Title: Corporate social responsibility in the healthcare insurance industry: a cause-branding approach

Authors: Alan D. Smith

Addresses: Department of Management and Marketing, Robert Morris University, Pittsburgh, PA 15219-3099, USA

Abstract: As citizens find healthcare issues to be the most important for companies to address, cause-branding as a suitable analysis for competitive comparison of any healthcare insurance firm|s CSR would be in order. When these healthcare issues are properly addressed through CSR programmes of appropriate service providers, society benefits from better health, and the company benefits from decreased claims. Possible backlash of negative publicity may occur when stakeholders envision the company as merely contributing to community welfare as a means of advertising its compassion in exchange for a greater portion of the healthcare insurance marketplace. Several healthcare insurance providers were inspected, one in greater detail, on a series of principles grounded in cause-branding strategies were included in the case study of CSR initiatives, followed by the practical applications of lessons learned from the case studies.

Keywords: case study; cause branding; corporate social responsibility; CSR; corporate strategy; customer behaviour; insurance industry; quality; service marketing; healthcare insurance.

DOI: 10.1504/IJEH.2010.034177

International Journal of Electronic Healthcare, 2010 Vol.5 No.3, pp.284 - 302

Published online: 16 Jul 2010 *

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