Price-related consequences of corporate social (ir)responsibility

Abstract

While corporate social responsibility (CSR) and corporate social irresponsibility (CSI) have, respectively, positive and negative effects on consumers’ brand responses, their price-related consequences are often overlooked in extant literature. Drawing on attribution theory and negativity bias, we examine the impact of brands’ (ir)responsible behavior on consumers’ multiple price perceptions by applying Van Westendorp’s ‘pricing footprint’. In four experimental studies we show that consumers’ lower price perceptions following CSI are robust and the magnitude of CSI’s impact is greater than that of CSR in the higher price categories (expensive, too expensive). The positive effects of CSR are contingent on the specific CSR domain and the public/private consumption status of the product. Social (versus environmental) CSR generates higher price perceptions, and the magnitude of its impact outperforms that of CSI in the lower price categories (too cheap, cheap). The positive effects of environmental CSR are limited, particularly for privately consumed products.