Search results

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of perceived corporate hypocrisy on customer mistreatment behaviors within the banking industry and the moderating effects of customer–company identification (CCI) and brand equity on the hypocrisy-mistreatment behavior relationship.

Using multistage sampling, 567 South Korean banking service users participated in an online survey. Structural equation modeling (confirmatory factor analysis) and hierarchical regression analysis were used to analyze the data.

Perceived corporate hypocrisy was positively related to customer mistreatment behaviors. CCI and brand equity differentially moderated the positive relationship between perceived corporate hypocrisy and customer mistreatment behaviors. Specifically, CCI and brand equity strengthened and weakened the positive relationship between perceived corporate hypocrisy and customer mistreatment behaviors, respectively.

Marketers and banking service managers should pay careful attention to customer evaluations of their social activities and communication about the ethical values and actions of their firms. Since CCI and brand equity have contrasting moderating effects on the corporate hypocrisy-aggressive behavior relationship, marketers should devise different strategies to manage the adverse effects of such corporate crises on company-identified and brand-committed customers. For example, managers should focus on customers who actively express their deep sense of disappointment or profound anger in response to corporate hypocrisy (e.g. those with high levels of CCI) because they are likely to exhibit aggressive behaviors toward the company or its employees. Managers need to devise customized relationship-recovery strategies for such customers (e.g. forging a personal connection between the customer and service provider).

The present findings delineate the adverse effects of perceived corporate hypocrisy on customer behaviors and the moderating effect of customer relationship quality on the corporate hypocrisy-mistreatment behavior relationship within the banking industry.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the effect of corporate hypocrisy and consumer skepticism on perceived corporate reputation. In addition, the effect of perceived corporate social responsibility (CSR) in mediating the relationship between corporate hypocrisy and consumer skepticism toward perceived corporate reputation.

An experimental design was employed to test the effects of corporate hypocrisy and consumer skepticism on consumers’ perception of a firm’s corporate reputation, as well as the role of perceived CSR as a causal mechanism. Analysis involved structural equation modeling (AMOS) to test hypotheses. A convenience sample (n=837) was recruited from the USA and Australia to allow for any national biases or brand familiarity effects and to ensure the results were robust and generalizable.

Corporate hypocrisy and consumers’ skepticism significantly influences perceived CSR and corporate reputation. Furthermore, a consumer’s level of perceived CSR acts as a causal mechanism, mediating the relationship between corporate hypocrisy and skepticism on perceived corporate reputation.

The importance of being transparent and honest toward consumers. When companies are inconsistent in their CSR activities, it increases consumers’ skepticism toward the brand. Nonetheless, CSR has a positive influence on the consumers’ perception of corporate reputation and this, in turn, will positively influences consumers’ support for the firm.

The first empirical evidence that companies producing vices (such as beer) generate lower expectations in the minds of the consumers, meaning there is less impact on brand reputation when consumers feel the CSR does not fit with the brand image.

When fast fashion brands launch corporate social responsibility (CSR) programs, consumers may consider these brands to behave hypocritically as their business model is generally perceived as being inconsistent with sustainable practices. Built on construal level theory (CLT), this study aims to examine how the benefit appeals that are widely used in CSR initiatives affect perceived corporate hypocrisy and the CSR performance of fast fashion brands.

This study designed an online experiment with a 2 (fashion brand: fast fashion vs. unknown) × 2 (benefit appeal: self-benefit vs other-benefit) stimulus, using a virtual label named “Eco Care” for experimental manipulation. A total number of 298 Chinese consumers participated in the experiment and they answered an online survey.

It was found that the brand types (fast fashion vs unknown) and benefit appeals (self-benefit vs other benefit) did not elicit perceived corporate hypocrisy nor did them directly affect perceptions of CSR performance. However, there was a significant interaction effect of them. That is, fast fashion brand’s CSR performance was judged based on how the brand framed its sustainability claims. A fast fashion brand’s CSR label significantly increased hypocrisy perceptions when the label used a self-benefit appeal and the interactive effect of the fast fashion brand and the self-benefit appeal hindered the formation of a green brand image and brand purchase intentions.

This study adds a body of knowledge to the literature by examining the relationship between benefit appeals and perceived corporate hypocrisy from the perspective of CLT. The findings can help fast fashion marketers better understand the critical role of benefit appeals by acknowledging that the misuse of communication strategies may result in unfavorable consequences, thus ruining their efforts to improve their brand’s image.

This paper aims to explore the impact of corporate social responsibility and hypocrisy on the relationship among psychological contract violation, trust and perceived betrayal.

This study used purposive sampling and selected students in Taiwan as the research participants. The theory of psychological contract violation and consumer awareness process in violation hypocrisy on psychological contract violation were used to investigate the effect of its impact on trust and perceived betrayal. Then, the moderating effect of social responsibility and hypocritical on trust, and the mediating effect of trust between psychological contract violation and perceived betrayal were analyzed.

The results indicated that hypocrisy had a significant and negative impact on psychological contract violation toward trust; hypocrisy had a significantly positive impact on psychological contract violation toward perceived betrayal; trust had a significantly negative impact on perceived betrayal; perceived betrayal had a significantly positive impact on both direct and indirect revenges; trust had a mediating effect between hypocrisy toward psychological contract violation and perceived betrayal; and higher hypocrisy would produce a stronger effect through trust on the relationships between hypocrisy toward psychological contract violation and perceived betrayal.

Perception of consumers would differ whenever there were failures of service recovery occurred; especially, stronger betrayal feeling would be perceived with the companies who emphasized social responsibility and did not carry out what they should do. Research results could be references for companies whom advertising and praising social responsibility.

Hypocrisy often observed in the social responsibility practices of commercial enterprises is more likely to occur in social enterprises. However, this issue has received little research attention. This study explores, from a consumer perspective, the formation of perceived hypocrisy and its impact on the cognitive legitimacy of social enterprises.

This research conducted two experiments, and data were collected from 515 subjects in China to test the proposed hypotheses.

Behavioral inconsistency in social enterprises leads to consumers' perceived hypocrisy. The higher the perceived hypocrisy towards social enterprises, the weaker their cognitive legitimacy of social enterprises. At a lower level of inconsistency, the perceived hypocrisy of social enterprises was lower than that of commercial enterprises. Egoistic attribution to prosocial behavior moderated the negative effect of perceived hypocrisy on cognitive legitimacy. The stronger the egoistic attribution, the greater is the negative effect of perceived hypocrisy on the cognitive legitimacy of social enterprises.

Social entrepreneurs should be acutely aware of the harmful effects of hypocrisy on social enterprises. Social enterprises should not exaggerate their propaganda or be consistent with their words and actions.

This study innovatively analyzes the damage to the cognitive legitimacy of social enterprises caused by the hypocrisy that tends to occur in commercial enterprises and argues from the consumer viewpoint. These findings enrich the perspective on exploring social enterprise legitimacy.

Customer co-creation behaviors significantly affect a firm's performance and sustainable growth. This study tested the mediating role of corporate reputation in the relationship between corporate hypocrisy and two types of customer co-creation behaviors: customer citizenship behavior and customer participation behavior. The study also investigated the moderating effect of self-corporate brand connection on the corporate hypocrisy–corporate reputation relationship and the indirect relationship between corporate hypocrisy and customer co-creation behavior through corporate reputation.

The authors conducted a two-wave research survey with 346 Korean bank customers and tested our hypotheses using PROCESS Macro.

Corporate reputation mediated the relationship between corporate hypocrisy and customer citizenship/participant behavior. The negative effect of corporate hypocrisy on corporate reputation was more pronounced when self-corporate brand connection was high. Self-corporate brand connection further moderated the indirect effect of corporate hypocrisy on customer citizenship/participant behavior through corporate reputation.

The results clearly explain how corporate hypocrisy affects customer co-creation behavior. This study advances corporate hypocrisy and corporate reputation research by proposing and verifying a moderated mediation model.

This study aims to empirically examine the determinants of corporate hypocrisy and to investigate the potential negative impact on the consumer–brand relationship, specifically on trust, switch and resilience intentions.

A 2 (mission: no and yes) × 3 (sustainability activities: perfect, imperfect and no duty) experiment was developed. A total of 548 US consumers were randomly assigned to one of six case conditions and asked to respond to an online survey. The responses were analyzed by both two-way analysis of variance and PROCESS.

The results showed that respondents who saw clear sustainability goals in the companies’ mission statements had lower levels of corporate hypocrisy than those who did not, and when the mission statements and activities related to corporate sustainability were congruent, the respondents were less likely to elicit corporate hypocrisy than when they were not. Also, consumers showed lower levels of trust when corporate hypocrisy was present, which negatively impacted their switch and resilience intentions.

This study provided empirical evidence demonstrating how and to what extent corporate hypocrisy is formed by varying sustainability goals and activities. These findings urge brand managers to recognize the ripple effect created by a mismatch between their stated sustainability goals and their activities. Also, these findings could provide apparel management with guidelines for formulating and communicating companies’ sustainability goals and activities.

Drawing on the branded service encounters perspective, the purpose of this study is to investigate how frontline service employees’ environmentally irresponsible behaviors affect customers’ brand evaluations.

The research conducted two experiments. The first experiment explored the effect of frontline service employees’ environmentally irresponsible behaviors on customers’ brand evaluations via corporate hypocrisy. The second experiment explored the moderation effect of employees’ prototypicality and the importance of corporate social responsibility (CSR) among customers.

Experiment 1 indicates that for firms with a green brand image, frontline employees’ environmentally irresponsible behaviors result in customers’ perception that the firm is hypocritical, thus reducing their brand evaluations. Experiment 2 shows that employee prototypicality and CSR importance to the customer enhance the negative impact of frontline employees’ environmentally irresponsible behaviors on customers’ brand evaluations through customers’ perception of corporate hypocrisy.

This study is one of the first efforts to explore how frontline service employees’ environmentally irresponsible behaviors affect customers’ responses. It helps understand the impact of frontline employees’ counter-productive sustainable behaviors on customers’ brand perception, as well as the relationship between CSR and employees.

This study suggests that firms’ green brand image does not always lead to positive customer response. When frontline employees’ behaviors are inconsistent with firms’ green brand image, it can trigger customers’ perceptions of corporate hypocrisy and thus influence their brand evaluations. Therefore, firms should train frontline service employees to make their behaviors align with the firms’ green brand image.

This study is one of the first efforts to explore how frontline service employees’ environmentally irresponsible behaviors affect customers’ responses. It helps understand the impact of frontline employees’ counter-productive sustainable behaviors on customers’ brand perception, as well as the relationship between CSR and employee.

The call for consumption reduction behavior has been getting more attention from scholars and practitioners. However, the consumption reduction often receives backfire from consumers because it does not follow the business philosophy of demand creation. Thus, this research dissolves this issue by using a holistic corporate social responsibility (CSR) approach regarding sustainable development.

A conceptual model was developed to represent the proposed relationships among the related variables. The current study employed an online survey to collect data from 341 international program students of three prominent universities in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam.

The findings indicate that the perception of the holistic CSR negatively impacts perceived corporate hypocrisy, triggering in turn brand credibility, resulting in brand advocacy and mindful consumption behavior.

This research forms a holistic CSR including economic, environmental and societal dimensions and proposes that the holistic CSR triggers brand advocacy and mindful consumption behavior representing consumption reduction behavior via the mediating roles of perceived corporate hypocrisy and brand credibility. These findings contribute to theoretical and managerial implications in CSR practices with the aim of consumption reduction.

This paper aims to investigate a new predictor of knowledge hiding, namely, employee perceptions of corporate hypocrisy (PCH). Based on the social cognitive theory, this study constructs a moderated mediation model linking PCH and knowledge hiding. The theoretical model concentrates on the mediating role of moral identity and the moderating role of organization-based self-esteem (OBSE).

Two studies with different samples and designs were used. In Study 1, the experimental method explored whether PCH could elicit knowledge hiding under the condition of OBSE (H1 and H4). Study 2, an empirical method with three stages, tested the full mediated moderation model by adding to the mediating role of moral identity (H1–H4).

The results showed: PCH was positively related to knowledge hiding, moral identity mediated the influence of PCH on knowledge hiding and OBSE not only moderated the relationship between PCH and moral identity but also moderated the indirect effect of PCH on knowledge hiding (via moral identity). The present research sheds valuable light on the processes (how) and contingencies (when) whereby PCH affects knowledge hiding for the first time, thus extending prior research and encouraging further explorations on the topic of PCH and knowledge hiding. It informs practitioners that taking measures to decrease corporate hypocrisy plays a vital role in preventing workers from hiding knowledge.

The study’s distinctive contribution is to examine the mediating effect of moral identity and the moderating role of OBSE on the relationship between corporate hypocrisy and knowledge hiding, which through the lens of social cognitive theory. Thus, it furthers a deeper understanding of knowledge hiding and helps the organization understand the dynamics of knowledge management, such as prohibiting employee counterproductive behaviors in the workplace.