Relationship Between Corporate Social Responsibility Practice and its Effects on the Botton Line

Abstract

The study comparatively evaluates the relationship between Corporate Social Responsibility and Profitability in the fuel and gas sectors in Ghana. The descriptive survey design and quantitative methods was adopted to find a relationship between innovations in strategic stakeholder engagement with corporate profitability or bottom-line, with the mediating role of strategic stakeholder engagement leading to a firm’s bottom-line. An analysis of strategic stakeholder engagement and bottom-line of selected fuel and gas companies in the Kumasi Metropolitan, Asokore Mampong, Oforikrom and Ejisu Municipalities was provided.A five point closed ended Likert Scale self-administrable structured questionnaire and researcher guide to aid participants answer relevant questions was used to confirm that innovations in strategic stakeholder engagement fueled increases in corporate bottom-line of selected companies. The four major steps of analysing data collected from Atkinson’s (2002) categories of quantitative data analysis was used, following which the primary data/information gathered and coded was analysed using the Statistical Package for Social Sciences to guarantee validity and reliability of the various investigations conducted. The hierarchical multiple regression of the Baron and Kenny’s (1986) procedure was also adopted to analyse for study the mediating effect of innovation on the relationship between strategic stakeholder engagement and corporate bottom-line.The study opines the involvement of key stakeholder participation in the siting and general operations of fuel and gas companies given the divergent viewpoints of operators and stakeholders (O’Riordan, 2017). A discovery of a statistically significant positive influence of perceptions of CSR towards customers on an organization’s image in general intensifies the suggestion that mangers of fuel and gas sectors take special interest in innovative ways of engaging strategic stakeholders due to its influence and ripple mediating effect on corporate bottom-line to improve the performance of the business or induces increases in profit.