Gender Makes a Difference: Investigating Consumer Purchasing Behavior and Attitudes Toward Corporate Social Responsibility Policies

Abstract

The balance between profit maximization and corporate social responsibility (CSR) has become a strategic issue of considerable importance. A key factor in understanding this relationship is identifying consumer reactions to engaging in CSR. Prior literature suggests a gap between consumers' environmental attitudes and behaviors. This study examines this relationship and finds evidence that gender significantly influences this gap between attitudes and behaviors. Specifically, we find that for female segments of the consumer population, this gap is greatly reduced. We use social identity theory to explain this phenomenon of gender differences as they relate to CSR. Along with providing insight to CSR at the individual level with attitudes and behaviors, our findings also have implications at the firm‐ level for how organizations choose and strategically signal their CSR strategies toward specific consumer segments. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment

The Relationship between Femininity and Sustainability Reporting

“…Scholtens & Sievänen (2013) investigate the differences in the socially responsible investing (SRI) in Nordic countries and their study shows that Norway and Sweden, that have more femininity than Finland and Denmark, are both SRI pioneers. Hur et al (2016) and Jones et al (2017) find that female consumers have higher perceptions toward CSR than male consumers. Thanetsunthorn (2015) shows that masculinity has a significantly negative association with CSR performance on employee and community dimensions, but there is no significant relationship with the environmental dimension.…”

Consumers' heterogeneous preferences for corporate social responsibility in the food industry

“…Further, they revealed the effect on consumer's trust and satisfaction, which are responsible for the creation of long‐term relationships with consumers (Kim, ), as well as for the enhancement of consumer perception and evaluation of companies' brands and products (Dutta & Singh, ). Awareness also mediates the identification process between consumers and companies (also known as consumer–corporate identification), in which the former tends to identify with companies engaged in pro‐social behaviors (Bhattacharya & Sen, ; Jones et al, ; Sen et al, ). This identification process implies the matching of consumers' and companies' values, enabling the creation of consumers' supportive behaviors such as loyalty and positive word of mouth (Bhattacharya & Sen, , ).…”

“…The role of consumers is very relevant, being able to drive changes at both corporate and policy levels, exercising their power in the market by making purchasing decisions. If they identify with companies' values, they are willing to reward them for their social, ethical and environmental commitment (Jones, Reilly, Cox, & Cole, ); by contrast, consumers may boycott companies' products if their expectations and needs are not fully met (Chkanikova & Mont, ; Du, Bhattacharya, & Sen, ; Klein, Smith, & John, ; Lin, Zeng, Wang, Zou, & Ma, ).…”

How social, environmental, and economic CSR affects consumer‐perceived value: Does perceived consumer effectiveness make a difference?

“…One of the most important stakeholders for companies consumers are (Jones, Reilly, Cox, & Cole, 2017), who represent 'a central feature of every CSR report, as they are vital for a corporation's longterm survival' (Öberseder et al, 2013, p. 1842). A growing literature stream has found that consumers take into consideration a company's CSR practices in their evaluation of a firm and in their purchase decisions (Luo & Bhattacharya, 2006;Maignan, 2001;Öberseder et al, 2014;Perera & Chaminda, 2013).…”