Analysing the impact of corporate social responsibility CSR) strategies over the success of an organization: The case of L'oréal

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) has emerged as one of the major strategies for the today's organizations attracting the employees and customers. The customers are no longer only concerned with the quality of the product or service but they have been increasingly considering the environmental and societal roles of the companies they do business with. For the companies with high number of competitors and substitutes available, sustaining an acceptable value of CSR has become essential. The present study focused on assessing the role played by the CSR strategies of L'Oréal in order to make it reach the position of the global cosmetic leader. The extensive secondary research has been conducted to identify the independent variables associated with the CSR of the companies. These variables are identified to be the company's responsibility towards the society and environment, the customers' awareness about the CSR strategies of the company and the customer perceptions about the company's CSR. 100 customers of the company were surveyed using structured questionnaires in order to test the conceptual framework and identify the relationship between the independent and dependent variables. As a result of survey, it came to light that the role of CSR has been positive for the L'Oréal to govern the customers' purchase decisions and their preferences of the company's products as compared to those of competitors. The company is considerably responsible towards the society and has been trying to reduce its environmental footprint, and the customers perceive the CSR initiatives of the company to be positive. However, the level of customers awareness for the L'Oréal CSR strategies is lower, improving which would guarantee the higher business success. In the light of the primary and secondary study findings, recommendations have been provided for improving the CSR strategies and hence the business performance of the L'Oréal.