Customers perceived corporate social responsibility: the case of Lithuanian telecommunication companies

Abstract

Intense corruption, problems in compliance with liabilities, inefficiency of ethics codes and other factors stimulate discussions in the field of social responsibility. Social responsibility became a modern management philosophy leading to the success of organization. Nowadays social responsibility is entitled as one of the basic concepts of modern management. Every telecommunication company has its own customs, traditions, policies, values, ethical norms, presumptions. All together these elements compose social responsibility of telecommunication companies. These companies operating in a highly competitive environment face a demand to act in a socially responsible manner. There exists evidence that telecommunication companies communicate their social responsibility in a very intense way, however it is unclear if communicational messages of this field reach customers. Such a potential gap became a stimulus for the research with an objective to evaluate customers’ perceived corporate social responsibility in case of Lithuanian telecommunication companies. A questionnaire research was chosen for the study. Data were collected from 412 customers of telecommunication companies. The questionnaire involved the following domains of corporate social responsibility: customer, employee, environmental, supplier, local community, societal and shareholder. It was found out that every telecommunication company in Lithuania communicates social responsibility very intensively. However, in some cases communication messages do not reach the recipient. Results of the research have shown that social responsibility in the domains of customers and shareholders is usually noticed, while there exists a lack of information about environmental activities of telecommunication companies. This research has important implications for managers’ decisions on which domains of social responsibility to strengthen.