear Regression Analysis was employed on testing of the
hypotheses. With regard to volume increase, the findings revealed that, there is a
weak positive linear relationship between CSR and sales volume increase because P
>.073. Similarly, there was a weak positive linear relationship between the CSR and
product extension into the market since P >.216. The third variable indicated that
there is a strong positive linear relationship between the CSR and consumer numbers
increase in the market because P =.001. In summary, CSR enhances brand equity of
firms. These findings therefore are important indicators that brand managers and
marketers should relook the CSR practice and effectively tailor it to build a
company’s brand equity, which is the backbone of any successful business venture.
This study was carried out to contribute to the growing knowledge in the field of
marketing, especially in the area of CSR as a marketing strategy and how it should be
utilized by companies to generate more profits; as opposed to the perception that it is
just a mere tool for publicity. It is upon the CSR practitioners to use the correct
dimensions based on their objectives to achieve the desired outcomes. Finally, there is
need for a replica of the same study, but now looking at other companies in Kenya
that are not listed to see if similar results would be obtained for further generalizations
of the findings. | en_US |
