Denise GiderDie konsumentenorientierte Kommunikation von Corporate Social Responsibility in Ernährungsindustrie und Lebensmittelhandel

About this book deutschenglish

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is growing in importance for food companies. Companies have to communicate CSR effectively to various stakeholders, in order to meet the society’s expectations on corporate behaviour and benefit from CSR. However, recent studies indicate a low quality of food companies’ CSR-communication. Hence, the research objective of this study is to analyse CSR-communication of food companies to consumers and to elaborate recommendations for an effective, consumer-aligned CSR-communication. To this end, two studies are conducted: a consumer study and a company study.

The consumer study aims at developing requirements for a consumer-aligned CSR-communication on corporate websites. In this study, consumer’s search and processing of CSR-information is examined by collecting data on clicks on companies’ webpages and by conducting think aloud protocols. The company study aims at investigating the quality of CSR-communication of food companies. In this study, the quality is evaluated based on companies’ responses to consumer requests that include specific questions on CSR-activities. Consumer requests will be sent to the largest conventional and organic food companies in Germany. The company responses to these requests will be analysed by an evaluative qualitative content analysis.