Moral Identity and Attributions of Corporate Social Responsibility

Companies increasingly rely on corporate social responsibility to garner goodwill and positive evaluations, yet little is understood about individual differences in consumers’ sensitivity to such efforts. Two studies demonstrate that differences in individuals’ Moral Identity reliably predict the attributions made about why a firm undertakes CSR efforts, which then predict firm evaluations. American participants’ scores on the Internalization dimension of moral identity, representing self-importance of moral behavior, predict their attributions. In contrast, Singaporean participants’ Symbolization scores, capturing social value of moral behavior predict those same attributions. This research represents an important step in understanding internal, consumer-specific drivers of CSR effectiveness.



Citation:

Nicole Verrochi, Americus Reed II, and Jennifer Tong (2009) ,"Moral Identity and Attributions of Corporate Social Responsibility", in NA - Advances in Consumer Research Volume 36, eds. Ann L. McGill and Sharon Shavitt, Duluth, MN : Association for Consumer Research, Pages: 49-52.

Authors

Nicole Verrochi, University of Pennsylvania, USA
Americus Reed II, University of Pennsylvania, USA
Jennifer Tong, Singapore Management University, Singapore



Volume

NA - Advances in Consumer Research Volume 36 | 2009



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