CSR through social media: examining the intervening factors
Marketing Intelligence & Planning
ISSN: 0263-4503
Article publication date: 20 August 2019
Issue publication date: 17 January 2020
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to examine the casual role of consumers’ perceptions of brands’ corporate social responsibility (CSR) motives (self-serving vs society-serving) in influencing consumer–brand relationships. Further, the authors explore the roles of brand initiated CSR activities (e.g. CSR co-creation), social media characteristics (e.g. media richness) and consumer’s community identification in shaping the effect of perceived CSR motive on consumer–brand relationship.
Design/methodology/approach
A 2 (CSR motives: self-oriented vs society-oriented) × 2 (CSR co-creation: yes vs no) × 2 (media richness: high vs low) between-subjects experimental design is employed.
Findings
The results elucidate that when consumers perceive that CSR is for self-serving (vs society-serving) motive, allowing consumers to co-create CSR in a high media-rich virtual platform enhances consumer–brand relationship quality. In addition, the results also support that the interactions of perceived CSR motives, co-creation and media richness enhance consumer–brand relationship through the mediation of community identification.
Originality/value
The current study draws implications for effective CSR co-creation through rich social media platforms, so as to enhance consumer–brand relationship quality via creating community identification.
Keywords
Citation
S., S., Sarkar, J.G. and Sarkar, A. (2020), "CSR through social media: examining the intervening factors", Marketing Intelligence & Planning, Vol. 38 No. 1, pp. 103-120. https://doi.org/10.1108/MIP-12-2018-0569
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2019, Emerald Publishing Limited