Swaleha Peeroo

"The voluntary approach to corporate social responsibility has failed in many cases."1 The Mauritius corporate social responsibility (CSR) landscape changed profoundly in 2009 with the addition of sections 50K and 50L to the Income Tax Act 16 of 1995 (Mauritius), making contributions to a CSR fund mandatory. Before 2009, the Mauritius government repeatedly called on the private sector for assistance to overcome unemployment, poverty, and other challenges in their country. Due to an unsatisfactory response to their request and factors such as poverty, and high unemployment levels, the government made the drastic decision to implement mandatory CSR legislation. The main objective of this study was to investigate the factors contributing to the enactment of mandatory corporate social responsibility (CSR) legislation in Mauritius and the possibility to implement similar legislation in South Africa. An analysis of the Mauritius tax legislation and relevant government publications scrutinised, by way of a literature review, revealed that what is referred to as mandatory CSR, is in fact mandatory corporate social investment (CSI). The study further indicated that the same socioeconomic factors as those present in Mauritius prior to 2009 and worse apply to South Africa. An analysis of South African CSI practices and contributions indicated that an additional R3.111 billion could have been raised if a 2 per cent CSI levy was applied to after-tax profits of certain categories of companies, as in Mauritius. This represents 1.2 per cent of the South African Department of Social Development's 2022/2023 budget. It is recommended that similar legislation should be considered for South Africa. It will ensure that all profitable companies in South Africa contribute to CSI and that more funds will be available to address some of the socio-economic needs. The study addressed the gap in empirical research done in Mauritius after 2018 and 2020 and is also the first comparative study conducted on this topic regarding South African law.

Purpose Increasingly businesses are using Facebook to communicate and engage their customers. However, there is a dearth of research as to why and how customers interact with businesses on social media in the grocery sector. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to explore the roles played by online brand communities and social customers in the creation as well as the destruction of value. Design/methodology/approach Netnography was adopted as an approach to gain insight into the various ways customers engage with grocery stores on their official Facebook pages. Messages posted on Tesco’s and Wal Mart’s Facebook pages are thematically analysed and critical discussion is linked back to the extant contemporary debate on social media. Findings This study shows that customers respond to company posts for the following reasons: to communicate with the stores, to converse with other customers, to express their emotions, to share their experiences as employees of the stores with customer...

Businesses are using social media as marketing tools to communicate and interact with customers. Customers initiate conversations on social networking sites of businesses but there is scant research as to why customers interact with businesses on social media in the grocery sector. This paper sets out to explore why customers initiate conversations and how do the other members of the online brand community react to those customer posts. Netnography was used to analyse the customer-initiated posts on Facebook pages of grocery stores. This study reveals that customers start discussions to express their satisfaction and gratitude, to criticise an action of the company, to complain about a product or service, to warn customers about a product or service, to recommend a product or service, or simply to engage in conversation with the community and the company. Findings show that most of customer-initiated posts are about complaints and criticisms. Also customers react more to customer co...

While the internet facilitates communication and interaction between businesses and customers, social media platforms afford both of them opportunities to co-construct information online. These meeting points between businesses and customers, which are then displayed online, constitute a virtual linguistic servicescape showcasing their language practices. This study focuses on the Facebook pages of three fast-food outlets in multilingual Mauritius – where Kreol and French are commonly spoken, and English and French are widely written – with the aim to investigate the language choices made and displayed in the virtual linguistic servicescape. Using non-participant online observation, data were collected over three months and analysed as ‘text’ (Androutsopoulos, 2014). The data reveal the co-occurrence of local languages in the actors’ language practices, with minimal use of Kreol. These practices reinforce existing local language and literacy ideologies, while also disturbing, if onl...

— Social media have transformed the world in which we live. Although several studies have uncovered forms of customer engagement on social media, there is a scarcity of academic research on customer engagement within the grocery sector. This study therefore aims to address this gap in the literature and shed light on the various ways customers engage with grocery stores on Facebook. Netnography is used to gain an understanding of the behaviour of customers on the Facebook page of Tesco and Walmart. The findings of this study reveal that cognitive, emotional and behavioural customer engagement are manifested and that customers can both create and destroy value for the firm. This study contributes to knowledge by uncovering the various forms of customer engagement on Facebook pages of Tesco and Walmart.

Businesses across a wide array of industries have rushed to adopt social media as a marketing strategy. Social media have transformed the communication landscape since customers now have the possibility to create content on social media sites of businesses and share their lived experiences with the online community. Increasingly, grocery stores are using Facebook to communicate with customers. However, there is paucity of research on the use of social media in the grocery sector. This paper aims to determine whether and investigate how Facebook has empowered customers of Tesco and Walmart. Netnography approach was adopted to observe the social media phenomenon within the grocery sector. Contents posted on the Facebook page of Tesco and Walmart were collected to explore how Facebook has empowered grocery customers. Findings show that Facebook has given a voice to the customer. Customers of Tesco and Walmart have the power to gain information, the power to complain and to criticise, the power to create value and the power to provide information to the community. This paper contributes to knowledge by revealing how Facebook has empowered grocery customers. Future research could focus on customer empowerment in anti brand communities or other online sources where customers exchange information on brands.