Proceedings of 8th Asia-Pacific Business Research Conference
9 - 10 February 2015, Hotel Istana, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, ISBN: 978-1-922069-71-9
The Buffering Effect of CSR Communication Strategy
on Consumer Skepticism When Company Facing
Allegations
Pei-Ju Ting and Chia-Yi Chen
Corporate social responsibility (CSR) has become trunk stream today. Much
research suggests that CSR is a firm’s marketing instrument to stimulate
positive consumer behavior such as positive word-of-mouth. Besides, most
of the research about CSR manipulates the study in neutral context.
However, recent studies prove that consumers form negative attitude toward
a firm facing irresponsibility allegation. To complete research in CSR domain,
this study focuses on the condition that a firm lapses into scandal and
clarifies the intervening process driving consumers’ attitude toward that firm.
To clarify underlying process in a negative context, this research adopts
concept of consumer skepticism and organizational motives consumers
perceived (attribution theory). On the other hand, most of previous literatures
investigate the effect of singular CSR strategy on consumer perception. This
research integrates three CSR strategies, which are derived from previous
literatures, to develop eight scenarios encompass 2 proactivity
(proactive/reactive)* 2 length of time (longer/shorter)*2 communication
sources (internal/external). For academy, this research investigates CSR
strategy systematically and builds a comprehensive model of CSR to provide
an integrative research structure.
In practice, this research provide
corporates a manual to conduct CSR tactics that can buffer consumers’
negative attitude toward firms in a crisis.
Field of research: Management
1. Introduction
Since the mid-1990s, business experts increasingly have stressed the
importance of Corporate social responsibility (CSR) which is considered within
the wider academia a key instrument of a firm’s marketing toolbox to enhance
the reputation of a firm and affect consumers’ intention and behaviors
including positive word of mouth (e.g. Bhattacharya and Sen, 2004) (Brown
and Dacin, 1997). Some scholars argue that this is even so during negative
crisis. For instance, Coombs and Holladays (1996) find that a company’s past
performance in CSR can, during crisis, enable consumers to retain more
positive attitudes toward the company.
Nevertheless, only a limited number of past research has been conducted to
exam the effectiveness of CSR as a crisis communication tool and gaps
remains for more information on the role of CSR during crisis (Vanhamme and
Grobben 2009). This can be seen from a recent example of Ting Hsin (頂新)
International Group. Ting Hsin is a Taiwanese-owned conglomerate based in
China and a major manufacturer and retailer for food and beverage products
in the Greater China market. The group is well known for its philanthropic
efforts, for instance in 2010, it has set up a charitable foundation with an input
____________________________________________________
Pei-Ju Ting, Department of Business Administration, College of Business, National Taipei
University, Taiwan, Email: lucypting@gmail.com
Chia-Yi Chen, Department of Business Administration, College of Business, National Taipei
University, Taiwan, Email: dreamyimaker@gmail.com
Proceedings of 8th Asia-Pacific Business Research Conference
9 - 10 February 2015, Hotel Istana, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, ISBN: 978-1-922069-71-9
of US$ 3.2 million for schools, scholarships, and disaster relief. Nevertheless
since late 2013, Ting Hsin was embroiled in a Taiwanese food scandal of
tainted cooking oil. Despite its reputation for the charitable acts, a nation-wide
boycott was triggered in Taiwan, from individual consumers to local
governments towards Wei-Chuan Foods Corp. (味全), a subordinate to Ting
Hsin and a trusted food brand in Taiwan for over 50 years. It is reported that,
the boycott has results in over US$31 million lost for Wei-Chuan.
Recent research also suggests inconsistent implications of CSR. For
example, Groza et al. (2011) find that, when the motive for a CSR act is
perceived to be stakeholder-oriented, consumers would have a more negative
attitude towards the company and lower their purchase intention. Skarmeas
and Leonidou (2013) further elaborate such finding that a stakeholder-driven
CSR strategy would trigger consumer skepticism which ultimately lead to
decrease on positive word-of-mouth. It is found that when a company faces
a crisis, shorter length of CSR history has a positive effect on consumer
skepticism and leads to negative consumer perceptions (Vanhamme and
Grobben, 2008). Vanhamme et al. (2014) suggest that if allegations of social
irresponsibility emerge, that firm transmits CSR information through third-party
will aggravate consumers’ negative attitude toward the firm. Romani et al.
(2013) conclude that CSR may work to influence consumer responses in
negative scandals, but only in a neutral position.
Bhattacharya et al (2009) put a call to a more precise understanding of the
underlying processes driving responses to CSR activities. This research
attempts to respond to this call and examine the underlying processes driving
consumers’ intention and behavior when social irresponsible issues surface.
This research intends to investigate, from a consumer’s perceptive, how a
firm’s CSR strategy would buffer consumer skepticism during a crisis. It can
be broken down into the following objectives:



Identify CSR strategies that are commonly adopted;
Structuring a framework for CSR communication, with the focus on
consumer skepticism and behaviors;
Evaluating the effect of CSR strategies on consumer skepticism and
behaviors.
2. Literature Review and Research Hypotheses
Corporate Social Responsibility and Strategies
Corporate social responsibility refers to a company’s ethical identity which is
formed by a relationship between parties within a community of business and
social exchange (Balmer et al., 2007). The goal of CSR efforts is to portray a
corporate as responsive to the demands of the society it depends on for
survival without any expectation of benefit toward the effort (Ellen, 2006).
Whether consumers perceive a firm exploits a cause depends on the
commitment the firm has to the cause (L'Etang, 1994). The level of perceived
commitment is constituted of three components as the amount of input, the
durability of the association, and the consistency (stability) of input (Dwyer et
al., 1987). These components can be translated into the strategic tools that a
Proceedings of 8th Asia-Pacific Business Research Conference
9 - 10 February 2015, Hotel Istana, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, ISBN: 978-1-922069-71-9
company can adopt to communicate their CSR activities, including level of
proactivity, length of time and information dissemination channels.
The timing of engaging in CSR is the determinant in relation to whether it is a
proactive or reactive CSR activity (Rim, 2013). Proactive strategy refers to a
firm is involved with CSR initiatives prior to any negative information being
received by consumers (Du et al., 2007). Similarly, reactive strategy refers to
that firm reactively involve in CSR activities after consumers receiving
negative information about a firm’s irresponsible actions, (Wagner et al.,
2009). The choice of a proactive or a reactive strategy depends up the
purposes (Rim, 2013). Firms usually conduct reactive strategy so as to
restore the reputation and image of the organization (Wagner et al., 2009).
Whereas proactive strategy is adopted when firms intend to maintain or
enhance their reputation. Becker-Olsen et al. (2006) found that proactive
CSR actions would form positive attitude in consumers toward the company
and increase their purchase intentions; however, reactive CSR initiatives lead
to negative perceptions and reduce purchase intentions.
Webb and Mohr (1998) find that consumers judge a firm with longer
commitment in CSR activities as more well-motived; on the other hand, one
with shorter commitment is regarded as having firm-serving motives. If a
social advertising campaign extended over multiple years, it would be
considered a more sincere and successful campaign than those last 6 months
or less (Drumwright, 1996). The length of time in CSR activities can also be
used as a cues to determine a company’s social legitimacy (Handelman and
Arnold, 1999). Unlike pragmatic legitimacy which refers to a firm’s action to
demonstrate its congruence to the environment, such as offering products at
the right price and quality; social legitimacy occurs when company’s
institutional actions are compatible with the broader social norms of the
community, for example charitable donations. Pragmatic legitimacy alone is
not sufficient for a firm’s log-run survival; companies must achieve social
legitimacy to win consumer support in the long run. When a crisis about a
firm’s irresponsibility arises, that firm should defend its social legitimacy.
Barton (1993) suggests that the majority of customers seem more willing to
forgive a company with longer performance history. Vanhamme and Grobben
(2008) also indicate that companies with a longer CSR engagement would
earn more trust and goodwill from their stakeholders.
Information of a company’s CSR initiatives can be disseminated via two types
of communication channels: external and internal. External channels refer to
one that is controlled by a third party, such as magazine articles, whereas
companies have full control of internal ones, such as newsletter. Consumers’
use the choice of information channel as a cue to infer companies’ motivation
to engage in CSR (Vanhamme et al., 2014). Most consumers expect more
credible information to come from third-party sources, rather than sources
controlled by companies; they tend regard corporate sources as more selfinterested and are more critical of messages from company-controlled
sources (e.g. Bhattacharya and Sen, 2003, Eisend, 2004). Thus, consumers
would be less skeptical and have a more positive attitude when they receive
the information from an independent association (Simmons and Becker-Olsen,
2006, Du et al., 2010). It is found that, when a firm is facing social
irresponsibility crisis which is unrelated to the initial CSR communication,
disseminating CSR information through internal sources could buffer the drop
in consumers’ attitude. Alternatively, when the information is transmitted
Proceedings of 8th Asia-Pacific Business Research Conference
9 - 10 February 2015, Hotel Istana, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, ISBN: 978-1-922069-71-9
through independent sources, it will aggravate the drop (Vanhamme et al.,
2014) .
Consumer Skepticism: Antecedents and Effects
Consumer skepticism is defined as a person’s tendency to doubt, disbelieve,
and question a company’s claims and motives (Dionysis et al., 2013). It is a
kind of negative response to company’s efforts and it is influenced by
consumer attributions (Skarmeas and Leonidou, 2013).
Consumer
attributions are defined as the attributions made by consumers about the
motives underlying companies’ participation in corporate social responsibility
and it plays an important role in their responses to CSR initiatives (Ellen et al.,
2006).
A company’s motive for CSR can be broadly categorized into self-centered
and other centered and both motives can be further divided into two parts
(Ellen et al., 2006). Consumers perceived self-centered motives consisted of
stakeholder-driven and egoistic-driven attributions.
Stakeholder-driven
motives indicate that consumers believe that the goal of company’s
involvement in CSR is to achieve different stakeholders’ expectation. When
consumers believe company is take advantage of the cause instead of
supporting them, it will be egoistic-driven attributions (Ellen et al., 2006;
Vlachos et al., 2009). Other-centered motives encompass value-driven and
strategic-driven attributions. Values-driven attributions reflect consumers
belief that company participation in corporate social responsibility is triggered
purely by its moral and ethical characteristic (Ellen et al., 2000). When
consumers believe company can achieve its business goal while supporting
the causes, the company might be attributed to strategic-driven motive (Ellen
et al., 2006; Vlachos et al., 2009). Most of the consumers attribute companies’
CSR participation to a combination of both self-driven and other-driven
motives. When consumers attribute both value-driven and strategic-driven
motives, it will be most positive response to companies (Ellen et al., 2006).
Consumers’ skepticism toward companies may result in negative affections,
unfavorable attitudes and/or hostile behavior toward those firms (Ellen et al.,
2002; Mohr et al., 2001). Consumers may fear that companies regard CSR
as a “gimmick” to manipulate them; therefore, they might become more
skeptical toward the CSR efforts from for-profit companies than from nongovernmental organizations. (Webb and Mohr, 1998). Forehand and Grier
(2003) also find that when consumers perceived they are being deceived,
they will react with more negative evaluation toward the firm.
With regards to behaviors, Forehand & Grier (2003) find that consumers who
are skeptical toward firms are likely to share their doubts, verify their
suspicions and warn others. Therefore, consumer’s skepticism toward the
CSR initiatives of companies is likely to weaken their willingness to share
positive experiences about the companies to their acquaintances (Skarmeas
and Leonidou, 2013). Additionally, Bhattacharya and Sen (2004) suggest that
when a firm build “a reservoir of goodwill”, consumers might have motivations
to underrate negative information about that firm in a crisis. However, such
behavior does not occur when consumers are skeptical toward companies’
motives to engage in CSR initiatives (Skarmeas and Leonidou, 2013).
Vanhamme and Grobben (2008) find that consumers’ skepticism creates
more negative perceptions about the company and its products. Taber and
Lodge (2006) suggest that consumers will represent favorable attitudes
toward companies and develop connection with the companies, once they
believe that companies are concerned about society and CSR actions.
Proceedings of 8th Asia-Pacific Business Research Conference
9 - 10 February 2015, Hotel Istana, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, ISBN: 978-1-922069-71-9
Nevertheless, if consumers were skeptical toward companies or doubt
companies are not genuine toward the social responsibility, consumercompany relationship might be undermined and the value of the brand in
consumers' minds might be reduced as well (Cho, 2006).
Research Framework and Hypotheses
The research framework is presented in Figure 1, which encompasses CSR
strategy, consumers’ attributions, skepticism, consumer perceptions,
consumer behaviors.
Value-driven motives means consumer perceive the motivation of a firm
engaging in CSR efforts is purely because of its moral, ethical and societal
ideals and standards (Ellen et al., 2000). Strategic-driven motives refer to
beliefs that a company can achieve its business goals when engaging in CSR
actions (Ellen, 2006, Vlachos et al., 2009). Skarmeas and Leonidou (2013)
find that both attributions relates negatively to consumer skepticism. On the
contrary, Egoistic-driven attribution means beliefs that a firm is taking
advantage of a cause instead of supporting it (Ellen, 2006, Vlachos et al.,
2009). Consumers generally perceive egoistic-driven motivation as unethical
and not reciprocal to the society (Forehand and Grier, 2003, Vlachos et al.,
2009). Stakeholder-driven attribution refers to beliefs that the company
involving in CSR initiatives to achieve expectations of different stakeholders
(Vlachos et al., 2009). In other words, the company involves in CSR actions
in order to response the pressure from different stakeholders such as
consumers, shareholders, employees and society (Skarmeas and Leonidou,
2013), or to avoid punishment from their stakeholders (Ellen, 2006, Vlachos et
al., 2009). Thus, both types of motivations are found to impact positively on
consumer skepticism.
Figure1. Research Framework
CSR
strategy
Proactivity
Values-driven
Strategicdriven
Length of CSR
Egoisticdriven
Communication
Channel
Stakeholdersdriven
Word-ofMouth
Consumer
Skepticism
Resilience
to
negative
information
Brand
Equity
The study of Groza et al. (2011) find that proactive CSR initiative have a
positive effect on values-driven and strategic-driven attributions. This is
because consumers believe that proactive CSR would require the firms to
take initiatives and pay efforts for advanced planning. On the other hand,
reactive CSR only occurs when there are unexpected events and a firm will
right their social wrongdoings to achieve all stakeholders’ expectations. Thus,
Proceedings of 8th Asia-Pacific Business Research Conference
9 - 10 February 2015, Hotel Istana, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, ISBN: 978-1-922069-71-9
when a company engages in proactive CSR, publics tend to attribute more
altruistic motives to its CSR and evaluate the company reputation more
positively than a company without proactive CSR (Rim, 2013). Therefore
consumers perceive firms proactively involve in CSR initiatives to be more
values-driven and/or strategic-driven than those that have responsive CSR
strategy. Similarly, proactive CSR initiatives will reduce consumers’ perceived
attributions of stakeholder-driven and/or egoistic-driven than reactive CSR.
Owning to the opposite relationship between altruism and egoism, it is
therefore hypothesized in this research that proactive CSR initiatives have a
positive effect on strategic-driven and values-driven motives compared to
reactive CSR, and have a negative effect on egoistic-driven and stakeholderdriven compared to reactive CSR.
H1: During a crisis consumer perceive company with a proactive CSR
strategy with more impact of (a) values-driven and (b) strategic-drive; less
impact of (c) egoistic-driven and (d) stakeholder-driven attribution towards
consumer skepticism than that with a reactive CSR strategy
With regards to the length of time a company demonstrates for its
commitment in CSR, consumers are found to view a shorter commitment as
egoistic-driven and/or stakeholder-drive by strategic performance demands
(Varadarajan and Menon, 1988). On the other hand, a longer commitment is
more likely to be viewed as value-driven and/or strategic-driven (Ellen, 2006).
Ellen (2006) argue that a shorter commitment is more likely to be a reactive
response to an unexpected event. However, this research regards proactivity
and length of time as two independent variables because there have been
firms reactively promise to involve in CSR activities for several years in the
future. Therefore, it is not definite in practice that proactive CSR always
match a longer term commitment and reactive CSR always match a shorter
term commitment. In conclusion, it is hypothesized that consumers will
perceive companies with longer commitment as more values-driven; while
companies with shorter commitment will be viewed as more egoistic-driven or
derived by stakeholders’ pressure and strategic performance demands.
H2: During a crisis consumer perceive company with a longer commitment of
CSR initiatives with more impact of (a) values-driven and (b) strategic-driven;
less impact of (c) egoistic-driven and (d) stakeholder-driven towards
consumer skepticism than that with a shorter length of CSR initiatives
The choice of communication to deliver a company CSR messages would
also influence the attributions consumers perceive a company’s CSR strategy
(Groza et al., 2011). When a company’s social irresponsibility surfaces, CSR
communication may aggravate negative consequences if the choice of
communication channel is inappropriate (Vanhamme et al., 2014). It is found
that, in general, conveying proactive CSR information from internal channel
will maximize positive returns from CSR investment; yet relying on external
sources to disseminate reactionary information may minimize any possible
negative effects (Groza et al., 2011). Vanhamme et al. (2014) further explore
the topic and find that when the CSR initiatives of a company are irrelevant to
the domain of social irresponsibility, delivering CSR information via a
company-controlled source will buffer decreased attitude toward that company.
On the other hand, transmitting CSR information through a third-party source
Proceedings of 8th Asia-Pacific Business Research Conference
9 - 10 February 2015, Hotel Istana, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, ISBN: 978-1-922069-71-9
will aggravate negative consequences in a company crisis. Given that this
research intends to focus on the choice of communication channel during
crisis, it is therefore hypothesized that a company communicates CSR
initiatives through internal sources has positive effects on value-driven and
strategic-driven motives, while it has negative effects on egoistic-driven and
stakeholder-driven motives
H3: During a crisis consumer perceive company communicating CSR
information via internal sources with more impact of (a) values-driven and (b)
strategic-driven; less impact of (c) egoistic-driven and (d) stakeholder-driven
towards consumer skepticism than that communicates CSR information
through external sources.
Herr et al. (1991) indicate that consumers would engage in word-of-mouth to
communicate their positive or negative experiences, feelings and emotions
with a firm, since they attempt to exchange information and to improve the
quality of their purchase decisions. Cho (2006) also claims that negative
feelings can lead to negative perceptions and having stronger influence on
outcome variables. Forehand & Grier (2003) find that consumers’ skepticism
toward firms will facilitate them to share their doubts, verify their suspicions
and warn others.
Skarmeas and Leonidou (2013) also suggest that
consumers, who are skeptical toward CSR efforts of a firm, will inhibit their
willingness to talk positively about the firm to their acquaintances.
Consequently, we hypothesize consumers’ skepticism toward CSR initiatives
of a firm might have negative effect on positive word-of-mouth.
H4: CSR skepticism relates negatively to word-of-mouth
Eisingerich et al. (2010) and Bhattacharya and Sen (2003) indicate that
consumers don’t allow negative information about a firm to underrate their
general view of the firm when they perceive the firm has “building a reservoir
of goodwill”. While Skarmeas and Leonidou (2013) suggest that behavior will
not occur when consumers are skeptical toward the company. In this
research, we manipulate a crisis about a fictitious company’s irresponsibility to
arise, thus we hypothesize that consumers’ skepticism might be detrimental to
the development of resilience to negative information.
H5: CSR skepticism relates negatively to resilience to negative information
Luo and Bhattacharya (2006) indicate that information about a firm consumers
know will influence their entire evaluation and attitudes toward the company’s
products. Thus CSR information provides an important piece for consumers’
consideration (Sen, 2001). Taber and Lodge (2006) also suggest that once
consumers perceive a firm pays attention to CSR initiatives, they will have
more positive attitudes to that company.
However, once consumers’
skepticism surface, the value of that firm in consumers’ mind will be
undermined (Cho, 2006). Therefore, consumers' skepticism toward CSR
efforts of a firm is likely to weaken consumer-based brand equity.
H6: CSR skepticism relates negatively to brand equity
Proceedings of 8th Asia-Pacific Business Research Conference
9 - 10 February 2015, Hotel Istana, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, ISBN: 978-1-922069-71-9
3 Methodology
To test the hypotheses, we used a between-subject experimental design with
nine conditions including one control condition (no CSR strategy) and 2 (long
and short CSR length of time)*2 (proactive and reactive)*2 (internal and
external communication sources). To ensure a high level of realism and
quality, a professional scenario is adapted from Romani et al. (2013) to fit the
purpose of this study by including manipulations of CSR strategy. This
research uses a fictitious company, Dark Chocolate, to ensure the absence of
any prior knowledge of the company among respondents, which could
influence the research results. All conditions build on a general framework of
consumer skepticism toward CSR initiatives during crisis, which is adapted
from Skarmeas and Leonidou (2013) research.
In control condition, respondents read two texts. The first text section consists
of the introduction of a fictitious company. At the next section, respondents
read a piece of news describing fictive incident about that company’s
irresponsibility. The eight designed conditions encompass three sequential
texts. The first and second ones are the same as the control condition, while
the third section is a press release article, which describes the company’s
CSR strategy.
Multiple item scales are created to measure each variable and the effect
between them. These scales are identified from previous research and were
modified to fit the context of this research. They are already translated from
English to Chinese and will be back-translated to English to ensure absence
of ambiguities. All items are measured on a 7-point Likert-scale response
format ranging from strongly agree (1) to strongly disagree (7). The items
measuring consumer attributions are sourced from the study of Ellen (2006)
and Vlachos et al. (2009), including three items assesses egoistic-driven
motives; four items measures values-driven motives; four items examines
strategic-driven motives; four items assesses stakeholders-driven motives.
To measure consumers’ skepticism toward the CSR efforts of a firm, this
study adopts the work of Skarmeas and Leonidou (2013). They develop the
construct of CSR skepticism with four items through conducting two focus
groups and reviewing literatures of Forehand and Grier (2003), Mohr et al.
(1998) and Obermiller et al. (2005).
According to the research of Arnett et al. (2003), consumers’ willingness to
share positive experiences about the companies to their acquaintances can
be measured. Thus the construct derived from the research of Arnett et al.
(2003) and Yoo et al. (2000) is adopted with three items measuring the brand
value of a firm that can create incremental utility in consumers’ mind. To
assesses resilience to negative information, which stands for the extent that
consumers do not allow negative information to underrate their view of the
firm, the construct with three items from the work of Du et al. (2007) and
Eisingerich et al. (2010) is adopted. This research also includes consumers’
support of CSR, which refers to the concept of consumers’ concern of CSR.
Webb and Mohr (1998) and Sen (2001) find that the degree of consumers’
support of CSR initiatives by companies will influence their responses to
these actions. Therefore, we adopt the three-item construct of consumers’
support of CSR form the research of Vanhamme and Grobben (2008). In
Proceedings of 8th Asia-Pacific Business Research Conference
9 - 10 February 2015, Hotel Istana, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, ISBN: 978-1-922069-71-9
addition, we examine consumers’ support of CSR especially concentrate on
human rights domain, since the scenario derived from Romani et al. (2013)
only focus on the CSR in this domain.
The data collection procedure for this research will be an online survey, and
respondents will be derived the convenience sampling method. Potential
respondents will be approached randomly. Based on the topic of the stimuli,
which is a chocolate manufacturer, we would target people form age 18-45 to
be the majority of respondents. People form age 18-45 are heavy chocolate
consumers, therefore food safety issues will go deeper to this cluster. We aim
to reach approximately 360 respondents for the nine conditions. Besides, we
will follow the same approach to sample randomly and target people age 1845 for pretest.
Before conducting the experiment, this research use a small-scale pretest
with 40 student respondents surveyed to check our manipulation: the length of
the company’s CSR efforts, proactive or reactive strategy and communication
strategy. The respondents accurately answer questions about these variables
after having read the three texts including fictive company information,
scandal and a press about the company’s CSR efforts, which derives form
Romani et al. (2013). We will conduct this pretest and MANOVA tests to
ensure the validity of these variables in the scenario and items measuring
these variables.
All items appear in Appendix A. For the manipulations in this research, this
study intends to use the unweighted effects coding (Henseler and Fassott,
2010). This research will use mean replacement for missing values (Hair Jr et
al., 2013). We plan to conduct confirmatory factor analysis using SmartPLS
2.0 (Ringle et al., 2005) to assess the validity of the remaining set of items.
The analysis will use the maximum likelihood estimation procedure. In
addition, we plan to test composite reliability and internal consistency by
Cronbach's alpha values. We will check average variance extracted is
consistently higher than the latent construct squared correlations, and each
indicator loading on a construct is higher than all of its loadings on other
constructs, providing support for discriminant validity. In addition, to check for
the success of the manipulations, participants rate the extent to which they
believe the company conducts strategies of longer time, proactivity and
internal information sources.
To test this research model, we plan to conduct a multi-group comparison in
partial least squares path modeling (PLS-SEM) with SmartPLS software (Hair
et al., 2011). Unlike MANOVA, SEM can analyze relations between
interrelated latent dependent variables, includes full information from multiitem scales which reduces measurement error, and has no restrictive
assumptions of homogeneity in variances and covariances of dependent
variables across groups (Paul et al., 2014, Hair Jr et al., 2013). This research
prefers PLS-SEM over covariance-based SEM because PLS “avoids many of
the assumptions and chances that improper solutions will occur in covariancebased analyses” (Bagozzi et al., 1991). PLS is a conservative test of path
coefficients because compared with covariance-based one, PLS tends to
underestimate path coefficients (Dijkstra, 1983). The modeling approach of
using PLS for experimental data with categorical manipulations for testing
complex causal processes is well-established in research (Kamis et al., 2008).
Proceedings of 8th Asia-Pacific Business Research Conference
9 - 10 February 2015, Hotel Istana, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, ISBN: 978-1-922069-71-9
By conducting a multigroup comparison analysis in PLS-SEM, we plan to
measure different effect of consumer attribution on consumer’s attitude in
eight conditions, which is consisted of proactive or reactive CSR, longer or
shorter length of CSR and internal or external communication sources.
Following the rule of Hair Jr et al. (2013), this research will check there is no
collinearity when assessing the model. To estimate the predictive power of
research model, we intend to use a blindfolding approach to estimate Q2
values (Geisser, 1974). In addition, we will estimate R2 values to check
overall goodness of fit (Tenenhaus et al., 2005).
4 Conclusion
Responding to the call to better understand the consumer responses to CSR
activities, this study intend to extend prior literatures on CSR strategy. Unlike
recent studies that examine the effect of individual strategic tools, this study
regards the tools as a portfolio. Another major focus of this research is to
clarify consumers’ intervening process between CSR stimulation and its
outcomes. The results of which can provides a manual for company on how
the synergy of different CSR strategies could lead to the buffering effect on
consumers’ negative perceptions and behavior during a crisis.
5 Appendices
Appendix A : Measurement Items
Consumer Attributions adopted from Ellen (2006) and Vlachos et al. (2009)
1
DARKCHOCOLATE is trying to capitalize on the growing social movement
2
DARKCHOCOLATE is taking advantage of social causes
3
DARKCHOCOLATE is trying to benefit from the increased awareness of social
problems
4
DARKCHOCOLATE has a long-term interest in the society
5
DARKCHOCOLATE is trying to give back something to the society
6
DARKCHOCOLATE has an ethical responsibility to help society
7
DARKCHOCOLATE feels morally obligated to help society
8
DARKCHOCOLATE wants to keep its existing customers
9
DARKCHOCOLATE hopes to increase its profits
10
DARKCHOCOLATE wants to get new customers
11
DARKCHOCOLATE hopes to increase its competitiveness
12
DARKCHOCOLATE feels its employees expect it
13
DARKCHOCOLATE feels its customers expect it
14
DARKCHOCOLATE feels its stockholders expect it
15
DARKCHOCOLATE feels society in general expects it
Consumer Skepticism adopted from Skarmeas and Leonidou (2013)
Proceedings of 8th Asia-Pacific Business Research Conference
9 - 10 February 2015, Hotel Istana, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, ISBN: 978-1-922069-71-9
1
it is doubtless that this is a socially responsible manufacturer
2
it is certain that this manufacturer is concerned to improve the well-being of
society
3
it is sure that this manufacturer follows high ethical standards
4
it is unquestionable that this manufacturer acts in a socially responsible way
Brand Equity adopted from Arnett et al. (2003) and Yoo et al. (2000)
1
it makes sense to buy groceries from this manufacturer instead of another store
even if the manufacturers are the same
2
if there was another manufacturer as good as this manufacturer, I would still
prefer this manufacturer
3
if another manufacturer is not different from this manufacturer in any way, it
seems smarter to purchase foods from this manufacturer
Resilience to Negative Information adopted from Du et al. (2007) and Eisingerich
et al. (2010)
1
if this manufacturer did something I did not like, I would be willing to give it
another chance
2
I would be willing to excuse this manufacturer if negative information about its
activities was reported in the media
3
if I heard or read a negative story about this manufacturer, I would be willing to
forgive it
Word-of Mouth adopted from Vanhamme and Grobben (2008)
1
I will talk up this manufacturer to people I know
2
I will bring up this manufacturer in a positive way in conversations I have with
friends and acquaintances
3
I often speak favorably about this manufacturer in social situations
Consumer Support of CSR adopted from Romani et al. 2013
1
CSR in human rights domain does matter a great deal to me
2
CSR in human rights domain is personally relevant to me
3
CSR in human rights domain is of great concern to me
Manipulation check
1
DARKCHOCOLATE engages in CSR proactively
2
DARKCHOCOLATE engages in CSR for a long time
3
DARKCHOCOLATE delivers the CSR information through its internal source
Proceedings of 8th Asia-Pacific Business Research Conference
9 - 10 February 2015, Hotel Istana, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, ISBN: 978-1-922069-71-9
6 Reference
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