When Companies Do Good: Building Trust through Corporate Social Responsibility – An Emprical Study

Abstract

In the present study we developed and empirically tested a model depicting the effect of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) activities on organizational trust. Moreover, we identified factors highly relevant to the success of CSR initiatives.H 1, The higher the credibility of a company perceived by an individual, the higher is the individual's trust in the company.Moreover, Garbarino and Johnson (1999) discovered that positive attitudes to major components of a service experience foster trust in the service provider, in this case, a theater. On a more general level, Jones and George (1998) assume a similar connection between attitudes and trust in an individual, a group or an organization. They argue that attitudes formed by individuals towards an entity are likely to contain knowledge about the trustworthiness of the party in question. In the formation of trust these attitudes play an important role as trust develops from cognitive evaluations of the trustworthiness of other entities (Lewis and Weigert 1985). Consequently, the following hypothesis applies:H 2: The more positive an individual's attitude toward a company, the higher is the individual's trust in the company. Success Factors of CSR ActivitiesHaving identified determinants influencing the creation of trust in a company, the next step is to analyze how these factors can be affected by CSR activities. As many CSR activities, e.g. Cause-Related Marketing initiatives, are communicated similar to advertising, the Attitude toward the Ad (Aact)-Model developed by MacKenzie, Lutz and Belch (1986) seems to be particularly well-suited to identify factors influencing the effectiveness of CSR activities. The Aact-Model proposes that the more positive Aact, the more positive is an individual's attitude toward the advertised brand (MacKenzie and Lutz 1989). In a CSR context, the advertised brand usually is the corporate brand. Hence, a person's attitude toward a specific CSR activity

Διερευνώντας Τη Συνύπαρξη Επιχειρήσεων Και Τοπικών Κοινωνιών Και Τη Βελτίωση Του Σχεδιασμού Πολιτικών Σε Περιβαλλοντικά Υποβαθμισμένες Περιοχές

“…Social trust refers to trust towards other people (Uslaner and Conley, 2003;Stanaland, Lwin and Murphy, 2011;Huber et al, 2008) and is usually correlated positively with local perceptions for CSR actions (Ho, Ang and Tee, 2015;Fombrun and Shanley, 1990). This is because social trust is expected to act as a mediator in the development of tight and mutually developed relationships between the public and local enterprises through the sharing of information and the development of solidarity within communities living near industries (Greenwood and Buren, 2010).…”

The relationship between Chinese viewers' attitude toward fansub videos and attitude toward sponsorship

“…Sponsorship as a communication vehicle has grown remarkably in recent years (Huber, Vollhardt, Matthes, & Vogel, 2015) due to it is evaluated positively by consumers (Meenaghan, 2001) (Walliser, 2003).…”