Consumer social responsibility (CnSR): antecedents and tool validation

Abstract

Purpose

Global warming and drastic environment fluctuations have given rise to worldwide emergency, demanding to discover the most unexplored area in the field of social responsibility that is, consumer social responsibility (CnSR). This study aims to define the novel term “CnSR” and its antecedents to accomplish long-term sustainability. An in-depth analysis is executed to discover key antecedents, and proposed tool validation is implemented with the help of the big size of consumer population.

Design/methodology/approach

Primary data are collated using consumer responses, and reliability statistics were analyzed implementing Cronbach's alpha, and factor analysis is performed for required validation.

Findings

Probing existing research, CnSR was mostly correlated with consumers’ ethical and moral behavior. The present work proposes a unique tool which has successfully revealed a broader approach resulting in four vital antecedents: environmental orientation (EO), ethical and moral disposition (EMD), spiritual orientation (SO) and orientation toward shared consumption (OSC). Cronbach's alpha is adopted to determine internal consistency of the survey and has showed precision of 0.953 which affirms accuracy of the proposed tool.

Research limitations/implications

Splitting of EO using factor analysis into environmental oriented preference (EOP) and recyclable oriented preference (ROP) has indicated further required inputs for better understanding.

Practical implications

Sustainable issues were limited to corporates in the form of corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities. Present work demands consumer awareness about their consumption consequences and fix their responsibility to achieve long-term sustainability.

Originality/value

The present study is the first to identify the antecedents of CnSR and effectively demonstrates a tool for the same.

Citation

Soni, M., Dawar, S. and Soni, A. (2021), "Consumer social responsibility (CnSR): antecedents and tool validation", World Journal of Science, Technology and Sustainable Development, Vol. 18 No. 4, pp. 422-437. https://doi.org/10.1108/WJSTSD-01-2021-0012