Título
The impact of corporate social responsibility in the luxury industry
Autor
Doignon, Margaux Guiot du
Resumo
en
The luxury industry practices have always been one of the most unethical, but in the
21st century, this is starting to cause some issues. The mindset of this century is constantly
evolving and turning more eco-friendly and ethical, rejecting old procedures.
These society’s changes are resulting in a decline of the fashion luxury brands’ reputation and
also, in their sale and profits, which leads them to create a new management strategy, one
more aligned with Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR).
The aim of this study is to analyze the importance of CSR practices in the luxury industry
nowadays, taking as an example two iconic luxury brands, Hermès and Tiffany, which follow
different paths and values and so, analyzing the reactions to these practices in their internal
and external environment in two countries, France and Mexico, which have major cultural
differences.
In order to identify this, a deep analysis of the two brands will be made, revealing their actual
business strategies and their mistakes, likewise, a complete description of the two countries’
culture, mindsets and implication in the luxury business.
This study recovers the different perspectives from a sample of 100 users and non-users of
these brands, as well as their opinion on possible changes to these practices, but also the
vision of internal players who actually apply those strategies. It is interesting to notice from
these results that, from the 100 persons interviewed, 58 were not even able to mention one
CSR practice that these brands implement and 46 think any luxury brand could be ethical and
eco-friendly. We will see in this case study that the answers vary drastically according to the
country (France or Mexico) and the people have different interpretations to each brand’s
strategy as well as different recommendations. It is curious to realize that most of the visions
of these persons from each brand are completely wrong.
The aim of this study is then to find which strategies are and should be implemented in each
brand in each country in order to satisfy their clients or potential customers, respecting the
external environment.