“I Need You Too!” Corporate Identity Attractiveness for Consumers and The Role of Social Responsibility

Abstract

The extent to which people identify with an organization is dependent on the attractiveness of the organizational identity, which helps individuals satisfy one or more important self-definitional needs. However, little is known about the antecedents of company identity attractiveness (IA) in a consumer-company context. Drawing on theories of social identity and organizational identification, a model of the antecedents of IA is developed and tested. The findings provide empirical validation of the relationship between IA and corporate associations perceived by consumers. Our results demonstrate that the Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) contribution to company IA is much stronger than that of Corporate Ability (CA). This may be linked to increasing competition and of decreasing CA-based variation in the marketplace.

CSR practices and consumer perceptions

“…Drawing on organizational research, and in particular on social identity theory (Ashforth and Mael 1989;Tajfel and Turner 1985), the authors argue that consumers identify with a company if they detect a certain congruence between their own and the company's character, as evidenced by its perceived social responsibility. In other words, the more consumers identify themselves with a company, the more positively they assess the corporation's CSR engagement (Marin and Ruiz 2007;Sen and Bhattacharya 2001 To test these hypotheses, the relationships between consumers' perceptions of corporate social responsibility and three important consumer behavior variables -company evaluation, consumer-company identification (CCI) and purchase intention are analyzed. These variables are expected to be positively related to consumers' perceptions of CSR..…”

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

“…Such socially-constructed perception on the firms can be a part of organizational reputation. For example, philanthropic activities and environmental preservation campaigns lead to favorable corporate images and evaluations [42,43]. In the stock market, firms engaging in CSR activities including sound governance structures and transparent investments can get positive evaluations from potential investors [30,34].…”

Exploring Employee Engagement with (Corporate) Social Responsibility: A Social Exchange Perspective on Organisational Participation

“…The benefits to organisations of CSR have included competitive advantage (Branco and Rodrigues, 2006;McWilliams et al, 2006); increased financial performance (Orlitzky, 2005;Orlitzky et al, 2003;Kramer, 1999, 2002;Smith, 1994Smith, , 2003Waddock and Graves, 1997) and corporate reputation (Fombrun et al, 2000). Specifically regarding employees, the benefits of CSR have been related to a wide range of aspects including recruitment, morale, productivity and retention (Berger et al, 2006;Branco and Rodrigues, 2006;Fombrun and van Riel, 2004;Marin and Ruiz, 2007;Turban and Greening, 1997;). …”