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Merely being known as a highly ethical or strong performer cannot shield a company from every kind of crisis. From product failures to environmental and social issues, a brand’s ability to manage crises and rapidly regain consumer trust is essential. This study aims to explore whether consumer perceptions of a brands’ prior commitments to two different areas of corporate responsibility (social and product responsibility) alleviate the postcrisis attribution of accountability and further build brand resilience, examining differences between two types of crisis situations – values versus performance crises.

A scenario-based online survey on product versus ethical labor issues was conducted. The data were collected from a highly valid, nationwide sample set of more than a thousand US consumers. Multigroup structural equation modeling was used as the primary data analysis method.

A brand’s precrisis commitment to social responsibility was found to decrease attribution of accountability across both types of crises. It also strengthened brand resilience, but this effect was more prevalent in a performance than a values crisis. The effects of precrisis commitment to product responsibility on brand resilience were minimal or insignificant across crisis types.

Previous research underexplores which types of corporate responsibility commitments provide a firm with a better protection against crises. This study significantly advances the knowledge regarding the type of commitments that can substantially increase brand resilience, which supports the rationale of making stronger commitments to social responsibility than to product responsibility. Practical insights are provided into how investments in corporate social responsibility help alleviate consumers’ negative perceptions during the outbreak of a brand crisis and build more brand muscle that enables resilience against future crises.

This study aims to enhance the understanding of what significance consumers place on different aspects of corporate social responsibility (CSR) when evaluating and purchasing grocery brands and products.

The paper builds on existing literature and theories on CSR and marketing, as well as literature on consumers' perceptions of CSR related issues. The Swedish empirical study has two parts; the first explorative stage based on qualitative method and in‐store face‐to‐face interviews through which important consumer attitude‐based attributes of social responsibility are identified in a grocery context. The second quantitative part is based on questionnaires that describe the grocery brand positions and performances along these attributes.

Results point to three general attitude‐based dimensions for CSR positioning and that retail brands can indeed, in relation to leading national brands, build a CSR image. Further, this image is shown to have an impact on consumers' intention to buy. This is also the case for “me‐too” retail brands. The CSR dimension of greatest impact on overall CSR image is product responsibility, whereas human responsibility influences the customer purchase intentions the most. Environmental responsibility, perhaps the most commonly used CSR dimension, is in this study recognised to exert least impact on both overall CSR image and on purchase intentions.

This study is limited to a Swedish context and to one specific purchase situation. Future studies could involve validation of factor structure, relationship between CSR and preference, and ability to positioning in another market, perhaps in more mature markets in terms of well‐developed structures of CSR and health/organic organic products (e.g. the UK). A postal survey would allow the use of longer and evaluated measurement scales previously used in organic food research.

This study substantiates that retailer brands can indeed be distinctly positioned according to aspects other than price, e.g. as here exemplified, the concept of CSR. This relationship has hitherto not been identified outside the UK. The finding that CSR is less clearly connected to the expected dimension of environmental responsibility entails new added knowledge to this research field. The analysis has, moreover, resulted in more a simplified description of the basic dimensions of CSR containing three instead of, as often in the literature, six dimensions.

This paper has two purposes. First is to operationalise the concepts of corporate social responsibility (CSR) and trust in the context of a developing country, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). Second purpose is to test in a disaggregated perspective the impact of each CSR dimension on trust.

Data were collected from 264 customers of six banks and processed with exploratory, confirmatory factor analysis and structural equations using LISREL 9.1.

CSR is found to have five dimensions: legal responsibility, social needs responsibility, product responsibility, environmental responsibility and employee responsibility; trust is found to be a three-dimensional construct: integrity, compassion and partnership. Each CSR dimension has a positive impact on customers' perception of trustworthiness.

Reliability of trust is not high enough, suggesting the need to deepen research in order to find a more adapted CSR scale for banks. The smallness of sample size might have influenced the robustness of our psychometric results. CSR and trust relationships might be analysed in a more enriched framework including service quality, reputation and banks' employee performance as moderating variables. This paper has measured the two concepts from the customers' perspective only. However, both CSR and trust are best understood in a stakeholder perspective. So, it might be insightful to extend future research in a stakeholder orientation perspective.

Banks from developing countries are also concerned with CSR and should invest in it. Clearly, each dimension of CSR should receive enough importance if Congolese banks are to recover their customers' trust. The findings of the study also suggest that banks' customers are aware of the necessity for banks to comply with the country's legislation. Non-compliance can have severe influence on customers' trustworthiness to banks.

Financial institutions are generally evaluated through financial indicators. The findings suggest that banks customers and other stakeholders begin a shift towards requiring their banks to invest in social and environmental activities in order to improve their local milieu. These aspects are still very neglected, or adopted only as marketing strategies to improve image, without a true willingness to be socially responsive.

The two concepts are measured in a context where they did not receive enough importance (developing country), hence providing new knowledge in the field. Further, a disaggregated approach allowed understanding the way each CSR dimension impacts trust, which had not been the case in previous research.

The purpose of this paper is to explore how social responsibility initiatives can be integrated into different tiers of retailers’ private label brands (PLB) and introduces a conceptual model and opposing predictions building on research in social responsibility and evolutionary psychology. The empirical evidence from two studies suggests that retailers should consider the type of PLB (i.e. quality tier) in the introduction of social responsibility initiatives.

To investigate opposing predictions, the authors conducted two experiments with presence of social responsibility initiative and PLB quality tier as the factors. The authors present the results from 168 Canadian consumers focussing on two product categories.

The findings of two experiments are more consistent with an explanation based on resource synergy beliefs rather than costly signaling theory. Social responsibility initiatives enhanced consumer evaluations of high-quality PLBs, but hurt consumer evaluations of low-tier PLBs.

Retailers should differentiate the way they accommodate social responsibility initiatives based on the type of their PLBs. Specifically, the beneficial effect of social responsibility initiative only exist for high-tier PLBs. Introducing social responsibility initiatives may hurt preference for low-tier PLBs.

This paper is the first to propose two theoretical models that address how social responsibility initiatives can affect consumer evaluations of PLBs. The initial empirical evidence is more coherent with resource synergy beliefs explanation rather than costly signaling explanation. These results suggest that social responsibility initiatives have asymmetric effects for different tiers of retailers’ PLBs.

One of the most important developments in banking is the increased emphasis on marketing a wide array of financial services. This emphasis has led to the adoption of the product management system in one form or another by many large, full‐service commercial banks. The transition to a product management system has required banks to change how they organize and manage their operations. Examines several of the major challenges and issues faced by product managers in the banking environment, namely, the identification of the product managers’ task responsibilities; the role of organizational support in facilitating product management; the influence of organizational culture; and the impact of power and conflict on product managers and the product management system. Also examines how product managers assess their job performance, work satisfaction, and the performance of the overall product management system in their bank. Develops directions for future research as well as several managerial recommendations to improve product management performance in banking.

This paper aims to investigate a firm’s incentive to innovate its basic product to be socially responsible and its decision on the product line. By constructing a competition model, the paper examines the factors that affect the firm’s choice on its product line with the socially responsible innovation in the presence of altruistic consumers. Such factors include the proportion of the altruistic consumers, the firm’s coordination cost with the basic and innovative products, as well as the consumer’s transportation cost.

In a model of differentiated products with the competition, the author assumes that a portion of consumers has a strong preference for the socially responsible product (e.g. altruistic consumers). A firm is able to attract altruistic consumers with a socially responsible innovation but it may incur a coordination cost when both the basic and the innovated products are manufactured and sold. In a framework of a sequential game, the firms make a decision on the prices, innovation inputs, as well as the choice on its product line to achieve the expected profit maximization.

The firm has the incentive to engage in socially responsible innovation to better compete with its rivals. More importantly, the results of the paper explain why some firms wish to manufacture and sell the basic product even though the innovation is successful. The main factors that affect such a firm’s decision include the proportion of the altruistic consumers, the aggregate benefit to all the consumers who purchase the innovative product, the firm’s potential coordination cost and the consumer’s transportation cost.

The paper sheds light on a firm’s corporate social responsibility innovation and its product line determination. The results of this paper can be widely applied in the firm’s strategy of engaging in corporate social responsibility with eco-friendly elements that can attract altruistic consumers in the market. In addition, the findings of the paper can also contribute to policy formulation in terms of innovation. Such a result enables the policymakers to understand the factors that affect the firm’s motivation on innovation and helps them to better guide the firms efficiently participate in the research and development activities.

This paper aims to investigate whether corporate social responsibility (CSR) efforts that are oriented toward shared value creation generate any perceptual advantages in terms of consumer product attributes evaluations compared with other types of CSR. The study also uncovers consumers’ pathways that channel the impacts of corporate associations on corporate and product evaluations and purchase intention.

This study uses a between-subjects experimental design. In all, 274 undergraduate students from a North American university participated in the 2 (low versus high corporate ability levels) × 4 (CSR types) study. The data were analyzed using the methodologies of path analysis and multiple group analysis in the context of structural equation modeling procedure.

The findings show that in the context of shared-value CSR, CSR image (i.e. consumer judgments on the moral aspect of the company) can spill over to product attributes evaluations, including perceptions of “product innovativeness” and “product social responsibility,” which, in turn, translate to purchase willingness. Meanwhile, perceived corporate trustworthiness mediates the effects of CSR image and corporate ability (CA) image on the overall corporate evaluation, which subsequently influences consumer product evaluation and purchase intention.

The research provides direct evidence showing that companies have the potential to improve their corporate brand and, in turn, their product evaluations by putting a stronger emphasis on the social responsibility components of their image and placing this at the core of their strategic agenda. Importantly, a contribution to the literature by identifying differential effects of CA image versus CSR image on consumer perception of product innovativeness within different CSR categories is made. The limitations of the research are discussed, which include the usage of a fictitious company and brand and a convenience sample.

The study offers guidance to managers in regard to their choice of different CSR practices to fulfill their company’s product-related strategic goals.

The present study takes a critical stance to show that previous experimental work investigating the impact of CSR image on product evaluations relied predominantly on bipolar manipulations of CSR practices (bad versus good) rather than bringing many shades of CSR into consideration. By incorporating a wide array of CSR formats, especially value-creating CSR, current research generates potential implications based on differential effects of various CSR focuses, which have not been captured by previous studies.

Marketing managers have strategic choices when forming brand alliances. One such choice is integration, defined as the extent to which the offering is a fusion in the form and function of the partner brands. The paper aims to investigate how integration affects consumer attribution of responsibility to brand alliance partners.

This paper builds on the previous study on brand alliances and attribution theory. Multiple experiments are used to test three hypotheses.

This research shows that consumers are sensitive to the level of alliance integration, which, in turn, affects attributions of responsibility for the joint offering. Consistent with attribution theory, results show that responsibility for each brand varies systematically by integration and lead brand status vis-à-vis the alliance: while consumers perceive both brands as equally responsible for higher integration brand alliances, responsibility attributions diverge in lower integration alliances based on whether the brand is the alliance host. This pattern also holds for product-harm events.

It is important to explore brand alliance characteristics and to date, the level of integration between the partners has not been considered from a consumer standpoint. Consumers are sensitive to the level of partner brand integration and this perception influences perceptions of responsibility.

Managers should be aware that the level of brand alliance integration and lead brand status lead to different attributions of responsibility, which is strategically important, as brands seek to take credit in positive contexts and avoid blame for negative events.

This paper explores brand alliances via the level of integration and leads brand status, which are key determinants of consumer attributions of responsibility.

This paper aims to identify and define the content of corporate social responsibility (CSR) for the food chain.

A qualitative research approach was applied in the study, based on participatory and case study research methodologies. The study drew on three different case food products and their supply chains: rye bread, broiler chicken products and margarine. The content of CSR was built through participatory workshops, the aim of which was to elicit the ideas of different stakeholder groups.

The study identified seven key dimensions of food chain CSR: environment, product safety, corporate nutritional responsibility, occupational welfare, animal health and welfare, local market presence and economic responsibility.

The results provide food and agribusiness companies with a better understanding of core CSR issues and their relevance in complex chains and networks. This may encourage the companies to promote their activities in a more responsible and sustainable direction and offer elements to build sustainable business cases. In addition, the results may indicate a change towards broader understanding of what is meant by corporate social responsibility.

For smooth running of business affairs, there needs to be a coordination among manufacturer, collector and retailer in forward and reverse supply chain. This paper handles the problem of making pricing, collecting and percentage sharing decisions in a closed-loop supply chain. The purpose of this paper is to examine the effect of responsibility sharing percentage on the profits of a manufacturer, a retailer and a collector. The paper further aims to understand the mutual interactions among decision variables and profit functions. It also determines the optimal selling price, optimal time, wholesale price, sharing percentage and optimal return rate in such a manner that the profit function is maximized.

The authors presented a three-echelon model consisting of a manufacturer, a retailer and a collector in the closed-loop supply chain and optimized the profits of each supply chain member. The authors introduced SRR models for the remanufacturing by providing some percentage of physical and financial support to the collector. Optimization techniques have been applied to obtain optimal solutions. Numerical examples and graphical representations of the optimal solutions are provided to illustrate the model.

This study stresses on profitable value retrieval from returned products, and it discusses how responsibility sharing can improve profitability and reduce the workload of an individual. In total, three main results are found. First, sharing and coordination among chain members can improve collector’s profit. Second, supply chain performance may also improve over time. Third, the profit of each member of the supply chain increases with an increase in sharing percentage up to a certain limit. So, the manufacturer can share the responsibility of the collector under a fixed limit.

The main limitation of this model is that there is no difference between manufactured and remanufactured products. There are many correlated issues that need to be further investigated. The future study in this direction may include multi-retailer, stochastic demand patterns.

It is directly utilized by supply chain industries in which coordination among chain members is still needed to maximize profits. This information enables the manufacturer to assist the collector financially or physically for the proper management of the three-layer supply chain. The present work will form a guideline to choose the appropriate parameter(s) and mathematical technique(s) in different situations for remanufacturable products.

From the management point of view, this study delivers the strongest result to remanufacturing companies and for whom effective and efficient coordination among chain members is vital to the overall performance of the supply chain.

There are very few studies that consider the remanufacturing of used products under a fixed time period. The authors considered selling price-sensitive and time-dependent exponentially declining demand. This model is developed by considering all possible help to a collector from manufacturer to collect used products from consumers. This research complements past research by showing coordination among supply chain members within a fixed time horizon.