TY - JOUR
T1 - Employee participation in cause-related marketing strategies
T2 - A study of management perceptions from British consumer service industries
AU - Liu, Gordon
AU - Liston-Heyes, Catherine
AU - Ko, Wai-Wai
PY - 2010/2/1
Y1 - 2010/2/1
N2 - The purpose of cause-related marketing (CRM) is to publicise and capitalise on a firm’s corporate social performance (CSP) by enhancing its legitimacy in the eyes of its stakeholders. This study focuses on the firm’s internal stakeholders – i.e. its employees – and the extent of their involvement in the selection of social campaigns. Whilst the difficulties of managing a firm that has lost or damaged its legitimacy in the eyes of its employees are well known, little is understood about the extent to which managers and their social partners listen to and involve their employees in the legitimation process. Through telephone interviews with non-profit organisations and senior managers of service sector firms, the extent of employee involvement in CRM campaigns and the perceived benefits of doing so are investigated.␣Amongst other things, we find that (i) the extent of employee participation varies significantly across firms; (ii) larger CRM campaigns tend to be managed centrally with relatively less employee participation than smaller ones and (iii) financial services firms are more likely to make CRM decisions centrally, with relatively less employee participation than retail services firms.
AB - The purpose of cause-related marketing (CRM) is to publicise and capitalise on a firm’s corporate social performance (CSP) by enhancing its legitimacy in the eyes of its stakeholders. This study focuses on the firm’s internal stakeholders – i.e. its employees – and the extent of their involvement in the selection of social campaigns. Whilst the difficulties of managing a firm that has lost or damaged its legitimacy in the eyes of its employees are well known, little is understood about the extent to which managers and their social partners listen to and involve their employees in the legitimation process. Through telephone interviews with non-profit organisations and senior managers of service sector firms, the extent of employee involvement in CRM campaigns and the perceived benefits of doing so are investigated.␣Amongst other things, we find that (i) the extent of employee participation varies significantly across firms; (ii) larger CRM campaigns tend to be managed centrally with relatively less employee participation than smaller ones and (iii) financial services firms are more likely to make CRM decisions centrally, with relatively less employee participation than retail services firms.
KW - Sustainability
KW - cause-related marketing
KW - human resource management
KW - corporate social responsibility
KW - organisa- tional legitimacy
KW - social alliance
KW - stakeholder engagement
KW - employee participation
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=77949912314&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10551-009-0148-3
U2 - 10.1007/s10551-009-0148-3
DO - 10.1007/s10551-009-0148-3
M3 - Article
SN - 0167-4544
VL - 92
SP - 195
EP - 210
JO - Journal of Business Ethics
JF - Journal of Business Ethics
IS - 2
ER -