A Study Of The Impact Of Corporate Social Responsibility On Consumers’ Purchase Intention

Thirty years of opening and reform in China has witnessed fast and continuous developmentof economy, dramatic advance of overall national strength as well as obvious improvement ofpeople’s living standard. Whereas, since China is still in the transition period of economy and themarket economy system is far from sound, corporate social responsibility (CSR) level legs behindthe development of economy, which not only baffles the deepening of economic reform but alsoexacerbates all kinds of social contradictions.Consumer is the most important stakeholder of the company. If they can use the “currencyvotes” to support socially responsible companies and reject the products of the sociallyirresponsible companies, the companies will be motivated to undertake social responsibility andthe consumer’s benefits will in turn be protected. In this way, a benign and interrelatedrelationship between CSR and consumer’s purchase intention (PI) will be self-fulfilled. Based onthe above analysis, the author deems that the study on the relationship between CSR and PI hassignificant theoretical and pragmatic meaning.The previous study on the relationship between CSR and PI reveals that most consumersbelieve that companies should undertake social responsibility and CSR performance is related toconsumers’ PI. The majority of these researches in this field takes consumers of developedcountries as the object of study and fails to consider the impact of different social, culturalbackground and different stages of economic development on the relationship between CSR andPI. For the moment, a gap exists in the research of the relationship between CSR and PI indeveloping countries like China. Questions as follows need to be answered: Does CSR haveimpact on consumers’ PI in daily life? If yes, how much is the impact? What are the reasons forconsumer’s PI being or not being affected by CSR? Are there CSR conscious consumers asexpected by the society in China? If CSR does affect consumers PI, how does this kind ofinfluence work? What kind of consumers will be more deeply affected by CSR in terms of their PI?Study on these questions can be found in relative literatures but no unanimous conclusions haveyet been reached and almost no attempt has been made to find out answers to these questions in aChinese setting.By adopting theories and methods from different fields, such as marketing, economics,psychics and CSR, this study focuses on the relationship between CSR and PI in China. By meansof semi-structured interviews, surveys and experiments, the paper carries out an empirical researchin the following three aspects.First, do CSR affect PI?---a study on the types, characteristics of consumers and thereasons for, influencing factors of the impact of CSR on PI in light of CSR For the moment, in China some researches have been made on whether CSR has impact on PIbut they did not reveal the degrees of and reasons for this impact. Also no division of consumershas been made based on the different degrees of CSR impact on PI. Since no existing researcheshave taken into consideration consumer’s response to CSR and purchase decision-making processsimultaneously, this paper attempts to combine the impact of CSR on PI with the five stages ofconsumer’s purchase decision making process. This paper categorizes consumers based on thedifferent degrees of CSR impact on consumer’s PI. The distribution, characteristics and impact ofdifferent types of consumers as well as reasons behind it are also explored in this paper.Secondly, how does CSR affect consumer’s PI?---a study on the intermediating effectof consumer’s identification between CSR and consumer’s PI.For the moment, most studies focus mainly on CSR per se. In these studies, the impact ofCSR on consumer’s identification and accordingly consumer’s PI is analyzed based on the CSRlevel of a virtual company, with factors influencing consumer’s identification seldom beingmentioned. Instead, this paper takes the philanthropic activities of a real company from beverageindustry as the object of study. By means of surveys, consumers’ subjective feelings of CSR areanalyzed to make clear if CSR can impact PI directly or via consumer identification or both. Thepaper also explores the factors that may influence the relationship between CSR and consumer’sidentification in order to find out how the impact of CSR on PI can be enhanced.Thirdly, what kind of consumers will be more significantly affected by CSR?---a studyon the moderating effect of consumer’s individual characteristics between CSR andconsumer’s PI.There is already a lot of study on consumer’s individual characteristics as variablesinfluencing consumer’s purchasing decision. Comparatively, not enough attempts have been madeto identify consumer’s individual characteristics that may have moderating effect between CSRand consumer’s PI. Thus, based on theories of consumer decision making and consumer’s realfeelings revealed in surveys, this study tests the moderating effect of four consumer characteristicvariables between CSR and consumer’s perceived CSR (PCSR) level, as well as between PCSRand consumer’s PI. The study is based on experiments carried out in a virtual company inbeverage industry with consumer’s individual differences being taken into consideration.Conclusions as follows are reached via the above three studies:First, CSR has already attracted great attention in China and the purchasing behavior of mostconsumers has more or less been affected by CSR. It is still necessary to enlarge the size ofconsumers that are CSR conscious.Secondly, gender and income of consumers do not have significant impact on the relationshipbetween CSR and PI. The higher the consumer’s education background, the deeper the impact ofCSR on PI. The elder the consumer, the lower the impact of CSR on PI.Thirdly, PCSR may promote PI and consumer’s identification. Consumer’s identification inturn contributes partly to the moderating effect between PCSR and PI. Whether or not consumers, especially return customers know about CSR activities has significant impact on consumeridentification.Fourthly, consumer’s happiness index has positive moderating effect between PCSR and PI.Consumer’s expectation on CSR has positive moderating effect between CSR and PCSR.Perceived consumer effectiveness (PCE) has neither moderating effect between CSR and PCSR,nor between PCSR and PI but it can promote PI. Consumer’s CSR support has moderating effectbetween CSR and PCSR as well as between PCSR and PI.Fifthly, for the moment, consumers are not fully aware of the impact of their consumerbehaviors. Reliable and easily accessible information about CSR is deficient. Provision andenrichment of CSR information as well as enhancing consumer’s CSR awareness can increase theimpact of CSR on PI.The paper attempts to innovate in the following aspects:First, the impact of CSR on PI is combined with consumer’s purchasing decision makingprocess. The different degrees of impact of CSR on different stages of purchasing decision makingprocess are explored by combining semi-structured interviews and surveys. Based on thecategorization of consumers into precontemplators, contemplators, action-oriented andmaintainers accordingly, the distribution, characteristics and relative reasons of different types ofconsumers as well as influencing factors are analyzed.Secondly, with a real company as the object of study and by emphasizing the subjectivity ofconsumer’s perception, the study explores how CSR affects consumer’s PI via consumeridentification and which factors may influence the relationship between CSR and consumeridentification. The study reveals that the more consumers know about CSR, the more consciousthey are of CSR. It is especially true with return customers, who may have higher PI indirectly viaincreased PCSR and consumer identification.Thirdly, consumer’s individual characteristics as variables influencing the relationshipbetween CSR and PI are further explored. Consumer’s subjective feelings are emphasized whenthe moderating effect of these variables between CSR and PCSR, PCSR and PI is studied. Also, anew moderating variable between CSR and PI, namely consumer’s happiness index, is found inthe study. As one of the most important individual characteristics of consumer, happiness indexhas been given more and more attention in recent society. Study in this paper shows that with twodifferent levels of PCSR, consumers with higher happiness index differ greatly in PI thanconsumers with lower happiness index.The results of this study contributes to relative CSR and consumer behavior theories andprovides theoretical guidelines for relative authorities and companies to formulate correspondingpolicies and measures in order to encourage companies to voluntarily undertake socialresponsibilities and consumers to respond to CSR actively, which will promote the CSRmovement in China as well as the sustainable development of both companies and the society.