The Effect of Corporate Social Responsibility on Customer Donations to Corporate-Supported Nonprofits

Abstract

Both theory and recent research evidence suggest that a corporation's socially responsible behavior can positively affect consumers’ attitudes toward the corporation. The effect occurs both directly and indirectly through the behavior's effect on customer–corporation identification. The authors report the results of four studies designed to replicate and extend these findings. Using a field survey design, Study 1 provides evidence that perceived corporate social responsibility affects not only customer purchase behavior through customer–corporate identification but also customer donations to corporate-supported nonprofit organizations. Using experimental designs, Studies 2 and 3 replicate and extend the Study 1 findings by providing additional evidence for the mediating role of customer–corporate identification on the relationship between corporate social responsibility and customer donations. However, the combined results of Studies 2 and 3 also show that because of a “perceived opportunity to do good” by supporting a company that is changing its ways, consumers are more likely to donate to a corporate-supported nonprofit when the corporation has a weaker historical record of socially responsible behavior. Finally, Study 4 tests the relationship between the nonprofit domain and the domain of the corporation's socially responsible behavior as a boundary condition for this effect.