Believing in change: The role of implicit theory on consumer's perception of the brand's corporate social responsibility message

Abstract

With the sustainable consumption paradigms, corporate social responsibilities (CSR) across industries have been under scrutiny. However, little research exists on how brand's business model and consumers' characteristics are intertwined to influence CSR evaluation. Our study aims to examine how the brand type (e.g., fast vs. slow business model) influences the relationships among CSR‐brand fit, authenticity, and skepticism, thus improving attitudes toward the brand. In addition, based on the implicit theory, how the consumer's incremental mindset (vs. entity) influences a brand's CSR evaluations are studied. Through two studies, our findings demonstrate consumers perceived a higher CSR‐brand fit for the slow fashion/food brand than the fast fashion/food brand. A higher CSR‐brand fit heightened the CSR authenticity and alleviated skepticism, which in turn resulted in positive brand evaluations. Importantly, incremental mindsets weakened the effect of brand type on CSR‐brand fit. As one of the first studies to examine the relationship between consumers' implicit theory orientation and a brand's CSR message, our findings demonstrate that an incremental mindset is a powerful consumer characteristic in evaluating a brand's CSR activities that are less congruent with the brand's established business model.

Linking customer mindsets, brand engagement, and citizenship behavior: the moderating role of brand trust

“…It suggests that fixed-mindset customers with high brand trust are more likely to exhibit positive cognitive and affective responses toward a brand. For customers with a fixed mindset, established brand trust acts as a reinforcing factor, improving their level of engagement owing to its alignment with their preexisting views (Kim and Kim, 2023). Contrastingly, customers with a growth mindset may require additional cognitive and emotional stimuli to augment their level of engagement, even if they already exhibit high trust in the brand (Jain et al , 2023).…”

“…Those with growth mindsets are likely to accept brand extensions and are more likely to use the services again in case of service failure, based on the assurance of better service being provided next time (Stough and Carter, 2023). Other studies revealed that a growth mindset notably affects customers’ consumption behaviors and drives them to buy sustainable food (Kim and Kim, 2023; Rahnama and Popkowski Leszczyc, 2022). More research on the influence of mindsets on consumer behavior is needed (Japutra and Song, 2020; Mitrega et al , 2022).…”

“…Thus, brand trust can reinforce customer mindsets to engage with certain brands and display citizenship behavior. Some studies have examined the relationship between mindsets and customers’ prosocial behaviors, such as corporate social responsibility (Kim and Kim, 2023), sustainable hospitality (Rather et al , 2023) and green buying (Rahnama and Popkowski Leszczyc, 2022). Others have investigated the correlation of mindsets with brand favorability (McManus et al , 2020) and brand roles (Rai et al , 2023) (Table 1).…”