Public Perception and Investment Preference for the Companies Contributing to CSR

The corporate social responsibility concentrates on corporate goals to “give back to the society” or be converted into “agents of positive social change”. Therefore it is important to understand the people‟s perception for corporate social responsibility and their investment preference in companies contributing to CSR. To know people‟s perception of CSR the descriptive research design has been used and the data has been collected from 285 individuals of Ahmedabad city through structured questionnaire using random sampling method in the month of January and February 2021. The collected data has been tabulated and analyzed using frequency count, percentage, chi-square test, and multiple-regression. This study found that eighty five percent of the respondents are aware of CSR. The respondents believe that CCCSR are responsible companies and therefor people spread positive word-of-mouth for these companies but people are not ready to pay higher price for the products and services offered by these companies. Therefor companies should invest in CSR and this investment gives handsome financial and non-financial returns in the form of improved company reputation, customer satisfaction, trustworthiness, customer loyalty, investors‟ confidence etc.


Introduction
The money considered as a life blood of any business as it is the most necessitous part of all the functions of a business (Pankaj Sharma, 2018). However, the emerging wave in corporate social responsibility signals that businesses are attempting to do better for the environment in addition to making profits. Companies make corporate social commitments as they devote time and energy to these social, environmental, and economic causes. Societal initiatives concentrate on corporate goals to "give back to the society" or be converted into "agents of positive social change" (Dalwadi & Sharma, 2019). Corporate social responsibility is described as where these community programmes are made obligatory for corporations by statute. The relationship between businesses and society has slowly evolved from a hard-core enterprise to a philanthropic relationship. (Shergill, 2012). Corporate social responsibility is described as a holistic collection of policies, practices, and making programs that are incorporated into corporate activities, supply chains, and decision-processes within the enterprise, everywhere it does business, and provides accountability for current and past activity as well as potential impacts. (Shergill, 2012). Employees" perceptions of their company"s social responsibility behaviors are more important than organizational reality in determining organizational identification (Glavas & Godwin, 2013). Consumers' social issues have been addressed by CSR campaigns, such as providing goods with socially beneficial qualities or producing products in a socially responsible way. (McWilliams & Siegel, 2001). There are three players in cause-related marketing. When a customer enters in a revenueproducing activity with the corporation, the company announces that it will contribute a certain amount of money to a charitable cause. This indicates the interconnection of company, consumer, and charitable cause affecting parties (Dean, 2003). This responsibility necessitates companies contributing financial and human resources to the community, as well as assisting in the improvement of the community's quality of life. Its resulting benefits can be (Dean, 2003);  Creation of goodwill with the community,  Differentiation of the corporate image and its brands from competitors  Increase in employee and channel member morale  Use as a shield against public criticism in times of crisis  Winning over skeptical public officials  Increased revenues and profits The new information is interpreted in light of the observer's previous experiences, beliefs, and feelings (Sherif and Hovland 1961) and thus the social responsibility is viewed by corporations as an investment that improves the long-term performance of the organization (Varadarajan and Menon 1988).
According to the contrast effect, firms that make similar charitable contributions can be judged differently by customers based on the firm's reputation for social responsibility. The announcement of a corporate donation by an irresponsible company, for example, is likely to result in a contrast effect. The irresponsible firm will be described in such a way that making a charitable donation (of either type) would be out of character for the firm. On the other hand, information that a scrupulous firm is making a charitable donation would not be surprising, and no contrast effect is expected.
Attributions are the result of a cognitive process by which people assign an underlying cause or explanation to an observed event (Kelly 1973;Kelly and Michela 1980). That is, individuals will try to develop a commonsense explanation of why actions have occurred and make causal inferences. It is assumed that people make attributions to achieve a greater level of understanding (and thus control) over their lives and environment. Consumers are known to make attributions about why a product failed, why they switched brands, why a celebrity agreed to appear in an endorsement, and why a firm"s employees are on strike (Folkes 1988).
Social responsibility is important in determining corporate effectiveness (Lachman and Wolfe, 1997). Most observers expect that ""good companies"" (that is, companies that have a reputation for being socially responsible) will attract consumers to their products, while ""bad companies"" (that is, companies that disregard their social obligations) will be punished by the consumersfor example, through boycotts (Castaldo et al., 2009). Consumers are interested in the social behavior of firms, and this behavior influences their purchasing decisions (Castaldo et al., 2009).
A.B. Carroll, one of the pioneers of CSR, defines it as: The total corporate social responsibility of business entails the simultaneous fulfillment of the firm"s economic, legal, ethical and philanthropic responsibilities. Stated in more pragmatic and managerial terms, the CSR firm should strive to make a profit, obey the law, be ethical, and be a good corporate citizen (Carroll, 1991). Carroll proposes a model that divides CSR into four components. The economic aspect requires companies to perform well economically and meet consumer demands. The legal aspect requires them to carry out their economic mission in accordance with the law. The ethical dimension requires companies to follow society's moral laws. The final part is charitable and philanthropic in nature (Carroll, 1979).
The CSR literature proposes that the consumer perceives an additional benefit in the purchase of products that are associated to CSR (Strahilevitz, 1999;Smith, 1996). CSR is meaningless in day-to-day operations if management"s prime concern is not with continuing the long-term health of the enterprise (Ingham, 2006).
The corporations are expected to engage in the improvement of their employees" quality of life, as well as the well-being of employees" families, local communities, and the overxall society (Zheng, 2010). CSR can attract investors and customers, as well as maintain a positive interaction with the government (Zheng, 2010). A growing number of studies have been done regarding the benefits of CSR. However, most are concerned with the financial and customer perspective (Zheng, 2010). Some corporations invest in CSR because it is the "right thing to do"; it is aligned with the beliefs of the management and corporate culture; it is part of the strategic plan; it is a current thing to do as most of the other organizations do it; or management expects to be rewarded for it by the market (Dilling, 2011). About seventy percent of related studies showed a positive and statistically relevant relationship between CSR and financial performance (Dilling, 2010). To make people aware of corporate social responsibility, these companies should advertise their socially responsible behavior through different media including social media platform that offers and entertainment and practical use of content (Sharma & Chakravarthy, 2020).
More specifically, the study will search to answer the following questions: 1) How many people are aware of corporate social responsibility? 2) How the reputation, customer satisfaction, trust, and loyalty for the companies contributing to CSR perceived by people? 3) Do customers are willing to pay high price for the products or services of companies contributing to CSR? 4) Do people prefer to invest in companies contributing to CSR?

Important Literature Review
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The cultural characteristics influences the importance attributed to CSR activities Kaifi et al. 2014 Consumers (Millennial) 180 The female students, students born in a high-context culture and millennial have a higher commitment to corporate social responsibility. Generation -X 624 In the X-generation, the influence of environmental CSR on experiential brand image, and the influence of brand attitude on future buying willingness, is more significant than with the Y-generation. Generation -Y In the Y-generation, the impact of community CSR on experiential brand image, and the impact of symbolic brand awareness on brand attitude are more significant than with the X-generation. Zhu (Zhu et al., 2014) Customers Perceived Value (Ferreira et al., 2010) Long term Success (Elias, 2004) Cultural Diversity in Activities (Dilling, 2011) Self Enhancement (Ramasamy et al., 2020) Employee Satisfaction (Zhu et al., 2014) Customers Expectation (Shergill, 2012) Firm Value (Lee & Heo, 2009) Openness to Change (Ramasamy et al., 2020) Employees Participation (Huang, 2016) Brand Image (Wu & Wang, 2014) Reputation of Product (Castaldo et al., 2009) Organisational Commitment (Huang, 2016) Future buying willingness[I] (Wu & Wang, 2014) Brand Image (Wu & Wang, 2014

Methodology
The main objective of the study is to know the people"s perception for CSR and investment preference in companies contributing to CSR. To meet this objective the relevant literature has been studied and identified that numerous studies has been conducted on CSR and its financial aspects, customer perception, employees perception, and public"s perception for CSR. However, very few studies have been conducted on identifying the people"s investment preference in companies contributing to CSR. To meet this objective descriptive research design has been used and the data has been collected from 285 individuals of Ahmedabad city through structured questionnaire using random sampling method in the month of January and February 2021. The collected data has been tabulated and analyzed using frequency count, percentage, chi-square test, and multiple-regression.   The data indicates that more than 88% of people from those who are aware of corporate social responsibility (CSR) remember the companies contributing to corporate social responsibility (CCCSR). This may result in a direct or indirect benefit in a financial or nonfinancial way to the companies contributing to CSR from the public and customers. The nonfinancial benefits can be customer loyalty, company reputation, customers' trust for the company, customer satisfaction, and positive word-of-mouth. In spite of non-financial benefits, some financial benefits can be availed to the company in the form of increased customers, cost savings, easier access to capital, etc. As we already discussed that enormous number of peoples remember the companies contributing to CSR. Further collected survey data indicates that more than 76% of respondents believe that CSR activities will enhance the reputation of companies. More than 60% of respondents are of the opinion that customers are satisfied with the products or services of CCCSR. The corporate activities for social and environmental wellbeing will enhance the trust for the company in more than 72% of respondents. More than 67% of respondents are of the opinion that they will remain loyal to the CCCSR. These results indicate the positive perception and mind set of customers about CCCSR and it will benefit these companies directly or indirectly in short term and long term future. There were several statements presented in before respondents to give their agreement or disagreement in a five point likert scale. The data presents that more than 69% of respondents would prefer the products or services offered by CCCSR. This indicates that customers have trust on CCCSR and they become loyal and supportive to these companies. The rest of the respondents may prefer the products or services after evaluating them on some other aspects too. More than 69% of respondents are of positive opinion towards CCCSR and they think that the actions of these companies are directed towards improving social and environmental wellbeing. More than 69% of respondents would prefer to invest in the CCCSR that means companies will get the benefit of easier access to capital. More than 67% of respondents believe that CCCSR are responsible companies. More than 60% of respondents will encourage others to buy products or services offered by CCCSR that indicates that peoples who are aware of CSR activities of company will spread positive word-of-mount and this will benefit company. However, there is a diversified opinion from respondents on account of spending higher price for buying the products or services of CCCSR and if we look into data more carefully it shows that majority of respondents are not willing to pay higher price for it. In India CSR has been mandated as per Companies Act, 2013 for those companies falling into the turnover, profit, and net worth threshold prescribed in the act. The Companies Act, 2013 also suggested activities that may be included by companies in their CSR policies in Schedule VII. However, several questions were presented before respondents to know the priority areas where there is a need of development and CSR amount should be spent by companies. According to majority of respondents there is a need of development in education, environment, health & sanitation, and rural developments and CSR amount should be spent in these areas. Surprisingly the Companies Act, 2013 guidelines for including activities in CSR policies and respondents opinion about priority areas of CSR are almost in same direction. This reveals that the activities prescribed in new companies act are result of public survey, need of nation, and critical examination of the issues in present time.  Though the model explains more than 83% variance but whether this relationship is significant or not is tested through F-statistics. The p-value for F-statistics is 0.000 which indicates that the model is significant predictive capability and RC_CCCSR, ESW_ACCCSR, and PWOM_CCCSR reveals significant explanation in ACPI. H 0 : Customers perception of environmentally and socially wellbeing company has no significant influence on the access to capital from public issues. H 1 : Customers perception of environmentally and socially wellbeing company has significant influence on the access to capital from public issues.

Impact of public perception of CCCSR on companies' access to capital from public issue
H 0 : Customers positive word of mouth about the company has no significant influence on the access to capital from public issues. H 1 : Customers positive word of mouth about the company has no significant influence on the access to capital from public issues.
The above table presents standardized & unstandardized co-efficient of independent variable and t-statistics to examine the significance of independent variables co-efficient. The p-value for all three independent variable is less than 0.05 which indicate the values of co-efficient or betas for independent variables are significant. The above table presents the correlation and collinearity statistics. The VIF i.e. Variance Inflation Factor for all independent variables is near by 2 that mean there is no significant multi-collinearity between independent variables.

Scatterplot derived from Breusch Pagan Test
The assumption of homoscedasticity means same variance assumes the situation in which error terms is same across all values of independent variables. To test the assumption Breusch Pagan Test applied on data. The F-statistics shows the p-value greater than 0.05 that means there is homoscedasticity and error term is same across all values of independent variables. The figure also shows a random displacement of scores with no clustering or systematic pattern that is the indication of homoscedasticity.

Conclusion
This main objective of the study is to identify the people"s perception of CSR and their investment preference in companies contributing to CSR. This study found that 85% of the respondents are aware of CSR and there is no significant association of demographics with the awareness of CSR. This study further found that the majority of respondents believe that the companies contributing to CSR are reputed companies, they satisfy their customers, customers have trust in them, and customers become loyal to these companies. The study further explored that the majority of respondents believe that actions of companies are directed towards environmental and social wellbeing and people prefer products and services offered by CCCSR. The respondents believe that these companies are responsible companies and therefor people spread positive word-of-mouth for these companies but people are not ready to pay higher price for the products and services offered by these companies. Therefor companies should invest in CSR and this investment gives handsome financial and nonfinancial returns in the form of improved company reputation, customer satisfaction, trustworthiness, customer loyalty, investors" confidence etc.