Businesses and Responsibility

The social and societal image of businesses from the point of view of
the consumer. Purchase behavior and search for information. Judgement
on businesses as criteria for purchase decisions.

Topics: most important goals and tasks of economy and society (scale):
economic recovery, unemployment, fighting unemployment, consumer
protection, housing supply, securing of peace, fair trade with
developing countries, European unification, foreigners in society,
problem of asylum-seekers, equal rights, situation of the socially
disadvantaged, support for art and culture, dealing responsibly with
new technologies, protection of the natural bases of life, development
of environmentally friendly products, education about dangers of
addiction; government, entrepreneurs or companies and individual
citizens or consumers as primarily responsible in these individual
areas; assessment of the responsibility actually accepted by
government, consumers and businesses; insufficient contributions to
problem solution by businesses to achieve social goals through
non-perception of problems, insufficient specialized subject knowledge,
distinct profit orientation, insufficient responsibility, insufficient
declaration of responsibility or competition pressure; development
enthusiasm, cost-effectiveness, success, employee orientation,
environmentally conscious conduct, social commitment, support for equal
rights or international success as criteria for one´s own judgement
about a company (scale); characterization of area of business regarding
its social responsibility; most important criteria in decision to
purchase a high-quality durable product (trip to store, consultation,
brochures, display windows, consultation with friends, test results,
newspaper advertisements, personal experience, advertising, consumer
advice centers, magazine articles or radio and television reports);
personal opinion leadership or opinion allegiance (scale);
characterization of intensity of personal behavior in searching for
information before purchase; impulse purchase or planning of
acquisitions; price comparisons; pioneering consumer behavior; quality
and price orientation; product loyalty; store loyalty; shopping
experience; self-classification of extent to which informed about the
social and ecological effect of business activity; judgement on
advertising, brochures, job advertisements, consumer organization
brochures and media as reliable sources of information about social and
ecological business commitment; interest in information about business
activity from an independent institution such as e.g. the Stiftung
Warentest {foundation for product testing}; desire for more information
about various business activities; the influence of social sense of
responsibility of a business on one´s own purchase decision; aspects of
business practices such as e.g. consumer protection, equal treatment of
women in the business, consideration of employee interests, handicapped
jobs, environmental protection, doing without animal experiments,
education about addiction dangers, sense of social responsibility in
development of new technologies, support of economic recovery in the
new states, contributions to integration of foreigners, party
donations, art and culture support, doing without production of
armaments, doing without involvement in countries with human rights
violations, just trade with developing countries as important criteria
in purchase decisions; assessment of the power of consumers through
their purchase decisions, exerting pressure on manufacturers; relevance
on decisions of stamps of quality; influence of a possible new
environment logo or ecological mark of quality for businesses or stores
on personal shopping behavior; knowledge about the Trans-Fair symbol;
personally purchasing this Trans-Fair coffee and in the case of not
doing so determination of the price limit.