Social responsibility is a voluntary decision making by companies to not only care about the bottom line, but to give back to the benefit of the communities, patrons and their own employees. In many cases companies that apply good strategic tactics can see a better return on their investment and the good will of the company; giving their shareholder a better profit.
Reviewing company’s Q attitude toward social responsibility we can very clearly notice that there is no interest whatsoever on supporting the communities where they do business.
In the first case where the company decided to close two stores in high-crime areas, stating that they were losing money, the company could take a different approach by: A. Creating a strategy that will connect their store to the community so they would buy more often with them. Grassroots and gorilla marketing can be very cost effective and gives excellent return on investment. B. If their concern was security, they could have invest in hiring a security company that will make the consumer feel safer which will increase their motivation to go and buy from Q company.
In the second scenario, once more the company is not being proactive, the argument off worries over lost revenues due to possible fraud and stealing by employees who might say they are donating the food is unfunded and shows their poor judgment and lack of knowledge in the area of social responsibilities. They could perfectly donate the food which could help them as a tax write off increasing their profitably and could use it as a good public relations campaign to create a hype about the organization.
Since Q is a small grocery store chain the recommendation for social responsibility has to be either free to the