Abstract: In recent decades, corporate social responsibility (CSR) has drawn much research interests. While some researches have looked into how CSR initiatives affect business competitive advantage (CA), the results have been conflicting thus far. Moreover, the role of benchmarking, diversity support ratio, and satisfaction ratio on the relationship between CSR and CA has not been specifically and explicitly studied. Therefore, the aim of this study was to investigate how benchmarking, diversity support and satisfaction ratios affect the relationship between CSR and CA. The study adopted a descriptive design with a target population of 250 employees, comprising of managers, cluster managers and departmental heads from Safaricom Company Limited. The study employed the use of a questionnaire with a Likert type questions to gather primary data from the respondents. The questionnaires were administered through a drop and pick method. A pilot test was conducted prior to the main study, to test the reliability and validity of the research instrument and the results used to modify the questions to remove ambiguity, lack of clarity and test reliability. Data collected from the study was thereafter analyzed using statistical package for social sciences software and presented in tables, graphs and charts. Findings from the study showed that benchmarking had a statistical significant effect on competitive advantage of Safaricom Company, hence a unit increase in benchmarking would considerable lead to an increase in competitive advantage by 0.094 units. Consequently, the study also found that diversity supportive ratio had a statistical significant effect on competitive advantage of Safaricom. This therefore meant that a unit increase in diversity support ratio, would lead to an improvement of competitive advantage of Safaricom Company by 0.062 units. There was also a statistical significant effect of satisfaction ratio on competitive advantage of Safaricom Company, indicating that with a unit increase in satisfaction ratio, there would be a significant decrease in competitive advantage of Safaricom Company by 0.137 units. The study recommended that companies should embrace benchmarking because it provides platform through which companies can make improvements in their performance by learning from their competitors and other industry players. The study also found a need for companies to emphasize on employee diversity to improve on the overall company image on the market and to able to attract more customers to the firm’s product and services. Finally, the study recommended that companies in general should strive to build their corporate reputation through corporate initiatives to attract best pool of talents that will steer the company towards achieving a competitive edge among other rivals in the industry. The study suggests that further researches may be performed on the sustainability of corporate responsibility due to its resource intensive nature, to enable companies cushion themselves from this without eroding on their gains
Keywords: benchmarking, diversity support ratio, satisfaction ratio, competitive advantage.
Title: CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY AND COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE IN SAFARICOM COMPANY (K) LIMITED
Author: Karithi John, Dr. Jane Queen Omwenga
International Journal of Social Science and Humanities Research
ISSN 2348-3156 (Print), ISSN 2348-3164 (online)
Vol. 10, Issue 4, October 2022 - December 2022
Page No: 70-89
Research Publish Journals
Website: www.researchpublish.com
Published Date: 06-October-2022
