The Impact of Perceived Corporate Social Responsibility on Consumer Behavior: A Synopsis
In today's environment of global competition, companies are becoming much more innovative with respect to how they distinguish and market their products. With all of the traditional (and even emerging) media outlets now flooded with competitive marketing, companies have begun to look at corporate social responsibility as a distinguishing factor for their company, with the goal of translating it to a distinguishing factor for their products. Essentially, companies are working on the assumption that consumers will reward them (i.e., purchase their products) for support of social programs.
To date, much research indicates that a potential consumers' response to a company's social initiative depends on their evaluation of the initiative. Researchers have found that consumers will reward companies perceived as having altruistic social programs and punish those that are perceived as insincere. To further elucidate this premise, Becker-Olsen et al. (2005) set out to investigate the parameters that affect the relationship between consumers' perception of a company's motivation for a social initiative and the outcome of the social initiative. The researchers investigated three factors that they believed affected consumers' perception: (1) perceived fitùi.e., similarity between the company's corporate missions and the social initiative; (2) perceived corporate motiveùi.e., altruistic-centered versus profit-centered; and (3) timing of the announcementùi.e, reactive versus proactive.
Becker-Olsen et al. conducted two separate studies, both published together in 2005; the first study examined the effects of fit and motivation. Specifically, the researchers were testing two hypotheses: (1) low fit between a company and its social initiative would result negative attitudes toward the company and a lower likelihood of purchase intention; and (2) init...