This study deals with corporate social responsibility (CSR) and focuses on managerial perceptions of CSR at McDonald’s South Africa (SA) and how social responsibility is translated into social practices. The key objectives of the research are: to analyse McDonald’s both internationally and locally in South Africa to establish whether CSR policies exist, then to investigate how these policies are perceived and integrated by outlet managers. Lastly to investigate what kind of social responsibility (SR) involvement, if at all, occurs at outlet level. The research site covers three regions in South Africa, which are the Eastern Cape, Western Cape and Gauteng. The total research sample is 38. 33 interviewees were outlet managers, who were purposively selected, and 5 additional interviews took place with: 2 McDonald’s SA Head Office representatives, 2 interviews with beneficiaries of McDonald’s SR involvement and 1 with the trade union SACCAWU. The research was carried out through questionnaires and semi-structured interviews. The design of this research is based on an interpretive social science approach. The aim of the research was to investigate outlet managers’ perceptions of CSR and social practices present at McDonald’s SA outlets. The key findings of the research indicate that: CSR policies at McDonald’s SA head office are not communicated sufficiently to outlet managers, SR involvement is evident, especially for initiatives focusing on children’s welfare, but far too little occurs at the outlet level. There are also too few checks on social involvement by head office and no formal reporting system is available to the outlets except through an internal magazine, called the Big Mag. There is no official CSR report at McDonald’s SA. The fact that no report exists makes this study more relevant since this research investigates matters pertaining to CSR and social practices. The overall significance of the study is that it brings to the forefront the importance of internal company and external broader regulation which is part of the greater debate of CSR. This is because the analysis of managerial perceptions and implementation of CSR shows some unwarranted discrepancies between policies and practices, locally, nationally and internationally even within the same organisation.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:netd.ac.za/oai:union.ndltd.org:rhodes/vital:3300 |
| Date | January 2009 |
| Creators | Böckle, Ingrid |
| Publisher | Rhodes University, Faculty of Humanities, Sociology |
| Source Sets | South African National ETD Portal |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis, Masters, MSocSc |
| Format | 201 p., pdf |
| Rights | Böckle, Ingrid |
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