Corporate Social Responsibility As a Source of Competitive Advantage in Large Enterprises

Abstract

The competitive advantage of enterprises in the conditions of market economy is not generated merely by ensuring high quality products and services. Therefore, in their strategies, they need to involve elements such as corporate social responsibility. The aim of the paper is to identify the key sources of competitive advantage of large enterprises. In the empirical research, the hypothesis has been tested to determine if the application of corporate social responsibility by enterprises has a statistically significant effect on gaining competitive advantage in the market. The hypothesis is verified on the basis of the authors’ study of 253 large enterprises operating in Poland by means of exploratory factor analysis, the statistical method of reducing the number of classifying empirical variables, i.e. of discovering a structure in their interrelations. The procedure enabled the selection of the factors with the greatest statistical shares in explaining variability. To this end, the input space was rotated in accordance with the Varimax criterion, with the number of determined factors specified by means of the Kaiser criterion and Cattell’s scree test. The application of an exploratory factor analysis enabled the authors to construct an original factor model of sources of enterprise competitive advantage, with three factors identified: marketing, innovation activity and corporate social responsibility. This indicates that marketing activities, innovation activities and the application of corporate social responsibility are the key sources of competitive advantage in large enterprises operating in the market.

The Perception of the Market and Operational Area of Business by Service Sector and Tourism Companies in terms of CSR implementation

“…Almost 80% of CSR + companies agree that competition contributes to higher performance than other service providers and tourism companies (only 58.2%). This outcome is supported by a study that found that CSR is one of the crucial sources of competitive advantage for large businesses in the market (Marakova et al, 2021). Another study suggests that CSR strategies emerge from competitive forces (Dupire & M'Zali, 2018).…”

La responsabilidad social empresarial como estrategia de diferenciación de las empresas exportadoras

“…Las empresas exportadoras deben gestionar un elevado nivel de competitividad frente a sus similares. Precios accesibles y el cumplimiento de estrictos estándares de calidad ya no son un diferencial, sino más bien requisitos básicos para acceder y permanecer en los mercados internacionales (Marakova, Wolak y Tuckova, 2021). Las empresas necesitan adoptar estrategias distintas a las tradicionales para diferenciarse de sus competidores (Martos, Cortés y Jiménez, 2019).…”

“…Así, se destacan las aportaciones de Tan, Ho, Pidani y Goveravaram (2021) en las cuales se destaca la RSE como una inversión estratégica. Existe consenso de criterios al considerar a la RSE como una herramienta estratégica (Barić y Omazić, 2018;Flores, Vega y Chávez, 2016;Marakova et al 2021;Nyuur, Ofori y Amponsah, 2019;Rueda, 2017), o como una fuente para generar oportunidades en segmentos de mercado (Boubakary y Moskolaï, 2016;Porter y Kramer, 2006).…”

Sources of Competitive Advantage of Enterprises in Selected Sectors of the Polish Economy

“…As a result, enterprises attempt to build their positive reputation by various methods and instruments. Social commitment is a major determinant of a positive reputation, an asset distinguishing an enterprise from its competitors, and thus a source of competitive advantage (Maráková et al, 2021).…”

“…Factors employed by enterprises to gain competitive advantage in the market are the subject of many studies (Antczak et al, 2021;Maráková et al, 2021;Kuźmiński et al, 2020;Dědina and Šánová, 2013). The literature fails to offer detailed analyses of measures that differentiate choice of enterprise competitiveness sectors.…”