A Study On The Mechanism Of Social Value Orientation In Brand Cross-border Philanthropic Behavior On Consumer Evaluation In The Source Country

Along with the development of international brand management,enterprises can use cross-border philanthropic activities as a strategic marketing behavior to enhance the competitive advantage of the brand in the host market.Numerous studies have demonstrated that host-country consumers will evaluate branded cross-border philanthropy positively in terms of perceived legitimacy,brand identity,brand image association,and moral sentiment,which in turn will enhance host-country consumers’ positive evaluation of the brand.However,brands often face the new challenge of helping the host country and losing the support of consumers in the home country,such as criticism and even boycotts by consumers in the source country of the brand that has made a cross-border charitable donation.Most of the existing studies are based on the perspective of the host country,which is no longer applicable to analyzing the evaluation of brand philanthropy by domestic consumers;at the same time,there are few studies that can change the perspective to explore the evaluation of brand philanthropy by home country consumers.Therefore,solving the problem of "how to help outsiders in order to get insiders support" is a realistic need to improve the effect of brand philanthropy on home country consumers,and an important opportunity to innovate the theory of transnational philanthropic marketing.This study proposes that the differences in home country consumers’ evaluations of transnational philanthropic behavior are due to the influence of different social values orientations.Self-transcendence values focus on concern for the well-being of others,while self-enhancement values seek control over others and resources,so self-enhancement values-oriented home country consumers will evaluate branded transnational philanthropic behavior more negatively than self-transcendence values-oriented home country consumers.At the same time,this study proposes the mechanism of the role of differential justice perception in it through the lens of the differential order pattern in Chinese culture,and points out the boundary role played by the suddenness of events.This paper will demonstrate the above issues through two experimental studies.Experiment 1 examines the impact of consumers’ social value orientation on brand evaluations of cross-border philanthropic behavior and the mediating role of perceptions of differential justice;Experiment 2 examines how event acuteness reverses the negative impact of self-enhancement value-oriented consumers’ evaluations of brands.The results show that(1)when brands engage in cross-border philanthropy,home country consumers with self-enhancement values orientation will evaluate brand cross-border philanthropy more negatively than source-country consumers with self-transcendence values orientation,mediated by differential justice perceptions.Specifically,source-border consumers with self-enhancement(vs.self-transcendence)value orientation in brand cross-border philanthropy will have lower perceptions of differential justice,and thus exhibit lower brand evaluations.(2)Considering the cause acuteness of the cross-border charity,when the event is a sudden disaster,home country consumers with self-enhancement value orientation will increase their perceptions of differential justice and thus reduce their negative evaluations of the brand,which is not significantly different from those with self-transcendence value orientation;when the event is ongoing tragedy,source-country consumers will not reverse their brand evaluations.This study introduces the differential order pattern of Chinese local culture into the field of cross-border charity marketing,which enriches the theory of cross-border charity marketing and provides corresponding management insights to enhance the marketing performance of brands’ cross-border charity behaviors to consumers in their home countries.