The Role of Company-Cause Fit and Company Involvement in Consumer Responses to CSR Initiatives: A Meta-Analytic Review

Abstract

Abstract:The marketing literature suggests that company-cause fit is of key importance to developing a successful socially responsible initiative. However, controversy exists regarding the level of this fit. While some studies report that high fit between a company and a cause has beneficial effects on consumer responses to such efforts, other research identifies negative impacts. This paper aims to obtain a deeper insight into this issue by examining the moderating role of company involvement in a cause. A meta-analysis of 51 experimental studies, yielding a total sample size of 11,335 subjects, shows that company-cause fit influences consumer responses to CSR initiatives most positively when a company with a positive reputation is highly involved in a cause, that is, when the company donates at least products. If such a company provides its beneficiary with only monetary contributions (i.e., low involvement), the effects of fit are significantly less influential.

Corporate Social Responsibility as a Strategic Means to Attract Foreign Investment: Evidence from Korea

“…Likewise, Alshammari [44] contended that CSR contributes to building a better image with stakeholders. Zasuwa [23] also found that CSR activities reinforce consumers' beliefs that the firm is reliable and trustworthy, thereby contributing to building a better corporate reputation. By focusing on the hotel industry, Kim and Kim [24] corroborated that the involvement in CSR contributes to a better reputation through customer satisfaction and trust [45,46].…”

“…This indicates that from the host firm's perspective, foreign investment can be incentivized by managing inter-relationships with their stakeholders, or how they are evaluated by their stakeholders [18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25]37]. From this standpoint, we argue that foreign investors, who want to avoid uncertainty and information asymmetry in investing in firms in different countries, are likely to have favorable attitudes for the host firms that actively engage in CSR activities.…”

“…If firms can respond to stakeholders' explicit or implicit demands in socially desirable ways, the stakeholders can behave more leniently toward the firm [18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25]37]. When a firm makes efforts to develop eco-friendly and high quality products, customers tend to build a positive reputation of the firm as they perceive the firm's activities as being socially desirable [38][39][40].…”

“…Given that a high level of CSR performance contributes to an improvement in corporate reputation [17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25], firms can actively seek for CSR to attract foreign investments. In this sense, we investigate the role of CSR performance in enhancing its foreign investments.…”

Corporate Social Responsibility, Internal Controls, and Stock Price Crash Risk: The Chinese Stock Market

“…Through CSR investment, enterprises can attract responsible consumers, obtain financial resources from investors with strong social responsibility, facilitate financing, or help struggling companies to recover from financial distress [8][9][10][11]. Scholars have found that CSR is positively related to financial performance and that CSR can improve stakeholder interests, ultimately leading to better financial performance [12][13][14]. On the contrary, failure to meet the expectations of stakeholders creates fear in the market and ultimately a loss in profitability [15].…”