The Social Responsibility of Retailers through the Eyes of Students of a Commerce Faculty – a Qualitative Approach

Retailers’ social responsibility is treated in the literature in association with such topics as
trade justice, ethics, or fairness. The concept can be defined according to various
dimensions, involving characteristics such as quality products, price fairness, honesty, and
ethical interactions with consumers. This paper aims to evaluate students' attitude towards
retailers’ social responsibility in implementing the strategic and tactical decisions about
product, price, distribution and promotion. It is based on a qualitative research exploring
the opinions of the students in business administration about this issue, both as consumers
and prospective decision makers in the retail sector. The research was conducted in two
focus groups, where the students played the roles of “consumers”, respectively “managers”.
It was found out that there were differences in the responses of the two groups. The
members of the “consumers” group were emotionally involved and they preferred a
demand driven approach that focuses on finding solutions to their needs, while the
members of the “managers” group have adopted a more detached attitude and they were
concerned with the identification of gain as a consequence of social responsibility actions.