Corporate Social Responsibility Research

WHEN CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY POSITIVELY OR NEGATIVELY INFLUENCE THE CONSUMER ATTITUDE AND BEHAVIOR

Introduction

The quick enhance of corporate social responsibility (CSR) practices in many firms, a problem about the way in employee attitudes and behaviors has become critical. Nowadays, corporations devote their resources to corporate social responsibility (CSR) presuming that “doing good always leads to doing better” (Sen & Bhattacharya, 2001). There is a growing belief that CSR is a source of competitive advantage for the firms (Hart, 1995; Shrivastava, 1995) because it enhances firms’ reputation which results in favorable behaviors of different stakeholder groups such as employees, community and particularly consumers (Brown &

CSR literature is still lacking commonly accepted definition of Corporate Social Responsibility (Carroll, 1991; Garriga & Melé, 2004; T.M. Jones, 1995; Kakabadse, Kakabadse, & Rozuel, 2007; McWilliams & Siegel, 2001). According to the well known and widely cited definition of CSR, “the social responsibility of business encompasses the financial, lawful, principled and unrestricted hope that society has of organizations at a given point of time” (Carroll, 1979, p. 500). In nastiness of the growing consequence of CSR, the literature still lacks its commonly accepted definition (Carroll, 1991; Garriga & Melé, 2004). Some scholars (Matten & Crane, 2005; McIntosh, Thomas, Leipziger, & Coleman, 2002) do not endorse Carroll’s interpretation of CSR. They propose that CSR should be beyond economic and legal responsibilities because every business must practice them. For instance, Matten and Moon suggest that “CSR is differentiated from business fulfillment of core profit-making responsibility and from the social responsibilities of government” (2008, p. 405). Similarly, McWilliams and Siegal (2001) also define CSR in a way that does not include economic and legal responsibility; they define it as “actions that appear to further some societal good, ahead of the wellbeing of the firm and that which is required by law” (p. 117). Jones too define the CSR in a same way as “the notion that corporations have an obligation to constituent groups in society other than stockholders and beyond that prescribed by law or union contract….. (1980, p. 59). While illustrating the challenges associated with the construct of CSR, Henderson (2001, p. 21) describes that ‘‘there is no solid and well-developed consensus which provides a basis for action’’. The lack of an ‘‘all-embracing definition of CSR’’