Investing time wisely: enhancing brand awareness through stakeholder engagement in the service sector

Abstract

Corporate Social Responsibility is understood as liabilities a person or organization has towards its social context, including people as well as physical environment, when conducting any activity whose consequences will not only affect the subject who carries it out. However, there has been scarce attention in academia and practice to corporate social responsibility’s influence on brand awareness. To shed light on this issue, this study uses Stakeholder Theory to provide insight on the effect that corporate social responsibility reporting initiatives and effective communication have on a company’s brand. 16 of Spain’s most renowned and well known service companies were considered. Findings demonstrate a positive association between holding the ISO 26000 certification and a firm’s brand awareness. Furthermore, it was shown that reported information being reviewed by organisms other than GRI organization is positively associated with the company’s brand awareness in the service sector.