Participatory Corporate Social Responsibility: History
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Dongho Yoo

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) provides companies with two benefits: creating social value and strengthening consumer relationships. Companies implement various types of CSR to maximize the positive effects of CSR, participatory CSR being one of these types.

  • corporate social responsibility (CSR)
  • participatory CSR
  • participation level
  • CSR fit
  • social support

1. Introduction

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) plays the most important role in corporate sustainable management [1]. The social demand for corporate social value creation is continuously increasing, and companies are responding to this through CSR activities [2]. Companies are using CSR activities to manage relationships with stakeholders beyond contributing to society. In other words, CSR is a strategic tool that not only creates social value for companies but also positively improves the corporate image and strengthens relationships with consumers [3].
Companies have developed and implemented various types of CSR to effectively achieve the two goals of creating social value and improving consumer relationships [4]. Of these types, participatory CSR is a strategy used to increase the effectiveness of CSR through interaction with consumers [5][6]. By inducing consumer participation in CSR activities, companies enable consumers to experience identification and ensure they feel the sincerity of these activities [6][7]. As a result, participatory CSR can lead to positive evaluations and behavioral intentions of consumers [8]. For example, Coca-Cola implemented participatory CSR by donating money based on the consumers’ participation in recycling, leading to a positive evaluation by consumers [9]. Furthermore, many companies are conducting CSR activities by donating a portion of a product’s revenue based on consumer purchasing behavior [3]. Companies’ interest in, and practical application of, participatory CSR is steadily increasing, and companies implementing participatory CSR are encouraging consumer participation in a variety of ways. These participation methods include not only relatively easy participation, such as Charity Miles, where donations automatically accumulate while users run, walk, jog, bike, etc., simply by using the mobile app but also participation that requires greater effort, such as Coca-Cola’s campaign where participants must go to a vending machine to recycle. However, previous studies have shown little interest in the level of effort of participation that companies should present to consumers; thus, the results are unclear [4]. According to previous studies, the participation effort required in CSR activities may be perceived by consumers as providing benefits, such as the feeling of a ‘warm glow’ but may also be perceived as causing monetary/non-monetary costs [10]. In other words, consumer participation may negatively impact consumers’ perceptions of CSR. In this regard, researchers suggest that the participation level presented in participatory CSR can be perceived by consumers by the opposing concepts of benefits and costs, and examine whether such consumer perception is determined by CSR fit. CSR fit, which means the similarity between the corporate image and a CSR activity domain, is known to affect consumers’ perceptions of benefits/costs and consumer attribution [8][11][12]. According to previous studies, a high level of CSR fit causes consumers to think of corporate CSR motives as a method of social value creation and focuses on the purpose of CSR, but a low level of CSR fit results in them thinking of CSR motives as a method of corporate profit and focuses on the costs produced by CSR [8][12].

2. Participatory CSR

CSR refers to maximizing a company’s positive influence on society and minimizing its negative influence to create social value [13]. As the social demand for the sustainable management of companies increases, most companies are engaging in CSR activities in response to this, and CSR has become the most important factor in the sustainable management of a company [1]. CSR activities are helpful for companies in various ways, as they not only increase the social value of a company, they also help strengthen relationships with stakeholders, including consumers [7][14][15]. Indeed, many studies have shown that CSR helps to improve a company’s image and has a positive effect on consumers’ attitudes towards products and purchase intentions [1][16][17][18][19]. Thus, CSR is an effective strategic tool for businesses to meet social needs and improve relationships with consumers [3][4]; thus, CSR serves as a link between consumers and businesses.
Companies are now strategically developing and implementing various types of CSR to maximize its positive effects [4]. The most representative example is participatory CSR. Participatory CSR refers to CSR activities in which a company’s CSR activities are implemented through the participation of consumers [20][21]. Consumer participation in CSR allows consumers to positively perceive corporate CSR motives and increases their awareness of authenticity [5][6]. In addition, participatory CSR enables consumers to experience identification with CSR activities, thereby bringing about a positive attitude toward the company [7]. In other words, participatory CSR reduces consumers’ doubts about a company’s CSR activities and leads to a beneficial attitude towards the company [8].
A distinctive feature of participatory CSR is that the participation of consumers determines the success of CSR [4]. Accordingly, companies have been encouraging consumers to participate in various ways. For example, Coca-Cola conducted participatory CSR using reverse vending machines (RVM). In this campaign, when consumers recycled plastic cups through RVM, Coca-Cola accumulated points that reflect the number of recycled cups and donated this amount of money to support the Olympic Games. In addition, the Seoul Transportation Corporation in Korea conducted a CSR campaign in which donations that reflected the number of stairs that consumers walked at subway stations were accumulated [4]. Participation in participatory CSR includes financial, as well as non-monetary participation related to consumer behavior. A representative participatory CSR that asks consumers for financial participation is known as cause-related marketing (CRM). CRM refers to CSR in the form of consumers purchasing a product and having a portion of the product revenue donated to solve social problems [22]. In other words, consumers participate in CSR by purchasing products, and companies donate to social agendas based on consumer participation. In participatory CSR, companies can set different levels of participation even if the form of participation required by consumers is the same. For example, P&G set the participation level of CRM to be a 1% donation of product revenue, while Tommy Hilfiger set the participation level to a 50% donation. However, although companies are encouraging consumers to participate in CSR in various ways, previous studies have been insufficient in examining how consumers interpret the company’s request for participation. For this reason, the results of previous studies are unclear regarding what a company should set the level of participation to [4][5]. While some studies suggest that the level of participation presented in CSR has a positive effect on consumer response [23][24][25], other studies have shown a negative effect [26]. Therefore, understanding how consumers perceive the level of participation in CSR is important for the success of participatory CSR.
In this regard, recent prior studies have shown that the level of participation presented in CSR can be interpreted by two opposing roles for consumers. Yoo, Kim and Doh [3] showed that participatory effort in monetary form can be perceived as a benefit to consumers, but it can also be perceived as a monetary sacrifice. According to their experimental results, consumers who perceive their participation effort as a benefit have a positive intention to participate as their participation effort requested by the company increases, whereas those who perceived participation effort as a monetary sacrifice have a negative intention to participate as the participation effort requested by the company increases. In a similar vein, Ahn and Lee [5] revealed that a non-monetary form of participation effort may be perceived by consumers through the positive concept of a ‘warm glow’, or the negative concept of cost. Howie, Yang, Vitell, Bush and Vorhies [10] suggested that the level of participation required in CSR can be perceived by consumers as being characterized by the opposing concepts of benefits and costs. That is, the participatory effort presented to consumers in participatory CSR may be perceived as a benefit to consumers but may also be recognized as a monetary/non-monetary cost. If consumers perceive the benefits more than the costs, they have an intention to participate in the CSR campaign, but if they perceive the costs more than the benefits, their intention to participate becomes negative. Therefore, it is important for the success of participatory CSR to examine what consumers perceive as a participatory effort of participatory CSR and what factors determine it.

3. CSR Fit

Fit is defined as the perceived similarity between two concepts, such as a company’s product, brand image, or target market [22]. Therefore, the CSR fit refers to the perceived similarity between the characteristics of a company and the characteristics of its CSR activities [11].
The CSR fit influences the consumer’s evaluation of CSR activities and companies and affects their purchasing behavior [27]. Previous studies have shown that the higher the CSR fit, the more positive the evaluation of consumers. Speed and Thompson [28] found that a high CSR fit stimulates consumers’ interest and increases their liking of a company. Becker-Olsen, Cudmore and Hill [11] showed that the higher the CSR fit, the more easily the positive image of CSR activities is transferred to the company. They also argued that a low CSR fit increases consumers’ thinking, making them question the CSR motives of companies. In other words, CSR fit influences the way consumers think about corporate CSR motives.
According to previous studies, the CSR fit affects consumers’ perceptions of the motives of the companies that implement CSR [11]. When there is a high CSR fit, consumers think that the motive of the company is to create social value, and thus, they have a positive attitude toward the company and the CSR activities, whereas when the CSR fit is low, they perceive the motive as a pursuit of profit and have a negative attitude [8]. The CSR fit also affects consumers’ perceptions of benefits and costs. This is because the consumers’ perceptions of the motives of companies implementing CSR influence their perceptions of benefits/costs. Indeed, Habel, Schons, Alavi and Wieseke [12] showed that consumer perceptions of business motives influence their price perceptions. Specifically, consumers who judged the corporate motive for CSR activities as altruistic perceived the price as a benefit, but those who judged the corporate motive as self-serving perceived the price as a cost. When consumers make internal attributions to a company’s CSR activities, altruistic and social awareness is activated, so they perceive the price as a benefit to society. However, when they make external attributions, the perception of cost is activated and they perceive the price as a cost [11][29].

4. Social Support

Social support refers to the attention and support received from others in social relationships [30]. Consumers who receive social support feel that they are cared for, encouraged, valued, and guided by others [31][32]. Social support has long been considered a part of people’s psychological defense mechanisms and has played a role in enhancing self-esteem in social relationships [33][34].
Herein, it was expected that social support would affect the effectiveness of participatory CSR for two reasons. First, social support activates consumers’ social motivation [35][36]. Social motivation is a representative antecedent factor that leads consumers to engage in pro-social behavior [37]. That is, social support induces the pro-social behavior of consumers through the activation of social motivation. Social motivation also drives consumers to pursue social goals [35][36]. This means that social support induces consumers to focus on the purpose and value of corporate pro-social activities such as CSR. Second, social support can reduce consumers’ desire for money [33]. According to previous studies, social support can reduce the importance of money by activating consumers’ altruistic motives while simultaneously satisfying their needs for social relationships [33][38]. This is because the need for social relationships and the need for money have an interchangeable effect [39]. In other words, the need for money may reduce the need for social relationships [40][41], but satisfying the need for social relationships also reduces the need for money [42][43]. Indeed, Rindfleisch et al. [44] showed that family resources, such as guidance and emotional support, reduced the materialism of family members. Xu, Zhou, Ye and Zhou [33] demonstrated that social support reduces the spending pain experienced by consumers when purchasing a product, as social support decreases consumers’ awareness of the importance of money. Furthermore, Lasaleta et al. [45] showed that nostalgia that satisfies consumers’ social relationship needs reduces the importance of money.
In summary, social support drives consumers to pursue social goals and decreases their perception of costs. Applying this to the context of participatory CSR, it is expected that the interaction effect of the participation level and CSR fit on perceived benefits and costs will be different due to social support. First of all, if social support is not activated, the influence of the participation level on consumer perception will depend on the CSR fit. As mentioned earlier, when there is a high CSR fit, consumers perceive the level of participation as the size of the benefit. As a result, they have a positive intention to participate in CSR, judging that the benefits increase as the level of participation increases. However, when the CSR fit is low, the level of participation is perceived as the size of the cost, judging that the higher the level of participation, the higher the cost, resulting in a negative intention to participate in CSR.

This entry is adapted from the peer-reviewed paper 10.3390/bs13040285

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