Disentangling Consumers’ CSR Knowledge Types and Effects
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Date
2022-09-22
Open Access Location
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
MDPI (Basel, Switzerland)
Rights
(c) 2022 The Author/s
CC BY 4.0
CC BY 4.0
Abstract
This paper examines consumers’ objective knowledge of corporate social responsibility (CSR) for brands over different product categories, and investigates whether objective knowledge influences attitudes to CSR, and the relationships between demographics and objective knowledge. The research uses an innovative approach to examining consumer CSR knowledge via (largely) unprompted recall. The analysis uses independent judges to score actual consumer objective knowledge of the CSR of well-known brands against the policies and actions of the brand owner. The research reveals that participants’ objective knowledge of CSR was limited or, in many cases, there was no knowledge. Further, the number and type of CSR policies did not influence overall evaluations of CSR. However, where objective knowledge was held, it did positively influence evaluations. The findings of the research direct managerial attention towards improvement of the communication of CSR, including using the research methodology here to evaluate the success of current communications
Description
Keywords
corporate social responsibility, business ethics, consumer knowledge, objective knowledge
Citation
Avis M, Konopka R, Gregory-Smith D, Palakshappa N. (2022). Disentangling Consumers’ CSR Knowledge Types and Effects. Sustainability (Switzerland). 14. 19.