Consumer Purchasing: When Does Corporate Social Responsibility Matter?

Almost all companies engage in corporate social responsibility (CSR) programs, and often times consumers are unaware of this. As societal pressures on companies and organizations to be more responsible increases, so have the practices companies have undertaken. My research will examine the potential impact a company’s CSR information and practices have on a consumer’s purchasing intentions. It will answer the following two questions: Does CSR information have the ability to change a person’s purchase intentions in high and low involvement purchasing scenarios? Will a person’s individual level of social responsibility cause differences in purchase intentions among different purchasing scenarios? Exposure to a variety of different purchasing scenarios will attempt to uncover connections between CSR efforts and purchase intentions. Results from the study show that CSR makes a big difference to consumers in high-involvement purchasing scenarios