CSR Selection after the Crises about Harm to Products: Business CSR or Philanthropic CSR

Wang Hanying, Tian Hong

Journal of Shanghai University of Finance and Economics Vol. 18, Issue 03, pp. 62 - 73 (2016)  DOI:10.16538/j.cnki.jsufe.2016.03.006

Abstract

Many corporations implement CSR activities after the crises about harm to products to restore damaged firm images. However, different CSR selections may have completely different effects. Drawing on the conflict of instrumental and normative views of stakeholder theory, this paper introduces both cognitive dissonance theory and attribution theory to build a comprehensive theoretical model to reconcile the conflict between the two views. Experimental results show that in current environment of limited trust and asymmetric information in China, consumer suspicion plays an intermediary role in CSR perception and the change in purchase intentions. The interactive effect of business CSR and philanthropic CSR affects the changes in consumer purchase intentions through consumer suspicion. Moreover, only when the perceived level of business practice CSR is high, philanthropic CSR plays a positive role, otherwise, more input in philanthropic CSR is easy to arouse consumer suspicion. Therefore, in practice, provided adequate resources, both business practice CSR and philanthropic CSR should be kept at a high level. Provided inadequate resources, corporations should give priority to select the strategy of high-level business CSR and low-level philanthropic CSR. This paper clears consumer psychological mechanism of interpretation and feedback to CSR practice, thereby helping corporations to break through the dilemma of the implementation of CSR restoration strategies after the crises about harm to products.

Keywords

crisis about harm to products; business CSR; philanthropic CSR; suspicion; purchase intention