The Essay Explores The Link Between CSR And Brand Equity.

Corporate social responsibility and brand equity have interrelations with each other and these are studied within the research domain of marketing and other processes. Corporate social responsibility has various policies that needs to be implemented within the organizational structure and business objectives (Alhouti et al., 2016). Therefore, some improvisations that are caused by corporate social responsibility can easily increase the brand value of the organization with respect to several CSR policies and standards. CSR is the combination of customer behavior and creation of brand values within the organization.  

Brand equity is entirely dependent on the corporate social responsibility. This aspect is highlighted as social measures creates high amount of brand value within the market. Therefore, lack of policies related to corporate social responsibility is one of the greatest problems involved within the corporate world. This report is elaborating about the significant measures required for managing the highlighted issues.  

The research proposal consisting of some group of objectives that will highlight the research context that is needed to be discussed within this section of the research proposal. The considered research objectives are elaborated as follows:

• To study the existing nature of CSR within Woolworth with respect to evolving trends within retail industry of Australia.
• To identify the intent of CSR policies within Woolworth
• To analyze the policies of Woolworth with respect to the brand equity of the company
• To understand the relationship of brand awareness and corporate social responsibility of Woolworth

This project is revealing about the detailed study about the corporate social responsibility and their impacts on the brand equity of Woolsworth. The organization have great brand value and they have also implemented various CSR measures within their organizational structure for managing their developmental aspect introduced by these CSR policies (Andreu et al., 2015). This proposal is providing the group of resources that are supporting the impact of corporate social responsibility on the Brand equity on organizations that reveals the same impact on Woolsworth. Therefore, this proposal is helpful in finding the following goals of this project:

• To find the impactful areas of research depending on the CSR and brand equity
• To find out the factors that impact on Brand Equity of company
• To analyze the data collected

The expected outcome for this project proposal is that this will highlight the impactful areas of research depending on the brand value and corporate social responsibility of considered organizations with respect to their considered objectives and aims involved within this research process.

Corporate social responsibility is nothing but the concern of social values and conditions while maintaining any objectives of business process or corporate sector with respect to their competitive market and business strategies involved within their business process. According to Fatma, Rahman & Khan, 2015), CSR is the study of consumer brand attributes that are interrelated with each other. Therefore, this can be stated that the concept of brand equity and corporate social responsibilities are interrelated with each other. Grohmann et al., (2015) Stated that CSR also have direct impact on the brand equity of any organization.

Research Objectives

Corporate Strategies

Strategies has been considered for long term basis with respect to any organizational development. These are dependent on the vision ad mission of the organization (Gürhan-Canli et al., 2016). There are various corporate or organizational strategies that are used within the organizational process or within their business process that manages their developmental aspect these are controlled by the brand values and functional aspects involved within the brand value of the organization.

Leadership

Another important aspect involved within the context of corporate social responsibility and brand equity is leadership. According to Hur et al.,  (2016), this is identified that the best possible way of transmitting the CSR policies to observe the internal communication between the employees and higher authorities of the SMEs. Policies developed by the internal managers and system heads are useful in conveying the message of CSR rules within the organization. Therefore, this can be stated that leadership plays a great role in solving issues and increasing brand equity of any organization.

Financial Benefits of CSR

CSR ad financial performance has great relation according to the research conducted on both of these aspects. Hur et al.,  (2014) stated that the business process have good financial stability generally responses good for establishing social relations with their customers and clients. Therefore organizations have great relation in establishing corporate social responsibility with their clients with respect to their financial stability. The firms therefore need to invest more on the activities that are related to establishing social responsibilities and functional aspects involved within this aspect. CSR policies make the organizational performance better with respect to their objectives and aims involved within their organization.

Research on CSR relationships

Involvement of the CSR policies and functionalities highlights this fact that corporate social responsibility attracts people as well as employees for good work environment and other facilities that they get within the organization. This aspect in terms increase the organizational performance as well as the popularity of CSR policies.

Stakeholder Relationships

Stakeholders plays a great role in solving issues involved within the organization. In case of the CSR concepts and brand value they play a vital role in developing the organization with respect to the CSR policies involved within the conduct of CSR.

The analysis required for the research proposal and these are done with the help of different methodologies. Therefore, the required methodologies are elaborated as follows:  

Literature review is nothing but the collection of information from the literatures collected in this research process and all of these resources are secondary resources involved within this research process. There are various kinds of secondary resources that are involved within this research such as, articles, journals, online resources and Google Scholar (Janssen et al., 2015). All of these resources are used within this research process for managing the relationship among the beneficial resources involved within this research process and functional areas of research such as research objectives and aims involved within this research process. The influences of quality resources guide the researcher in achieving success during the research process.

Justification of the Project

Surveys and Questionnaires (Data collection method)

The data collection methods are nothing but the process of collecting data and information about the researches. The data collection methods involve various sources that are used as primary and secondary resources involved within the research. There are mainly two types of data collection process such as qualitative and quantitative data collection processes.

The questionnaires are prepared for clarifying the service quality of Woolworth. The organization needs to consider the development of the corporate social responsibility and brand equity equally within their organizational structure for managing sustainability within the organization. Therefore, the model of questionnaires are required to be prepared with respect to various functional aspects involved within the entire research process with respect to the research objectives and aims involved within this research.

Interviews: The face to face interviews are considered for this research process for managing the functional areas of research. There are various domains that need to be elaborated within the data surveys but needed more descriptions from the respondents. Therefore, the research process requires interview process for managing the developmental aspect of the research.  

Data Analysis Methods

Data analysis process is another important aspect involved within the entire research process. Therefore, the researcher needs to apply both qualitative and quantitative analysis of the collected data sets involved within the entire research process. Quantitative analysis involves graphs,, charts etc and the qualitative data analysis process is analyzes the functional areas of research with respect to the objectives and aims involved within the research process.

• Qualitative data analysis requires the plan and structured process of data sets that are collected during the research process with respect to the objectives involved within the research process. The qualitative research process involves secondary data sets that are collected with respect to literature resources.
• Quantitative analysis of data uses the raw information from the resources and functional areas of the research that manages the development of the research work and also satisfies the goals of the research process.

Population involved within this project

Total 100 samples are used within this research process for collecting the quantitative data involved within this research process with respect to the functional aspect involved within the research process. Inferential analysis will be taken into account for analyzing the functionality of collected resources for analysis the collected data.

The organization of study is nothing but the process of describing the functional and non-functional aspects involved within the entire research process. This means that the classifications of research process that is divided into several chapter of research thesis paper. Therefore, the considered study for this research process is elaborated as follows:

• Chapter one will be discussing the research proposal that elaborates the descriptions about research contexts and the core discussions involved within the research process.
• Chapter two discusses and analyzes the case study of quality of services involved within the corporate social responsibility and management of brand equity
• Chapter three is discussing about the methodology used within this research process for conducing the entire research
• Chapter four is discussing Gantt chart as well as estimated budget for the entire research process with respect to its objectives and aims involved within this research process
• Chapter five is elaborating about the conclusion involved within the research process with respect to different significant investigation process involved within this research process that shows the strategic moves and functional steps required for this project development and management process.

The following table is showing the required time span for the completion of the project:

Table 1: The timeline for the whole project

Task Name	Duration	Start	Finish
Corporate Social Responsibility and Brand Equity	43 days	Mon 7/3/17	Wed 8/30/17
Project Initiation	10 days	Mon 7/3/17	Fri 7/14/17
Finalization of objectives	2 days	Mon 7/3/17	Tue 7/4/17
Finalization of project topic	2 days	Wed 7/5/17	Thu 7/6/17
Finalization of project plan	4 days	Fri 7/7/17	Wed 7/12/17
Project charter sign off	2 days	Thu 7/13/17	Fri 7/14/17
Project proposal	8 days	Mon 7/17/17	Wed 7/26/17
Preparation of project tasks	2 days	Mon 7/17/17	Tue 7/18/17
Preparation of project deliverables	2 days	Wed 7/19/17	Thu 7/20/17
Preparation of project time schedule	2 days	Fri 7/21/17	Mon 7/24/17
Cost finalization	2 days	Tue 7/25/17	Wed 7/26/17
Literature review	10 days	Thu 7/27/17	Wed 8/9/17
Collection of resources	5 days	Thu 7/27/17	Wed 8/2/17
Classification of research domains	2 days	Thu 8/3/17	Fri 8/4/17
Preparation of literature review	3 days	Mon 8/7/17	Wed 8/9/17
Data Collection	6 days	Thu 8/10/17	Thu 8/17/17
Identification of required data	2 days	Thu 8/10/17	Fri 8/11/17
Collection of data sets	2 days	Mon 8/14/17	Tue 8/15/17
Use of data sets	2 days	Wed 8/16/17	Thu 8/17/17
Data Analysis	4 days	Fri 8/18/17	Wed 8/23/17
Analysis of data	2 days	Fri 8/18/17	Mon 8/21/17
Using analyzed data	2 days	Tue 8/22/17	Wed 8/23/17
Final Report Submission	5 days	Thu 8/24/17	Wed 8/30/17
Project charter submission	3 days	Thu 8/24/17	Mon 8/28/17
End of project	2 days	Tue 8/29/17	Wed 8/30/17

Project budget is another important thing that needs to be done with respect different functional objectives and aims for analyzing the relation between the corporate social responsibility and brand equity of any organization. The proposal’s estimated budget is $6,000 for managing as well as completing the project development phases and functional aspects involved within the project.

Expected Research Outcomes

 There are various specifications for aims and objectives involved within the research, therefore the budget for those specifications are elaborated as follows:

• The literature review requires effective text books and learning materials for preparing the research process. In addition to this, online access to the online literature resources involved within the research process. This literature resource needs the budget of $1000 within this research.
• Data collection is another major aspect involved within the research process. The research process involves data collection process that includes face to face interviews, posting and mailing of information to the employees. These aspects require effective budgeting for managing these resources and functionalities. These are requires $3000 for managing these aspects.
• Data analysis is another important aspect involved within the research process. this requires the budget about $2000 that meets all the requirements of research team members and research heads.

Summary of the Budget

Table 2: Summary of the budget

Purpose	Estimated amount to be spent
Literature review	$1000
Data Collection	$3000
Data Analysis	$2000
Total Budget	$6000

References 

Alhouti, S., Johnson, C. M., & Holloway, B. B. (2016). Corporate social responsibility authenticity: Investigating its antecedents and outcomes. Journal of Business Research, 69(3), 1242-1249.

Andreu, L., Casado-Díaz, A. B., & Mattila, A. S. (2015). Effects of message appeal and service type in CSR communication strategies. Journal of Business Research, 68(7), 1488-1495.

Fatma, M., Rahman, Z., & Khan, I. (2015). Building company reputation and brand equity through CSR: the mediating role of trust. International Journal of Bank Marketing, 33(6), 840-856.

Grohmann, B., & Bodur, H. O. (2015). Brand social responsibility: conceptualization, measurement, and outcomes. Journal of Business Ethics, 131(2), 375-399.

Gürhan-Canli, Z., Hayran, C., & Sarial-Abi, G. (2016). Customer-based brand equity in a technologically fast-paced, connected, and constrained environment. AMS review, 6(1-2), 23-32.

Hur, W. M., Kim, H., & Jang, J. H. (2016). The role of gender differences in the impact of CSR perceptions on corporate marketing outcomes. Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, 23(6), 345-357.

Hur, W. M., Kim, H., & Woo, J. (2014). How CSR leads to corporate brand equity: Mediating mechanisms of corporate brand credibility and reputation. Journal of Business Ethics, 125(1), 75-86.

Hwang, J., & Kandampully, J. (2015). Embracing CSR in pro-social relationship marketing program: understanding driving forces of positive consumer responses. Journal of Services Marketing, 29(5), 344-353.

Janssen, C., Sen, S., & Bhattacharya, C. B. (2015). Corporate crises in the age of corporate social responsibility. Business Horizons, 58(2), 183-192.

Khojastehpour, M., & Johns, R. (2014). The effect of environmental CSR issues on corporate/brand reputation and corporate profitability. European Business Review, 26(4), 330-339.

Kim, M., & Kim, Y. (2014). Corporate social responsibility and shareholder value of restaurant firms. International Journal of Hospitality Management, 40, 120-129.

Pérez, A., & del Bosque, I. R. (2015). How customers construct corporate social responsibility images: Testing the moderating role of demographic characteristics. BRQ Business Research Quarterly, 18(2), 127-141.

Tingchi Liu, M., Anthony Wong, I., Shi, G., Chu, R., & L. Brock, J. (2014). The impact of corporate social responsibility (CSR) performance and perceived brand quality on customer-based brand preference. Journal of Services Marketing, 28(3), 181-194.

Tsarenko, Y., & Tojib, D. (2015). Consumers’ forgiveness after brand transgression: the effect of the firm’s corporate social responsibility and response. Journal of Marketing Management, 31(17-18), 1851-1877.

Xu, S., Liu, D., & Huang, J. (2015). Corporate social responsibility, the cost of equity capital and ownership structure: An analysis of Chinese listed firms. Australian Journal of Management, 40(2), 245-276.

Youn, S. H., & Ryu, S. Y. (2016). The impacts of CSR program on young students' attitudes toward the corporation and natural environment: Tourism study from a convergence perspective. Indian Journal of Science and Technology, 9(26).