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Doing Poorly by Doing Good: Corporate Social Responsibility and Brand Concepts
CARLOS J. TORELLI
ALOKPARNA BASU MONGA
ANDREW M. KAIKATI
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Carlos J. Torelli (ctorelli@umn.edu) is Assistant Professor of Marketing, Carlson School of
Management, University of Minnesota, 19th Avenue South, Minneapolis, MN 55455. Alokparna
(Sonia) Basu Monga (alokparna.monga@moore.sc.edu) is Assistant Professor of Marketing,
Darla Moore School of Business, University of South Carolina, 1705 College Street, Columbia,
SC 29208. Andrew M. Kaikati (akaikati@uga.edu) is Assistant Professor of Marketing, Terry
College of Business, University of Georgia, 111 Brooks Hall, Athens, GA 30602.
Correspondence: Carlos J. Torelli. The authors acknowledge the helpful input of the editor, associate editor, and reviewers. In addition, the authors thank Ashwani Monga for comments on an earlier version of this article. The authors are grateful for grants to the first author from the
Institute for Research in Marketing and the Graduate College of the University of Minnesota and to the second author from the Darla Moore School of Business research grant program.
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Although the idea of brand concepts has been around for a while, very little research addresses how brand concepts may influence consumer responses to CSR activities. Four studies reveal that communicating the CSR actions of a luxury brand concept causes a decline in evaluations, relative to control. A luxury brand’s self-enhancement concept (i.e., dominance over people and resources) is in conflict with the CSR information’s self-transcendence concept (i.e., protecting the welfare of all), which causes disfluency and a decline in evaluations. These effects don’t emerge for brands with openness (i.e., following emotional pursuits in uncertain directions) or conservation (i.e., protecting the status quo) concepts that do not conflict with CSR. The effects for luxury brand concepts disappeared when the
Doing Poorly by Doing Good: Corporate Social Responsibility and Brand Concepts
CARLOS J. TORELLI
ALOKPARNA BASU MONGA
ANDREW M. KAIKATI
2
Carlos J. Torelli (ctorelli@umn.edu) is Assistant Professor of Marketing, Carlson School of
Management, University of Minnesota, 19th Avenue South, Minneapolis, MN 55455. Alokparna
(Sonia) Basu Monga (alokparna.monga@moore.sc.edu) is Assistant Professor of Marketing,
Darla Moore School of Business, University of South Carolina, 1705 College Street, Columbia,
SC 29208. Andrew M. Kaikati (akaikati@uga.edu) is Assistant Professor of Marketing, Terry
College of Business, University of Georgia, 111 Brooks Hall, Athens, GA 30602.
Correspondence: Carlos J. Torelli. The authors acknowledge the helpful input of the editor, associate editor, and reviewers. In addition, the authors thank Ashwani Monga for comments on an earlier version of this article. The authors are grateful for grants to the first author from the
Institute for Research in Marketing and the Graduate College of the University of Minnesota and to the second author from the Darla Moore School of Business research grant program.
3
Although the idea of brand concepts has been around for a while, very little research addresses how brand concepts may influence consumer responses to CSR activities. Four studies reveal that communicating the CSR actions of a luxury brand concept causes a decline in evaluations, relative to control. A luxury brand’s self-enhancement concept (i.e., dominance over people and resources) is in conflict with the CSR information’s self-transcendence concept (i.e., protecting the welfare of all), which causes disfluency and a decline in evaluations. These effects don’t emerge for brands with openness (i.e., following emotional pursuits in uncertain directions) or conservation (i.e., protecting the status quo) concepts that do not conflict with CSR. The effects for luxury brand concepts disappeared when the
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