Marina Mattera

The key to carving out a high corporate reputation based on innovation: corporate social responsibility

Purpose – The purpose of this study is to analyze how corporate social responsibility (CSR) affects a firm’s value added. Specifically, through a combination of Stakeholder Theory and specific concept within the Innovation Theory framework (called Social Innovation Capital), this work explores the relation between effective stakeholder management and how marketable innovation production affects a company’s possibility of achieving a sustainable competitive advantage. By doing so, new insights on CSR management to gain competitive advantage are provided. Design/methodology/approach – The present study analyzes the role of a firm’s international presence, and the company’s social commitment initiatives as drivers of the enterprise’s corporate intangible assets. A company’s reputation has also been considered as a control variable. To achieve this goal, the Spanish market was analyzed. Specifically, those Spanish companies who had the highest reputation in the global reputation pulse and showed the highest l...

Investing time wisely: enhancing brand awareness through stakeholder engagement in the service sector

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is understood as liabilities a person or organisation has towards its social context, including people as well as physical environment, when conducting any activity whose consequences will not only affect the subject who carries it out, but also the other individuals. However, there has been scarce attention in academia and practice to CSRs influence on brand awareness. To shed light on this issue, this study uses stakeholder theory to provide insights into the effects that CSR reporting initiatives and effective communication have on a companys brand. Sixteen most renowned and well-known service companies of Spain were considered. Findings of the study demonstrate a positive association between holding the ISO 26000 certification and a firms brand awareness. Furthermore, it was shown that reported information being reviewed by organisms other than global reporting initiative organisation is positively associated with the companys brand awareness in the service sector.

The state of CSR in Spain

This chapter looks at the state of CSR in Spain. The first part deals with the implementation of CSR in Spanish business, the role of the Spanish government in promoting CSR, the teaching of CSR in Spanish universities and scientific output on the topic. The second part explains how CSR is incorporated into academic programs in the Universidad Europea de Madrid (UEM). The final part explains a survey carried out amongst 208 UEM students, and presents some conclusions on their perceptions of how a responsible business should act, and why CSR polices are important.