The Formation Mechanism of Consumer Perceived Corporate Social Responsibility Authenticity: An Empirical Study of Chinese Consumers

Abstract

Consumer Perceived Corporate Social Responsibility Authenticity (CPCSRA) belongs to the field of micro Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) research. In general, understanding the formation mechanism of CPCSRA could make it better able to play its role in several ways. Firstly, most previous studies do not empirically consider a key factor, i.e., the consumer perceived senior managers’ involvement. We add this key factor into the independent variables of our formation mechanism. Secondly, most previous empirical research studies the relevant factors of consumer perceived CSR commitment as a whole. We study these relevant factors separately instead. Thirdly, we simultaneously choose the consumer perceived strategy-driven motive and consumer perceived value-driven motive as the mediating variables of our formation mechanism. Based on the above innovations, we comprehensively and systematically study the formation mechanism of CPCSRA. We use structural equation modeling to study the formation mechanism. For the convenience of data collection, our data are all from Chinese consumers. The study results show that three independent variables can directly affect CPCSRA. The three independent variables are consumer perceived level of invested resources, consumer perceived CSR efforts matching company and consumer perceived senior managers’ involvement. Consumer perceived senior managers’ involvement has the greatest effect. The two variables consumer perceived strategy-driven motive and consumer perceived value-driven motive play partial mediating effects on the relationship between independent variables and CPCSRA. Based on our empirical research, we put forward some feasible suggestions for company managers to increase company sustainability in market competition by promoting the formation of CPCSRA.

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