Comparative Assessment of Corporate Philanthropy by the IPA Method: Service and Manufacturing Industries

IPA기법을 활용한 기업의 사회공헌활동 비교 평가: 서비스업 및 제조업을 중심으로

Purpose - In today's globalized and modern business environment, corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities are considered to be essential for the sustainable development of enterprises. In addition, the corporate philanthropy that is related to CSR practices, as well as their being capable of reducing the anti-corporate sentiment of people have facilitated a qualitative forward leap into the quantitative growth phase. This study aims to undertake a comparative evaluation of corporate philanthropy through the Importance-Performance Analysis (IPA) method focusing on service and manufacturing industries, and to eventually determine a differentiated approach that is needed for corporate philanthropy. Research design, data, and methodology - The survey responses were collected through online research on specialized companies from consumers nationwide who were aged from 20 to 60 and who are aware of corporate philanthropy. A total of 408 sheets of questionnaire survey were used. Frequency analysis was undertaken in this study. The interviewees had demographic characteristics of gender: 206 males (50.5%) and 202 females (49.5%). They also had demographic characteristics of age: 82 people were over 20 (20.1%), 96 over 30 (23.5%), 105 over 40 (25.7%), and 125 over 50 (30.7%) years of age. The distribution of interviewees' residences is as follows: 154 persons (37.7%) in the Special City, 102 persons (25.0%) in the Metropolitan City, and 152 persons (37.3%) in the Provincial Region. The interviewees have been working for the following companies: 34 persons (8.3%) in LG Display, 80 (19.6%) in KT&G, 49 (12.0%) in Amore Pacific, 42 (10.3%) in KIA Motors, 47 (11.5%) in SBS, 52 (12.8%) in Shinhan Bank, 86 (21.1%) in Asiana Airlines, and 18 (4.4%) in Hyundai Department Store. We applied the paired t-test for the IPA analysis. PASW Statistics 18 was used for statistical analysis. Results - The results of IPA analysis indicated that the importance and performance degrees in both manufacturing and service industries were significantly different. Major empirical results showed that, in consumer, social, economic, philanthropic, and environmental dimensions, in the sub-factors of philanthropy activities in both manufacturing and service industries, the importance degree was found to be higher than performance degree. Further, the average difference between importance degree and performance degree by the sub-factors of philanthropy activities. On the other hand, the average difference of environmental dimension was found to be highest in both service and manufacturing industries. Thus, while consumers consider the philanthropy activities of the environmental dimension as most important, actual companies treat performance of philanthropy activities of the environmental dimension insufficiently or negligibly to some degree. Conclusions - The differentiated approach method that is required for corporate philanthropy may be proposed to uplift corporate accomplishments by analyzing the IPA of the attributes of the sub-factors of corporate philanthropy. This is, to an extent, insufficient in the existing studies related to the use of the IPA technique, and it shows the items that are to be conducted intensively.