Value Orientations And Consumer Expectations Of Corporate Social Responsibility

The idea of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) has become almost universally sanctioned and promoted by all constituents in society from governments and corporations to nongovernmental organizations and individual consumers. Close to90%of Fortune500firms embraced CSR as an essential element in their organizational goal, and actively promoted their CSR activities in annual reports. Meanwhile, most of the major international organizations such as the United Nations, World Bank, and Organization of Economic Co-operation not only endorse CSR, but have also established guidelines and permanently staffed divisions to research and promote CSR.However, the idea of CSR has not been widely accepted in China until the emergence of a range of social and ecological problems, product quality and resource problems, etc. Especially after Sichuan earthquake, CSR gained unprecedented attention from millions of companies, medium and individuals. Meanwhile, the public expectations of CSR have improved continuously. The failure for corporations to take social responsibility will result in dissatisfaction of consumers, and bad effect on themselves.Consumers typically have strong relationships with companies, and are thus one of the most important groups of stakeholders to be considered in marketing decisions. Furthermore, consumers are the driving force behind companies’CSR programmes and practices. However, issues that address the relationship between CSR expectations and consumer value orientations are still relatively obscure and under-reported in the literature. Therefore, the research on the relationship between value orientations and consumer expectations of CSR is conducted.By integrating normative and empirical analysis process, the research tries to explore the issues above. First, based on Carroll’s (1983) study, the consumer CSR expectations is categorized as economic, legal, ethical, and philanthropic. The value orientations is also divided into self-enhancement value and self-transcendent value, according to Schwartz’s (2003) theory. Therefore, the conceptual and analytical framework of value orientations and CSR expectations is constructed base on Rokeach’s (1973) and Feather’s (1975) abstraction and generalization process.Using sample survey,231consumers’responses were available. The SEM results indicate:(1) The Chinese consumers generally have high expectations of CSR, categorized as economic, legal, ethical, and philanthropic, especially in the philanthropic domain(5.49). The conclusion that the economic responsibility is the most important aspect (Carroll,1979) is not approved in China, which is similar to Dawkins and Lewis’s(2003), and Basil and Weber’s(2006) studies.(2) The ethical and philanthropic domains of CSR expectations are of the most important. Expectations for the ethical and philanthropic dimensions of CSR are higher amongst consumers holding high self-transcendent values. Moreover, consumers holding high self-enhancement values have higher expectations for the legal dimension of CSR, and lower expectations for the ethical and philanthropic dimensions. This also approves that the consumers’CSR expectations are consist with their value orientations.The theoretical contributions of this study are as follows:first, this study provides a new starting point for the CSR research, which is the relationship between CSR expectations and consumer value orientations. Then the construction of CSR evaluation system from a different perspective gives a reference for the measurement of CSR. Meanwhile, this study also has some practical implications. Companies should incorporate CSR in strategic marketing and communications decisions, because consumer expectations will affect their choices to buy or not. Furthermore, companies should also pay attention to the different consumer value orientation, and make sure the marketing positioning consists with consumer value orientations.