소비자의 사회적 책임에 대한 소비자, 기업, 정부 간의 인식 차이

Abstract

The fulfillment of consumers’ social responsibility relies on whether consumers properly react to the social expectations. In other words, it indicates that consumers and the stakeholders valuate the degree of consumers’ socially responsible activities. Thus, in order to promote social responsibilities, it is important to evaluate contemporary consumers’ socially responsible activities and examine the stakeholders’ perceptions of them. Accordingly, this research Is aimed at finding co-orientation; the conformity between perceptions and assumptions of consumers’ social responsibility between the agent–consumers; and the stakeholders - corporations and government. Moreover, the study also attempted to evaluate socially responsible activities of contemporary consumers and to provide a foundation for improving consumers’ socially responsible activities that will reduce the gap between perceptions of consumers and stakeholders and promote positive perceptions. The major research findings are as follows: First, the degree of perceptions of consumers’ socially responsible activities in general was from high to low in the order of consumers, corporations, and government. As for co-orientation between groups, consumers did not have an accurate understanding on the perceptions of stakeholders – corporations and government; and they were also unaware of how they were perceived by the stakeholders. On the other hand, corporations exactly understood the perceptions of consumers while misunderstanding those of government. Government, similarly to consumers, neither understood perceptions of the stakeholders nor recognized how other two groups perceived it. Secondly, as a result of examining the itemized perceptions of promoting consumers’ socially responsible activities, all three groups had high recognitions of the importance of consumers’ socially responsible activities as well as consumer education in the order of government, consumer, and corporations; however, there were significant differences among each group in statistics. In addition, all three groups perceived the role of government and public institutions as the most important for effective consumer education; and the efforts of consumers themselves were also highlighted. Answering how well corporate socially responsible activities are performed in a “consumer-oriented” way and how government is working to support socially responsible activities of consumers and corporations, all groups showed low perceptions with statistically significant differences. Based on the results of this study, a few implications are suggested as follows: First, it is needed to establish consumer polices indicating consumers’ social responsibilities, specific guidelines for role performance and socially agreed evaluation standards. Also, proper regulation plans should be prepared through discussions and agreements between concerned parties and stakeholders for flexible and cooperative applications of the policies. Secondly, an official cooperative communication system needs to be established to promote co-orientation among consumers, corporations and government; and constant interactions and feedbacks are necessary for the open management. Thirdly, an organized promotion using various types of media is requested to inform the majority of unorganized consumers of the social responsibilities of consumers and to encourage their social activities. Fourthly, in order to enhance consumers’ social responsibilities, systematic discussions and implementation plans on “by who and how” consumer education will be performed are necessary. Also, the contents of consumer education should be specified according to its conducting party. Finally, consumers, corporations and government should fulfill their own roles and responsibilities through active communications; eventually, the social responsibilities are not to be carried out by independent parties but performed by our generation in the whole world.