The Effect of Corporate Social Responsibility

Table of contents:

1. Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR)
a. Definition of Corporate Social Responsibility
b. General concepts of Corporate Social Responsibility
c. Example of CSR in Thailand

2. Behavioral Intention to Buy
a. Definition of Behavioral Intention to Buy
b. Behavioral Intention to Buy Model

3. Fast Moving Consumer Goods (FMCG)
a. Definition of FMCG
b. The importance of FMCG

4. Effect of CSR to behavioral to buy of FMCG in Thailand
a. The CSR effect in Thailand

5. Conclusion

1. Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR)
Modern corporate culture dictates a lot of requirements that were not taken into attention before. Corporations have to “fight” for the customer not only in the sphere of low-pricing but also make sure the customer feels that the corporation actually takes care about his or her wellbeing. Generally, this phenomenon is called business ethics, which adds the ethical and moral components into the business relations of any corporation. This is vital, especially due to the fact that correct business ethics creates a favorable customer environment. The XXI century market has changed a lot owing to this principle of business ethics. This is the primary reason for all the corporations creating a very strong ethical customer approach. Besides the economic characteristics of any corporation nowadays the social values reflected in the corresponding business ethics elements make the platform for the company’s business success. These non-economic values come into play form the customer’s perception of the whole corporation and therefore are the predictors of future consumption and as a consequence the profit of the corporation. Through this social pro-orientation of the corporation the customers learn about the corporation’s commitment to its customers and the values it promotes. One of the most prominent characteristics of business ethics is Social Responsibility. It goes without saying that there is a wide range of ethical issues influencing the functioning of any corporation but one of these major issues is Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR).
By itself, corporate social responsibility implies a vast capacity for any type of community development. The modern society is very much concerned about being not only taken into account as consumers but also about the accordance of the goods with the socio-moral aspects of the community’s life. It is important to mention that until nowadays there is no single accepted official definition of what is corporate social responsibility; nevertheless, it is possible to emphasize the key elements which help to analyze this phenomenon. The major key element which should be included to any definition of CSR is the ethical component. This ethical component reflects the values of the consumer and the company’s ethical approach towards the introduction of some good. The introduction of a production without CSR may result in a cultural offense. Such offense may in its turn result in the low profit for the corporation. Therefore, CSR is a unique solution, a balance of the community values and the values of the corporation. It goes without saying that CSR brings certain benefits for the companies implementing it. The capability of the corporation to achieve the balance of the consumer’s and corporations’ interests is the type of responsibility that each company should keep in mind.
1.a.Definition of Corporate Social Responsibility
According to the accepted definition Corporate Social Responsibility is the idea of the company’s concentration on the social interests of its customers and as a matter of fact the ability to take responsibilities for the influence the company makes on the customer, stake holders, workers and on the whole community. CSR is not just a selective type of orientation in the business world but a social “obligation” to take necessary steps in order to make the living conditions of the customers and the employees better. Corporate Social Responsibility makes sure that the corporation takes care about its local community and by its activity actually improves the environmental conditions of its “human variables”.
The phenomenon of Corporate Social Responsibility has been recently criticized in some articles. The main focus of all the arguments is that CSR as an important social responsibility actually changes the “direction” of the activity of the corporation. This change of “direction” implies that CSR strongly concentrates on social customer satisfaction instead on concentrating on the profit of the company. This argument happens due to the fact that the pro-profit orientation gives results today and CSR gives results tomorrow and actually makes the company respected and appreciated throughout the years of its work. So this is basically the choice that any corporation makes. If the corporation has instant profit as its ultimate aim that CSR is simply not applicable to it. If the corporation’s final objective is a long-term existence and customer satisfaction than CSR is the best business ethic characteristic that will attract both employees and customers. CSR takes care of the corporation’s stakeholders as the activity of the corporation primarily has impacts on its customers and the stakeholders.
According to the definition of Keith Davis CSR should be referred to as the company’s “decisions and actions taken for reasons at least partially beyond the firm’s direct economic or technical interest” (Zeinab, 2001). The Committee of Economic Development in 1971 was the first to actually explain the idea of CSR through introducing its three major concepts – “growth, products and jobs” (Zeinab, 2001). This was the first real step of defining of CSR and the companies’ awareness of its importance for their future business development. It promoted the concept that the company cannot function aside the environmental and social issues of the local community but have to be strongly involved in their solution.
1. b. General concepts of Corporate Social Responsibility

It goes without saying that CSR has attracted the attention of the contemporary business world. The general concept of importance of CSR is that the functioning of any corporation inevitably influences the welfare of its social environment. It is common knowledge that any economic activity has a strong impact on the social life and values of the community. Therefore the emphasized meaning of the CSR is beyond any questions. The appearance of CSR motivated many corporations to create special ethical codes and to take into consideration the interests of all the social groups more or less related to the corporation’s activity results (Lewin, 1983). CSR made the corporations concentrate on the demands of the society and the social impacts of its activity. CSR created two spheres of corporation’s work. The first one is the maximizations of the corporation’s profit, satisfaction of the stakeholders. The second one is the improvement of the quality of working conditions of the employees and therefore by improving the quality of life of its employees the corporation takes care about the wellbeing of the community. Another aspect of CSR to mention is the necessity to make the effects on the environment (if it is the case) as minimal as it is possible.
The impact of CSR on the development of the corporations can by analyzed through the fact that contemporary business schools actually pay special attention to this matter in the course of business ethics. And treat it as one of its leading social and ethical components (Murry, 1987). Therefore the obvious relation of the business activity and social response to it created a strong theoretical base of the issue controlled by the Social Issues Division of the Academy of Management (Cheit, 1991).The theoretical base states the fact that any business formation is supposed to have a definite list of claims to corporations as it allows them to function within its community. Business activity does cause definite consequences in the social life of the community becoming a vital issue for any social group (Wartick& Cochran, 1985). As a result CSR may be analyzed as a set of actions made to meet the needs of the organization’s community. It is basically the corporation’s “amenability” to take into account the needs the social demands of the community in general and each individual in particular.
According to Karake-Shalhoub (2001), specific aspects of Corporate Social Responsibility make the corporations deal with three groups of social demands of the corporation’s local community. These groups are divided to individual survival demands, safety demands and growth demands.
The first group oriented on individual survival demands includes the necessity to obtain proper nutrition, living conditions and to be able to solve health problems. These are basic human needs in order to maintain the corresponding working activity. The failure of the corporation to provide these social demands within the CSR may face sufficient arguments and problems for the corporation. The second group deals with the corporation’s obligation to provide safety from any type of threats starting from elimination of environmental hazard and ending with the personal safety of an individual. The third group implies both material and spiritual demands for the growth of the community such as recreation and education.
As the corporations’ concern about the social environment grows, the customers and employee commitment grows too. Therefore, the fulfillment of the three groups of social demands by the corporations is a guarantee of a successful business functioning. The CS responsibilities are not only for social groups in general but also for given individuals (McGuire & Sundgren, 1988). The corporation with CSR commitment should take into consideration the cultural peculiarities, legal characteristics and the type of needs of the local community. The corporation’s ability to satisfy the social needs of the community maintains the equilibrium between the corporation and the society giving “fertile soil” for the corporation’s development and advancement. These “fertile soil” is especially important for the developing countries as it gives them the opportunity to establish manufacturing and to have more working places as a consequence. The Corporate social responsibility is one of the key elements of the economic success of any corporation, as it reveals the company’s commitment to it consumers.
1.c. Example of CSR in Thailand
Thailand has its own opinion of the Western World’s theoretical business base. The peculiarities of this country and its Asian location make certain complications for applying Corporate Social Responsibility. Nevertheless, Thailand has implemented some CSR concepts for the better business functioning of Thai corporations. This is primarily due to the fact that Thailand actually has a very strong base for social responsibility in their culture, beliefs and traditions. The Islamic or Buddhist beliefs of the Thai people result in the business approach of taking care of people surrounding the corporations. It is absolutely a common thing to see people getting food, shelter and education in the Thai temples (Wedel, 2001). Paul Wedel (2001) calls the Thailand business system a “patron-client culture” in which lower positions serve the higher positions. This comes from the example provided by the royal family, which is highly concerned about elimination poverty and support the population. This is the primarily reason why Thai corporations have the wellbeing of their local community as a focus.
It goes without saying that it was the western example that implemented the Corporate Social Responsibility concept to the Thai business theoretical base. Internationally known companies tended to strongly influence the business world in Thailand. For instance Paul Wedel (2001) provides the example of Intel and Microsoft being focused on the education as their primary social responsibility; Coca-cola and Pepsi have taken the promotion of sport activity. Unocal on focused in creating a good communication with the local community as it has a vast quantity of factories and therefore any misunderstanding may cause environmental pollution accuses. So therefore the conclusion is that each corporation chooses its target social responsibility and owing to it the corporations get the necessary positive contact with the communities.
As for the examples of Corporate Social Responsibility in Thailand it is important to mention that the majority of Thai companies are a join ventures with Japanese corporations and their main social priority is providing help for the indigent people. Thai CSR focuses on the first group of social survival demands as the living conditions in Thailand are not so well developed. Thailand has accepted mainly the “community trust” model of CSR and at the present moments does not make the accent on the potential profit brought by the CSR. Nevertheless, the present position already reveals the potential of CSR. The perfect example is the Thailand Business in Rural Development (TBIRD) model which locates the factories in rural areas in order to give the workers the opportunity to stay in their original community and not face the “megapolis-stress". Thailand also works hard on increasing of the efficacy of the CSR concept. One of the prominent examples is the Kenan Institute Asia (K.I.Asia) sponsored by USAID (Wedel, 2001). he peculiarity of the population of Thailand requires a unique approach to its consumer audience. In terms of this CSR is a perfect solution of the developing market of Thailand.
2. Behavioral Intention to Buy
Behavioral Intention to Buy has its roots from the Fishbein model originally represented in the Theory of reasoned action. Behavioral intention is the second most important element of the Fishbein model and this is the reason it should be analyzed in terms of this theory. The importance of this theory for the corporations is immense as it deals with the possibility to control the rate of demand on certain products. As any corporation leans toward the opportunity to “sell” more it has to find new ways of influencing the consumer. As the company learns how to form the consumer’s behavioral intention to buy it increases its profit and strongly influences the consumer’s market choices.
The theory of reasoned action was created by Martin Fishbein and Icek Ajzen as a study of human behavior and attitude. The theory comes from the notion that each given person always takes into account the possible consequence of his behavior. The same situation spreads for the customer attitude to purchasing any type of goods. Therefore, intention in general and intention to buy in particular is one of the key elements of the customer’s behavior pattern. Icek Ajzen (1980) stated that the intention of a person to do something absolutely depends on two factors. The first one is the way he evaluates his “potential behavior” and the second one is the objective social evaluation he can get from the community. Here the core is in perceiving the behavior as approved or disapproved by the society. If the “potential behavior” of an individual is evaluated as negative there is a very low possibility of the realization of any intention and especially the intention to buy. Intention is actually born at the intersection of the individual’s personal stand and the attitude of the society. In such situation every individual experiences a sufficient pressure to take the side of the society even if he subjectively approves his own behavior. This is no surprise as each and every person lives within the society and is a social being. In terms of this the opinion of the society is always taken into consideration and individual’s behavior is shaped according to it (Sheppard, Hartwick, & Warshaw, 1998).
Nowadays, the theory of reasoned action has developed into the Theory of Planned Behavior. This theory covers all the defects of the original Theory of reasoned action through introduction of “perceived behavioral control” or “self- efficacy”. This theory emphasizes the meaning of intention for any type of human behavior. This is especially relevant in terms of customer’s intention to buy.
2.a. Definition of Behavioral Intention to Buy
In order to give a clear definition of the Behavioral intention to buy it is necessary to analyze three related definitions. The first category to analyze is the behavioral beliefs and the individual’s personal attitude towards the behavior. Behavioral belief has to deal with the person’s understanding of all the possible outcomes and consequences of a given behavior. It is also the stage of evaluating whether the behavior will lead to the result the individual expected. Despite of the possibility to get the desired result the individual is less like to perform any sort of behavior it is personally evaluated as a negative one. Second category includes the subjective norm and normative beliefs. The first one is about the influence of social norms on the future behavior of the individual. The second one is the person’s personal evaluation which is formed by significant others. The third category deals with behavioral control of the individual or in other words with the evaluation of the facilitating factors of the performed behavior.
Every single person is a social being and cannot live apart from the society. This is the reason the opinion of significant others sometimes may become the leading reason of the “rejection” of some products. In order to avoid it the corporation needs to be very careful with the values it carries out to the consumer. The main priority of the company is to make the consumer change his evaluation of the product form negative into positive or originally set a positive one. This is actual not just for a given individual but for the whole community with its specific values.
All the listed above factors make what we understand as Behavioral intention. Ajzen defines it as a signal of the person’s willingness to carry out some sort of behavior. Behavioral intention is formed on the basis of perception, attitude and norms concerning the “potential behavior”. At the point when the behavioral intention is formed the behavior itself actually takes place. Therefore the intention to buy some product is the customer’s readiness to purchase based on the customer’s attitude to this purchase, the opinion of significant others about purchasing this product and on the customer’s perception of the degree of complexity of performing this purchase-behavior.
Behavioral intention to buy appears from the customer’s evaluation of the behavior through his beliefs and attitudes concerning this behavior. Individual’s intention to buy comes form the estimation of the possibility to get the exactly required result from the product. If the evaluation results in the belief that the behavior will produce the required outcome, then the behavior intention to buy transforms into the process of buying itself (Fishbein & Ajzen, 1975). ehavioral Intention to Buy is the predictor of the future profit of any corporation as it is the evidence of the positive perception of the corporation and the confidence the customers have in the corporation’s goods.
2.b. Behavioral Intention to Buy Model
The model of the Behavioral Intention to buy is used by contemporary corporations in order to predict the customer’s activity and also the potential profit of the corporation. This model was introduced by Icek Ajzen on the basis of the Theory of planned behavior. The model takes into account the individual’s attitudes and beliefs therefore it becomes especially vital as converts the theoretical ability to control the consumer’s behavior into an exact economic formula with constants and variables.
As it has been mentioned before the customer’s perception of the behavior influenced by the subjective norms and perceived behavioral control results into behavioral intention to buy. The force of the behavioral intention to buy is in direct proportion with the individual’s attitude to the purchase of product, social approval and therefore high behavior control (Ajzen, 2002b). According to the conclusion made by Ajzen the next formula is obtained:
BIB = (W1)AB[(b)+(c)] + (W2)SN[(n)+(m)] + (W3)PBC[(c)+(p)]
The formula claims that Behavioral intention to buy is the sum of three major variables in their turn consisting of minor figure. The first block is AB (attitude toward behavior). AB in its turn is the sum of the strength of each belief concerning purchasing the product- (b) and the evaluation of the outcome of purchasing it-(e). The second block is SN (social norm).It consists of the sum of the strength of each normative belief-(n) and the motivation to comply with the referent-(m).The third block is PBC (perceived behavioral control)consisting from the strength of each control belief(c) and the perceived power of the control factor(p). All together AB, SN and PBC shape the BIB (Behavioral Intention to Buy). In order to completely understand the formula it is necessary to pay attention to its key words: belief, evaluation, norms, motivation and control. These six elements make the formula work and without even one of them Behavioral Intention to Buy a definite product will not achieve the corporation’s aim. When the intention is strong and properly based there is an extremely low probability to stop the person from buying something. Originally, the Behavioral Intention to Buy gets the start from the advertisements. In order to form the customer’s Behavioral Intention to Buy the advertisement has to include three key factors of the Theory of planned behavior. Therefore those commercials which dedicate special attention not only to the informational content buy to the attitudes, norms and perceived control behavior obtain the majority of the customers. This occurs due to the fact that the customers get a strong intention to buy which does not conflict neither attitudes and social norms nor the perceived behavior control. The customer’s evaluation of the product depends on his attitude to this product. Therefore if he buys a product promoting positive attitude the customer’s level of evaluation of this product will be rather high. This is nothing but plain mathematics, a simple formula with splendid results. Therefore those products that are the best-choices of the customers are the ones that manage to promote good attitude, correspond to the subjective norms and enable perceived behavior control. This formula is especially applicable to domestic products, as they are mostly influenced by the attitudes and subjective norms. Basically, the formula of the Behavioral Intention to Buy is the predictor of the corporation’s profit and customer satisfaction.
3. Fast Moving Consumer Goods (FMCG)
The nature of competition of the Fast Moving Consumer Goods (FMCG) market has already transferred to a completely new stage of development. Years ago manufacturing companies used to compete with each in their productive capacity and the characteristics of the produced goods. Basically, the corporation’s productive activity was the main criteria of evaluation of its ability to compete for the access to market. Nowadays the situation has quite changed. The success of a modern corporation completely depends from the ability to establish connection of the corporation’s dominating business-idea with the customer’s values. The nature of competition requires the corporation’s revision of the business logical patterns, reconsideration of the sales policy, distribution and marketing. The development of the sales-systems in the manufacturing or distributing companies of the FMCG market leads to the dynamic processes and perspectives for the companies. FMCGs are extremely important for the market as they make the dominant part of the consumer’s demand and therefore budget. This is relevant for each and every single country in the world. The target sector of the market for FMCG is the retail sector and also the wholesale sector. This is primarily due to the fact that FMCG are always essential products for the consumers. So the basic role of FMCG for the market is the constant need of the supply of FMCG. This is the reason one of the defining word combinations is “fast moving”. These goods move fast throughout the market system and bring a good profit for the FMCG corporations.
3.a. Definition of FMCG
The term Fast Moving Consumer Goods is essential for the contemporarily market system. In order to understand the meaning of this type of goods it is necessary to define this term correctly. FMCG represent the essential goods which have an adequate cost within a given market and are sold fast. FMCGs are often sold my corporations in impressive amount which eventually makes a good profit for the company. The basic advantage of FMCGs is the speed of their circulation. The demand on FMCG is always high and correspondingly the supply has to be on the same level. Such systematic supply and systematic demand makes the main characteristic of the Fast Moving Consumer Goods. FMCG represent of consumable goods such as beverages, tobacco, canned goods, food, cleaning goods. In other words FMCG are all convenience goods which are not produced in the private sector such as bread and other. FMCGs are goods that are constantly indispensible for the consumers. This is the primarily reason they move fast as contrasted to the “slow moving goods” such as cars. The main criteria of evaluation the demand for FMCG is the frequency the consumer buys a given good. For instance the items of personal hygiene such as soap, deodorants tooth past and other are important elements of each person’s everyday life. Therefore they are frequently bought and replaced by the same item. FMCGs also include batteries, shaving accessories, plastic and paper goods. Basically, to make one profound definition of Fast Moving Consumer Goods it is necessary to say that it is a group of goods which are frequently required and frequently sold to the population of any country.
As the list of the FMCG is sufficiently large there is a special classification for them within the retail market. It is called the International Standard Industrial Classification (ISIC) and it introduces SEVEN MAIN categories of FMCGs. They are:
• ISIC 5211 retail sales in non-specialized stores
• ISIC 5219 other retail sale in non-specialized stores
• ISIC 5220 retail sale of food, beverages and tobacco in specialized stores
• ISIC 5231 retail sale of pharmaceutical and medical goods, cosmetic and toilet articles
• ISIC 5251 retail sale via mail order houses
• ISIC 5252 retail sale via stalls and markets
• ISIC 5259 other non-store retail sale (Coulthart, 2006).
This classification shows the variety of FMCG which make a vital part of every individual’s life as may be analyzed as goods of the first priority. In other words any modern person cannot imagine his life without these essential commodities. Fast Moving Consumer Goods are not durable and are constantly in high demand. For instance, a toothpaste is replaced faster that the furniture in the house. The cost of the FMCG is often relatively low and the consumers do not hesitate much before buying one of the FMCG. Such FMCG corporations as Pepsi, Nestle, Coca-cola, Procter & Gamble, Kleenex and others provide the examples of the profit brought by quick turnover of the FMCGs (Coulthart, 2006).

3.b. The importance of FMCG
As we see from the information above Fast Moving Customer Goods play an essential role in the economy of every country. The basic characteristic of the companies operating in the sphere of FMCG is a significant goods turnover, a large number of assortment and a medium cost of goods sold percentage. Contemporary FMCF market has a side range of characteristics leading to great economic impact on the development of the market. One of these characteristics is the intensive struggle for a market share among the FMCG manufacturers. This is the reason the rate of introduction of innovation is growing but at the same time the “life-cycle” of the products becomes shorter. In order to understand the process of FMCG implementation it is necessary to analyze the leading FMCG giants. Unilever is considered to be one of the leaders of FMCG. This corporation includes more than 400 brand names which are known to every single consumer: Lipton, Timotei, Sunsilk, Brooke Bond, Dove and others. The main strategy of this corporation is the synchronous introduction of several brands. This gives the possibility to “embrace” a big share of the market territory and also it eliminates the risks that have companies with only one product. The market of FMCG is very peculiar due to its high level of competition, non-stop struggle for leadership and the dynamics of product replacement and turnover.
The success in the sphere of FMCG depends on the corporation’s ability to react rapidly to the consumer demands and the capability to change in order to satisfy these demands. In order to provide a better understanding of all the goods associated with the FMCG it is important to put them in three different groups. The first group is household products and it includes everything necessary for the house care. The second group is one of the most essential ones as it represents food and beverages. The last one deals with personal hygiene products.

Household goods Food and Beverages Personal Hygiene
soap Drinks(juice, bottled water, soft drinks) soap
detergents cereal cosmetics, and toiletries
cleaner bakery, snacks perfumes and deodorants
freshener Tea, coffee paper goods
polish flour, rice, sugar skin products
repellent dairy products hair products
This table does not include all of the possible FMCGs but gives the general idea of what products refer to the FMCG group. FMCG is completely concentrated on production and distribution of the listed above goods because these are the products which a systematically consumed and are always in extremely high demand as compared to slow moving consumer goods. As the demand on the FMCGs is high the supply correspondingly is high too. FMCG corporations constantly occupy the largest sector of the market owing to the ever-growing demand to rebranded and redesigned FMCGs. The package of the product is often adjusted for the current trends of the given product. For instance, the Coca-Cola Company changes the design of its bottles in order to correspond to the latest consumer demands. As for Thailand a good example of FMCG is the Procter & Gamble Corporation. As the Thai region in characterizes by the rapidly growth trend for TMCG P&G nowadays is focused of manufacturing hair and skin care products such as Olay, Pantene Pro-V, Wella and also Pampers at Wellgrow Industrial Estate in Bangkok. The implementation of FMCG in Thailand leads to the constantly growing demand on the produced goods.
There is no country nowadays that is not interested in the development of the sphere of Fast Moving Consumer Goods. The concept of FMCG in the first place is aimed at the customer basic needs satisfaction. These basic needs include food, beverages, health care and personal hygiene and household products. Thailand is not an exception as these demands are satisfied by the FMCG supply. The importance of FMCG for the world economy in general and for Thailand in particular is beyond question. The importance of the FMCG market sector is transparent as people will always need beverages, food and personal hygiene products. The retail sector of Thailand owing to the introduction of FMCG market is transforming and adjusting according to the local demand. The quick turnover and high demand makes it especially attractive for developing countries. FMCGs are used in all spheres of human activity and therefore make a segment of potential development and growth for such regions as Thailand and the whole Asia-Pacific region.
4. Effect of CSR to behavioral to buy of FMCG in Thailand
Thailand is an industrialized developing county. It is known as an exporter of a wide range of products. It is world wide known as the greatest rice exporter and as a consequence more than half of its territory is occupied by rice plantations. Thailand is rather attractive for the western investors as it is a free-enterprise economy and has a developed infrastructure. Thailand has supported the implementation of CSR to its market sector. Thailand corporations actively reconsider their strategies and start appealing to the interests of their consumers. They show the tendency to be responsible for the influence they might have on the consumers. The only peculiarly is that Thailand has not focused on the potential economic profit of the CSR yet and takes it as a reasonable approach which combines with their culture and national traditions and beliefs. As one of the leading traits of CSR is respect of the consumer’s interests, CSR is quiet appealing for Thailand. The religion dictating the “not to do harm” principle” harmonizes with the CSR customer-satisfaction orientation. Thus, Thailand corporations take a lot of care about their local community including the well-being of their employees. In this situation the corporation’s employees become “walking advertisements” of the social responsibility of a given company. CSR stimulates the growth of “healthy community”. And this “healthy community” produces numerous consumers of the produced goods.
In other words, CSR by taking into consideration the consumer’s interests stimulates the increase of the consumer’s behavioral intention to buy. CSR implementation results in a general positive attitude towards the corporation. Behavioral intention to buy is a signal that the consumer is ready to purchase a product due to the positive attitude to the “potential purchase”, subjective norms and also the perceived behavioral control. As CSR is appealing to the people of Thailand, it therefore brings noticeable results to the sphere of demand and supply. Basically Corporate Social responsibility influences the consumer’s readiness to buy goods of a given Thai company in the case when the individual has a strong perceived behavior control and the purchase does not go against his personal and social attitudes.
This is especially important in terms of Fast Moving Consumer Goods due to the fact that FMCGs are the target group of consumed products and represent the products which are frequently purchased and replaced. Another benefit of the FMCGs is their low cost. A correct CSR-policy of a FMCG corporation leads to the creation of an intensive behavioral intention to buy the corporation’s FMCGs be it food, beverages or household products. The introduction of the correlation of CSR to the behavioral intention to buy FMCG leads to the understanding of the reason why FMCGs of certain companies are sold in greater quantity as compared to the “rivals”. Thailand provides a wide range of examples of FMCG stimulating the behavioral intention to buy through Corporate Social Responsibility introduction.
4. a. The CSR effect in Thailand
One of the brightest examples of the CSR effect in Thailand is Merck Ltd. Thailand. This is the FMCG corporation has not only introduced CSR into their business strategy but also puts a lot of efforts into making CSR attracting for other corporations. The company produces such FMCG as food and chemicals for the sphere of medicine and industrial enterprises of Thailand. The commitment of Merck Thailand to the community has resulted in a high rate of consumer trust. Merck showed an outstandingly strong position for CSR spreading in Thailand and as a result they became partners with the Raks Thai Foundation. Together they carried out many activities directed to society support such as help for the victims of tsunami. According to the Case study of corporate responsibility in Thailand (15) after such steps 90.2% of its employees stated that they are confident that the corporation cared mostly about the wellbeing of the community in the first place. Such society-oriented steps lead to a 75% growth of the employee individual performance. Therefore the corporation’s “consumer-reputation” leads to further positive economic development.
The fact that the consumers will buy more if the company uses CSR is a “golden fact”. The reason for such reaction is quiet obvious. As the corporation takes care of the social environment it creates a strong positive reputation in the first place among the employees. Employees have families that also benefit from the CSR and therefore they create a reputation chain which leads to a large amount of people forming a positive attitude towards the corporation. This positive attitude towards the corporation is the forerunner of the positive evaluation of the goods it produces. At the same moment the significant others of the individual reveal a good product evaluation on the basis of the corporation’s reputation too. As the result consumers tend to stop buying casual replacements of a given good but seek for it.
The empirical confirmation of the effect of CSR to behavioral to buy of FMCG must be used in order to create first-class marketing programs. A marketing program is a set of tools used to reach marketing goals and Corporate Social Responsibility should become its key tool. The sales goals of any marketing program need to concentrate on the strength that beings CSR and therefore to become consumer-oriented. As CSR maximizes the rate of sales of any company through creation of mutual trust with the consumer it can be used to transform the system of advertising of the product and change the sales calls to the one promoting the corporation’s care about the community. CSR within the logical chain product-price-placement-promotion-people plays a vital role as it changes the vector of their rotation. It actually converts it into people-product-price-placement-promotion as it takes care of the wellbeing of the employees. A good marketer can use the CSR effect on the behavioral intention to buy FMCGs as a driving force for the development of his company and establishing it as a “good citizen” among the rest of the companies.

5. Conclusion
Through the years Thailand has converted into an industrialized country which is appealing for a lot of corporations. The culture, religion and beliefs of Thailand correspond to the main principles of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). As a matter of fact CSR has been implemented in a large number of Thai companies. These companies conduct community care activities which create positive attitude, influence subjective norms and perceived controlled behavior of the consumers. As a consequence a behavioral intention to buy if formed and results in the growth of the consumer’s activity in purchasing FMCGs. The choice of FMCGs nowadays is immense. Hence, the choice of the consumer depends on some factors. Corporate Social Responsibility empirical data has proved that the main factor is respect to the interests of the consumers. The consumer comes back for the product if he feels satisfied with it and as the present essay confirms the level of satisfaction depends of the consumer’s attitude to the corporation in general. In other words, CSR is what forms the behavior intention to buy and therefore it is what actually brings the consumer to the store to buy a certain good. In order to conclude, it is necessary to say that it is very hard to underestimate the importance of Corporate Social responsibility for the consumer’s intention to buy Fast Moving Consumer Goods as owing to it many countries have reached a qualitatively new and higher level of economic development.

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