The Impact of the Application of Social Responsibility on the Creation of a Competitive Advantage for Jordanian Private Universities

This study seeks to identify the impact of the application of social responsibility on the creation of a competitive advantage. The study has been applied on Jordanian private universities. 200 copies of the questionnaire were distributed over managers and officials at these universities. 82% of the 164 questionnaires which were distributed over the study sample were recovered. A group of social responsibility dimensions represented by the local community, employees, customers (students at private universities), and the environment, studying its impact level on the creation of competitive advantage for Jordanian private universities have been focused upon. The hierarchical cluster has been used, where universities have been divided into groups. The results show that the first group of private universities uses social responsibility at a high and notable scale, while the second group uses social responsibility at a low scale. The results show that the group using social responsibility at a high scale, its competitive advantage is high, while the second group which uses social responsibility at a low scale, its competitive advantage is low . The study demonstrates the importance of social responsibility and the interest of Jordanian private universities to apply it for its positive and clear impact on the creation of a competitive advantage in the market.


Introduction
Organizations have started to adopt the concept of social responsibility to be able to increase their effectiveness and improve their performance.Building the reputation is no longer relying solely on its financial position, but the interest in modern concepts that contribute to creating a work environment that enables them to keep pace with rapid developments in all areas around the world have started to emerge, on top of which came "social responsibility" (Al-Qadi, 2010, p. 4) All organizations have been facing major challenges in the course of their work and interaction with the community to meet its needs.
Social responsibility is the organization's commitment towards the community where it operates through contributing to a range of social activities, such as health services improvement, the fight against poverty and pollution, and the attempt to create jobs and solve some social problems (Al-Sairafi, 2007, p. 16).
The goal of organizations is no longer bound only to the production and delivery and diversity of services, but rather there is another complementary course for that, that is to raise the level of service efficiency through good investment of available factors of production, on top of which is labor (Aal-Saraireh, 2010, p. 73).

The Problem of the Study
The previous discussion shows how much important the attention to the concept of social responsibility in all sectors is, where the most important of which is the university sector because of its role in community service , improving the organization's performance, and creation of a competitive advantage for them compared to other universities.Hence, the role of this study emerges to determine the impact of the application of social responsibility on the creation of a competitive advantage in Jordanian private universities.This is because the application of social responsibility and paying attention to it for the purpose of community service in particular has become one of the most important criterion of quality all institutions seek to get as it leads to improvement of the status and mind image among customers in particular and the society in general.The application of this concept will reflect its impact on local community, employees, customers represented by students, as well as the environment in order to create a competitive advantage in this sector.
-Is there a direct effect for the application of social responsibility on the creation of a competitive advantage for Jordanian private universities?
-Is there a difference in the levels of competitive advantage among these universities when applying social responsibility aspects?

The Importance of Study
The importance of the stems from their dealing with the impact of the application of social responsibility on the creation of a competitive advantage in Jordanian private universities.
This study also derives its importance from the following: 1).It studies one of the modern management issues, namely social responsibility, especially in light of various developments organizations have been witnessing.This requires the adoption of this concept from applied perspective to keep up with rapid environmental changes.
2).This study helps to provide information about the importance of social responsibility and what it can achieve for the success of organizations because of its contribution to the creation of competitive advantage by having a positive leadership patterns that positively affect employees' performance.
3).To come up with a set of conclusions and recommendations that may add something new for the field of knowledge and scientific research, and draw attention of organizations management to social responsibility process.

Objectives of the Study
1. Identify the impact of the application of social responsibility on the creation of a competitive advantage in Jordanian private universities.
2. Provide a theoretical framework to explain the concept of social responsibility and competitive advantage.
3. Identify the impact of the application of social responsibility towards local community of Jordanian private universities on creation of a competitive advantage in them.
4. Identify the impact of the application of social responsibility towards the staff of Jordanian private universities on the creation of a competitive advantage in them.

Identify the impact of the application of social responsibility towards customers represented by students at
Jordanian private universities on the creation of a competitive advantage in them .
6. Identify the impact of the application of social responsibility towards the environment of Jordanian private universities on the creation of a competitive advantage in them.
7. Identify the extent of difference between competitive advantage levels of private universities that apply the concept of social responsibility.
8. Coming up with a set of results through which some recommendations can be formulated in order to help decision makers clarify social responsibility and its impact on the creation of a competitive advantage to achieve the desired goals efficiently and effectively.

Study Model
The hypothetical model of the study comprises key variables namely, the independent variable (the stoical responsibility) and the dependent variable (the creation of a competitive advantage) (see the study sample in Figure 1.An explanation of how the variables are measured is shown in figure one below.

Independent variable Dependent variable
Social responsibility Figure 1.The study model

First hypothesis
Ho 1 : There is no direct effect for social responsibility on competitive advantage.
Ha 1 : There is a direct effect for social responsibility on competitive advantage.
The first hypothesis is further divided into sub hypothesis: -

The first Sub-hypothesis
Ho: There is no direct impact for the application of social responsibility towards local community on the creation of a competitive advantage in Jordanian private universities.
Ha: There is a direct impact for the application of social responsibility towards local community on employees' performance in Jordanian private universities. -

The second sub-hypothesis
Ho: There is no direct impact for the application of social responsibility towards the employees on the creation of a competitive advantage in Jordanian private universities.
Ha: There is a direct impact for the application of social responsibility towards employees on the creation of a competitive advantage in Jordanian private universities. -

The third sub-hypothesis
Ho: There is no direct impact for the application of social responsibility towards customers on the creation of a competitive advantage in Jordanian private universities.
Ha: There is a direct impact for the application of social responsibility towards customers on the creation of a competitive advantage in Jordanian private universities.
Ha: There is a direct impact of the application of social responsibility towards customers to create a competitive advantage in my Jordanian private universities -

The sub-fourth hypothesis
Ho: There is no direct impact for the application of social responsibility towards the environment on the creation of a competitive advantage in Jordanian private universities.
Ha: There is a direct impact for the application of social responsibility towards the environment on the creation of a competitive advantage in Jordanian private universities

The second hypothesis
Ho 2 : Universities with different social responsibility profiles do not have different levels of competitive advantage.
Ha 2 : Universities with different social responsibility profiles have different levels of competitive advantage.

Operational Definitions of the Study Variables
-Local community: the local community is identified by recognizing the extent of companies' ability to move towards cultural and recreational activities to serve the community, build community culture and develop skills of it, (al-Sarfi 2007, and p. 71).These variables will be measured in paragraphs (1-8) of the questionnaire.
-Employees: this concept is clarified through the organization's interest in workers in terms of their health, training, and improvement of their cultural situation and paying attention to their future until the end of their service.
-Customers: identifying the existing customers' Interests represented by students at private universities, and the ability to attract new customers and maintain them (Nazzal et al., 2011, p. 14).These variables will be measured in paragraphs (17-25) of the questionnaire.
-Environment: Identify the extent the company has accomplished regarding the increase of awareness of the environment and the need to maintain it (Nazzal et al., 2011, p. 15).These variables will be measured in paragraphs (26-32) of the questionnaire.
-Competitive advantage: It is the case of organization uniqueness compared to competitors, and that the organization is distinguished from other organizations in terms of the diversity of its products , the efficiency of its performance ,the extent of its power and ease of using it.The competitive advantage may last for a short time or continue for several years, and it arises as a result of internal or external factors (al-Bakri, 2008, p: 190-208).These variables will be measured in paragraphs (33-45) of the questionnaire.

Previous Studies
-The study by (Al Qattab et al., 2015) entitled "The impact of social marketing and implementation of social responsibility on enhancement the quality of educational services-A Case Study on private schools and cultural centers in the city of Maan".It aims to recognize the views of workers in those organizations in terms of their assessment of social responsibility dimensions and quality of educational services.The most important benefits of the application of social marketing.A questionnaire has been developed and distributed over seven educational institutions.The study has been concluded that there is a clear impact of social marketing and social responsibility on the enhancement of the quality of educational services.The study also confirmed the positive impact of the application of the social responsibility dimensions on educational services, and the extent of their contribution to the development and improvement of the real and educational status and gaining a good reputation and image in the community.
-The study by (al-Qaryouti et al., 2014) entitled "The role of social responsibility in achieving competitive advantage: A case study of Zain's cellular communication company".The study focused on the extent of impact of social responsibility of different in its various dimensions.This includes concern to workers, focusing on customer, solving social problems, concern for the environment, fair competition, and contribution to the development plans to achieve competitive advantage.Taking Zain cellular communications company as a case study, the study found that there is a positive role of social responsibility in the achievement of competitive advantage, where the impact of all dimensions under study appears.
-The study by (al-Tamimi, 2010) entitled "The Reality of the adoption of social responsibility in marketing in cosmetics-producing companies".The study confirmed the existence of a relationship between the adoption of social responsibility and the pattern of adoption.For this purpose, economic, social, and balanced patterns have been adopted.The study was conducted on a sample of 255 out of 270 managers of main positions in cosmetics -producing companies.The study concluded that there is a correlation between the adoptions of social responsibility in marketing with every pattern of adoption of social responsibility by the concerned companies.
-The study by (al-Nadi , 2008) entitled "Social Responsibility of management bodies in developing countries and its role in employees' creative abilities development: A Case on Egypt."The study was able to identify some dimensions, such as the possibility of competition and the availability of sophisticated markets and qualified teams in management, production, service, and customer satisfaction.
The study proposed a practical model that enables employees of different levels to participate effectively in identifying the organization objectives and manage their own affairs to reach a competitive advantage and find solutions to the problems facing them in work.
-The study by (Othman and Othman, 2014) entitled "Higher education institutions and social performance evidence from public and private universities".This study aims to test the direction of private and public universities in Malaysia towards the application of social responsibility during the period from 2000 to 2009, where the sample includes two universities.The study found out that the State University responses and applies social responsibility on students and staff only without paying attention to local community and the surrounding environment, while the private university response is built well due to internal conviction of this regard, and the study also confirmed that social responsibility has an important role in the survival of communities and the continuation of its work.
-The study by (Ubius & Alas, 2013) entitled "The impact of corporate social responsibility on the innovation climate", looked at the relationship between the creative climate and social responsibility in many companies operating in different areas, such as electronic industries, retail stores and construction companies in many countries, namely Germany, Japan, Russia, Estonia and the Czech Republic, where the study sample included 6094 personnel.The study found that social responsibility precedes organizations' creative climate and that the application of social responsibility depends mainly on workers in these organizations, in addition to its contribution to the improvement and enhancement the organization performance.
-The study by (Brine & Hacket, 2007) entitled "corporate social responsibility and financial performance in the Australian context".This study has addressed the relationship between the application of social responsibility and financial performance of the organizations under study, amounting 277 companies classified among the top 300 companies in the fiscal year 2005 in Australia.The purpose of the study is to identify the most important financial achievements made by these companies after the application of social responsibility concept.The study indicates that there is a close relationship between this concept and financial performance, which in itself leads to increased sales and eventually to increase of Shareholders' equity.

Theoretical Framework
Social responsibility is one of the modern management concepts, and it appeared as a result of the increasing pressures on organizations.Their role is not just serving their own interests and profit making, but it goes beyond that as they work to achieve the interests of the community in which it operates in order to reach a state of balance between its economic and social objectives and requirements, which is as one of the basic conditions for their growth.
According to the previous discussion, the concept of social responsibility is seen as institution's commitment towards the community achieved through its contribution to social activities, such as fighting poverty and improving health services and pollution control, and creating jobs and solving housing problem and so on, especially in the private sector that plays a developmental role by working with local community to improve the standard of living on the condition that this role is based on an internal initiative and self-momentum from the decision-makers of the organization (Al-Ghalibi & Al-Ameri, 2002, p 261).
The organization social responsibility means a commitment to the general public and groups of special interests in the work of the organization, such as employees, shareholders, suppliers, distributors, and others, which achieves their expectations by the organization, without canceling its real goal which is of profit making.(Al-Khalidi, 2010, p. 77).
As defined by al-Bakri, it is as a set of decisions and actions taken by the organization to achieve the desired goals and values prevailing in society (Al- Bakri, 1996, p. 14).It is also interested in all cases, and primarily the external environment, while ethics is concerned with the internal environment of the organization.Najm (2006) has stated that social responsibility revolves around programs and activities initiated by businesses that contribute to the achievement of social goals to that integrate with its economic goals, through paying attention to interests of other parties other than business owners, by contributing to community through various activities aiming at the achievement of well-being of the community, and building a positive mind image in line with its capabilities and potentials.
In his study (Zuelv, 2003, p. 149), Zuelv states that there are four elements of social responsibility that must be concentrated upon.The most important factor is the preservation of the environment that can be taken care of through cleaning and protection from pollution.The second element is the contributing to society development by providing appropriate conditions for people.Finally, social responsibility focuses on the application of the principle of fairness regarding the selection of professionals and contribution to the solution of some social problems.
The scope of social responsibility is many and varied and covers multiple parties.The social role of management is to protect organization's assets and improve its image, but its role towards employees revolves around the application of the principle of justice, care and promotion...etc.Moreover, social responsibility has a role towards customers by offering services at affordable prices, In addition to its important role towards the local community by creating jobs for it and supporting it economically and socially.Moreover, we should not forget not its primary role towards the environment to reduce pollution and taking care of it, and it has other roles towards the government, competitors and suppliers as well (Al-sairafi, 2007, pp. 70-72).
From the foregoing it is clear that there is a steadfast link between ethics and social responsibility.Although they are different, they are interconnected, where social responsibility is concerned of external environment of the organization, while ethics deals with values and behavioral norms adhered by organizations owners as the ground according to which the results of their decisions and actions are assessed (Harem and al-Said, 2005, p.

57).
The organization is a means that achieve the goals and demands of many parties, while social responsibility identifies the means used to reach the right goals and demands, which requires organizations to establish for themselves a moral law that emphasis on their values and ethics and clearly draw all the parties they are dealing with, including owners, employees, consumers as well as suppliers and society as a whole, not to mention the environment, etc (Al-atlawy, 2001, p. 69).
The foregoing highlights the real role of social responsibility through organizations interest in many activities that contribute to addressing the issues and problems of the community, which may be capable of creating a competitive advantage for the organization, distinguishing it from other organizations.Undoubtedly, the workers also contribute to this effective role through their ideas and initiatives, especially in light of the intense competition among private universities in Jordan, where all of them seek to be distinguished from other universities and unique in its status and image with customers.Achieving competitive advantage is not easy for business owners in the private sectors, especially universities in light of rapid technological developments and customers' trends and their dynamic needs.
Reaching competitive advantage arises due to a combination of internal and external factors.The internal factors lie in different possibilities and capabilities of the organization, whereas the external factors lie in the changes occurring in the environment, such as changes in customers' needs, as well as their economic, legal, and technological changes.
Universities may succeed in creating a competitive advantage, but soon they lose it when other organizations imitate it.This depends on the ease and diversity of available resources and available capacity, where the more complexity it is the more difficult to imitate it, which eventually maintains the competitive advantage for a longer period.
Potter believes that competitive advantage is divided into two types.The type first is cost distinction that emerges when universities provide their services at lower price.Distinction might also be in the excellence and uniqueness of the competitive advantage in terms of its nature and the quality of services provided.This results in three different strategies organizations may follow in general including universities, too, as a least cost strategy in addition to maintaining an acceptable level of quality, or distinction strategy that makes it distinguished from its competitors in terms of quality of services provided in exchange of a higher price, or follow strategy of focus on a certain group of customers, where the organization seeks to meet their needs in particular.
It is not enough that universities seek to create a competitive advantage only, but they must work on Continuity and sustainability , especially in light of external fluctuations and changes that must be kept pace with and be responded to in order to win over their competitors.
As a result of the foregoing discussion, it is obvious that the competitive advantage has a range of characteristics, the most important of which is that universities are different from other institutions, and that it must be for the long-term and based on the exploitation of future opportunities, and it is also limited to area or specific geographic scope.
To maintain a competitive advantage and to be effective in application, it must be based on some basic conditions, which are as follows.
Universities must be proactive in offering everything new and superior to its competitors, and it should be characterized by continuity, in addition to its ability to defend itself.All these conditions should be taken into account as they are interconnected together (Hilali, 2009, p. 25) It is noted that the competitive advantage may be of low grade through reducing costs, and may be from the upper level through excellence in products and the development of the technology used.This requires high skills and abilities and sustainability in the long term.In order that maintains its distinctiveness, sources of excellence must be multiple in order to achieve uniqueness compared with universities competing with it.This also requires innovation and continuous development of the services provided to its customers.

Type of Study
The study applies the descriptive analytical methodology through addressing the theoretical framework and previous studies, as well as data analysis and test of hypotheses through a questionnaire prepared for this purpose.

Data Collection Method
Preliminary data are represented by preparation and the development of a questionnaire comprising many paragraphs related to the independent and the dependent variables distributed over five options of Likert scale (strongly agree, agree, neutral, do not agree, strongly disagree).The questionnaire is divided into two main parts.The first part deals with personal data about staff involved in filling out the questionnaire, and the second part deals with social responsibility dimensions and their impact on the creation of the competitive advantage in the private universities.
Secondary data are represented by references, previous studies related to the subject of the study.

Study Population and the Study Sample
The study population consists of directors of departments and centers in Jordanian private universities.The questionnaire was distributed over 200 directors and officials from various Jordanian private universities.164 questionnaires were recovered, that is 82% of sample.

Validity and Reliability
Content validity was supported by an extensive literature review, pre-testing of the questionnaires and structured interviews with the managers and academic experts in the field.
Construct validity.A measure has construct validity if it measures the theoretical construct, which designed to measure.The construct validity of each category evaluated by unidimensionality of the five measures, and assessed via principal component analysis with varimax rotation (Hair et al., 1998).Tables 1 and 2. All items loaded strongly (.0.5) on their appropriate factors which supported their unidimensionality (Hair et al., 1998).The results of descriptive statistics shown in Table 4 reveal that Jordanian universities implement a high social responsibly, where the mean ranged between 3.67 and 3.99.In addition, the results reveal that there is a positive relationship between social responsibility dimensions and competitive advantage which ranged from (0.626 to 0.841).

First Hypothesis
Ho 1 : There is no direct effect of social responsibility on competitive advantage.
Ha 1 : There is a direct effect of social responsibility on competitive advantage.The findings of multiple regression analysis indicate that there is significant relationships between social responsibility and competitive advantage, as shown in Table 5 social responsibility explains 67.2 % of the variance in competitive advantage.Because (F=126.994,P<.05), thus, the alternative hypothesis is accepted, which states that there is a direct effect of social responsibility on competitive advantage.

Second Hypothesis
Ho 2 : Universities with different social responsibility profiles do not have different levels of competitive advantage.
Ha 2 : Universities with different social responsibility profiles have different levels of competitive advantage.
In order to classify universities according to social responsibility implementation, two-stage cluster analysis are used.Both hierarchical and non-hierarchical cluster procedures were applied.In the first step, hierarchical cluster analysis was applied to produce initial cluster center estimates and suggest the approximate number of clusters.
The agglomeration coefficient was used to determine the number of clusters.A small coefficient change indicates that fairly homogenous clusters merged.In contrast, a large coefficient increase means that two very different clusters were combined (Hair et al., 2006).An examination of the agglomeration coefficients led us to conclude that the largest change ranges from a two-cluster solution to a one cluster solution.So, a two-cluster solution is probably more appropriate.
Group number Then, in step two, the K-means cluster analysis was used to group the data points into three groups, as this methodology is superior in identifying relatively homogeneous groups.The results of his cluster analysis are presented in Table 5 and Figure 1.As Figure 4 indicates, two universities social responsibility profiles emerged.
To validate the two-group solution, two independent sample t-test was performed as shown in Table 6 where all variables differ significantly across the clusters.To test H2, two independent sample t-test was performed, and the results are presented in Table (7).As the table shows, the mean of competitive advantage for High social responsibility implementation equal 4.08 with stand deviation equal 0.488, while the mean of competitive advantage for low social responsibility implementation equal 3.06 with stand deviation equal .896.The results of independent sample t-test reveal (t=7.751,p<.05), so we reject the null and accept the alterative which states that "Universities with different social responsibility profiles have different levels of competitive advantage.

Discuss the Results of the Study
1.There is a positive relationship between the dimensions of social responsibility and competitive advantage in Jordanian private universities, and the results showed a statistically significant differences between social responsibility and competitive advantage.
2. Social responsibility explained 67.2% of the competitive advantage variable, and this indicates that there is a direct relationship between social responsibility and competitive advantage.This is consistent with the study by (Al-Qaryouti et al.), which indicated that there is a positive role for social responsibility in achieving competitive advantage.
3. The results showed that there is a positive and significant relationship between social responsibility toward employees and customers, while there is no significant correlation between social responsibility towards the local community and the environment.This is consistent with the study by Al-Khattab et al. which indicated that there is of positive impact for the application of social responsibility on educational services, and the extent of its contribution to the development and improvement of the real and educational status, as well as good reputation in the community.This agrees with the study by Al-Nady.Which proved the ability of all different levels of workers as one of social responsibility dimensions of active participation in the achievement of organization objectives in order to create a competitive advantage.4. Hierarchical cluster analysis which divides university market into groups is used.Based on the output, the results show that it is possible to split universities into two main groups.The first one applies social responsibility at a high scale on all dimensions, whereas the second applies social responsibility at all dimensions at a low scale.This shows that the university market is divided into two groups.The first group uses all dimensions of social responsibility at high scale, and the second uses all dimensions of social responsibility at low scale.This concept has been confirmed by the study by (Othman), which concluded that social responsibility has an important role in the survival of communities and the continuation of its work.
5. The competitive advantage between the two groups has been compared, and the results show that the first group which applies all dimensions of social responsibility at a high scale, its competitive advantage is great, while the second group that applies social responsibility dimensions at a low scale, its competitive edge is low.

Recommendations
Based on previous findings, the researcher recommends the following recommendations: 1.All Jordanian private universities should n focus on social responsibility because of its role in the creation of competitive advantage.
2. Attention should be paid to staff and customers as one of the dimensions of social responsibility for their positive and indicative impact on the creation of a competitive advantage.This is achieved through the concentration by universities to improve the performance of their employees, as social responsibility is reflected positively on the performance of employees and raising their efficiency and effectiveness at work.This will reflect positively on satisfaction of customers through the interaction that occurs between them, and that is ultimately reflected on the creation of a competitive advantage in the market.
3. Universities should also focus on local community and environment service, although they have no impact on the creation of competitive advantage, but due to their role in creating a comfortable working environment for the development and expansion of the scope of work of the universities, and facilitating governmental procedures and licensing.
4. Educate decision-makers in private universities which turned out to be falling short in implementing social responsibility to focus on all dimensions of social responsibility as they have a clear and positive impact on the creation of a competitive advantage.
5. Private universities that apply social responsibility at a high scale, need to continue this application, improve it and expand the scope of work to maintain their prestige and excellence among competitors from private universities in Jordan.

Figure 2 .
Figure 2. Percentage change in the agglomeration coefficient

Table 1 .
Sample characteristics

Table 2 .
Factor analysis: independent variable constructs

Table 3 .
Factor analysis: dependent variable constructs

Table 4 .
Mean, standard deviation and pearson correlation

Table 5 .
Result of multiple regression

Table 7 .
Two independent sample t-test