The impact of corporate social responsibility on brand equity in the telecommunication industry in Ghana

Abstract

Recently, there has been a rising interest for an anchor of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) into the business structure of most organizations in Ghana. This is due to the benefits associated with the concept of CSR which has generated a lot of attention and interest of many stakeholders including managers and researchers. However, most of the available research works in this area were carried out on developed countries and in the case of the telecommunication industry, the scope of studies appear narrow as individual telecommunication companies were used as case studies and reported findings are inconclusive. This study investigated the relationship between CSR and brand equity in the telecommunication industry in Ghana. The study adopted quantitative research design and collected primary data from 600 respondents across the 16 regions of Ghana using structured questionnaire. Convenience sampling procedure was employed. The field data was analyzed using inferential statistics (OLS regression and correlation analysis) and descriptive statistics. The study found that both ethical and philanthropic responsibilities of CSR positively relate to brand awareness and brand loyalty at statistically significant levels. The study recommends that telecommunication firms in Ghana should make their philanthropic initiatives and projects visibly known to the general public through intensive public relation activities, media engagements to showcase their donations, sponsorships, community socio-economic projects and voluntary education gestures. The study further recommends that management of telecommunication firms should continuously integrate and incorporate philanthropy in their marketing strategies, making it permanent and integral feature of the formulation and implementation of business differentiation policies