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Understanding Corporate Social
Responsibility and Product Perceptions
in Consumer Markets:
A Cross-cultural
Evaluation
Jaywant Singh
Maria del Mar Garcia de los Salmones Sanchez
Ignacio Rodriguez del Bosque
ABSTRACT. The concept of corporate social responsi-
bility is becoming integral to effective corporate brand
management. This study adopts a multidimensional and
cross-country perspective of the concept and analyses
consumer perceptions of behaviour of four leading con-
sumer products manufacturers. Data was collected from
consumers in two countries – Spain and the UK. The
study analyses consumers� degree of interest in corporate responsibility and its impact on their perception about the
company. The findings here suggest a weak impact of
company-specific communication on consumers� per- ception. The implications of this study are relevant to
companies for strengthening their social responsibility
associations with the consumers.
KEY WORDS: Corporate Social Responsibility, con-
sumer perceptions, corporate communication, product
evaluations
Introduction
Corporate brand image management has become a
key strategic activity for many companies today. The
importance of corporate social responsibility (CSR)
for companies is seen in the form of numerous ini-
tiatives, forums and associations arising in public and
private sector environments. Examples include The
European Multi-stakeholder Forum for CSR, the
European Commission Green Paper and the OECD
guideline directives for multinational companies.
International networks have also been created to
develop the concept, e.g. CSR Europe, the Euro-
pean Ethic Business Network, along with the
appearance of financial indices composed of com-
panies that fulfil a series of social criteria, such as the
FTSE4Good and the Down Jones Sustainability.
Currently there are over 2200 members supporting
the United Nations World Pact 1 . Around 90 com-
panies are following Global Reporting Initiatives
Principles 2
as guidelines for drawing up their annual
reports.
Frederick (1994) foresaw the birth of a new era in
which a sense of proactive corporate responsibility
would mature. In more recent times, academic
research has focused on understanding the nature of
corporate social behaviour as a part of overall cor-
porate brand image. In this respect, a number of
Dr. Jaywant Singh is Senior Lecturer at Kingston University,
London where he teaches consumer behaviour and interna-
tional marketing. His research interests include customer
loyalty, product variants, new brands, corporate social
responsibility, and consumer panel data. He received his PhD
in marketing in 2004.
Dr. Maria del Mar Garcia de los Salmones is Lecturer at
University of Cantabria (Spain). Her current research inter-
ests include corporate social responsibility, brand image and
consumer behaviour. She received her PhD in business
administration in 2002.
Dr. Ignacio Rodriguez del Bosque is Professor of Marketing at
the University of Cantabria (Spain). His current research
interests include business communication, relationship mar-
keting and distribution channels. He has published in several
international journals such as Tourism, Management,
Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services and
Industrial Marketing Management.
Journal of Business Ethics (2008) 80:597–611 � Springer 2007 DOI 10.1007/s10551-007-9457-6
studies (e.g. Barich and Kotler, 1991; Barich and
Srinavasan, 1993; Marckwill and Fill, 1997) have
identified corporate image as a multidimensional
concept. Two important dimensions of this concept
identified by the researchers are – corporate social
and commercial responsibilities (e.g. Brown and
Dacin, 1997; Berens et al., 2005; Sen and Bhat-
tacharya, 2001).
The purpose of this study is twofold – to estimate
the degree of interest aroused in consumers through
a company�s CSR information reaching to them, and to verify how perceptions of a company�s so- cially responsible behaviour affects its corporate
image. Specifically, the study examines the direct
effects and the possible existence of a non-linear
relationship between CSR perception and the brand
image. The relationship between variables could be
affected by external factors, such as demographic and
behavioural features. These factors are also taken
into consideration here.
This study has been carried out across two coun-
tries – United Kingdom (UK) and Spain. A cross-
cultural analysis could help identify the similarities
and the differences between the consumers� percep- tions of CSR issues. Specifically, four leading man-
ufacturers of frequently bought consumer products
were chosen on the basis of their market-share
leadership in their respective product categories. The
choice of leading and well-known brands enabled
better responses with higher levels of accuracy about
recall of how the companies� social actions are per- ceived and also how they affect various associations of
their image. The primary data analysed here were
collected through personal surveys.
Corporate social responsibility: Current state
of research
A majority of the large corporations function under
an obligation to maximise shareholder earnings by
undertaking actions that increase business profit
(Friedman, 1962). However, in order to create value
they are also increasingly taking other interest groups
into account, such as their employees, customers,
suppliers, the government and the community in
which they operate (e.g. Clarkson, 1995; Donaldson
and Preston, 1995; Esrock and Leichty, 1998). The
idea started taking shape from the 1960s onwards
with the realisation that firms have responsibilities
towards their environment that go beyond their legal
and economic obligations (McGuire, 1963). Thus
companies have ethical obligations with all their
stakeholders and are expected to be society-oriented,
having voluntary activities aiming to raise the well-
being of the society as a whole (e.g. Carroll, 1979,
1991; Lewin et al., 1995; Maignan and Ferrell,
2001). Together these aspects constitute the basis for
corporate social responsibility.
The economic dimension is supposed to be a part
of the CSR. However, the way this dimension is
perceived and its relationship with CSR differs
greatly amongst companies and the consumers.
Some studies (e.g. Maignan and Ferrell, 2001) have
cast doubt on the way the construct of CSR is
understood by the companies. Aupperle et al. (1985)
suggest that the economic dimension inversely cor-
relates to ethical, legal and philanthropic associations.
These authors also consider the categories of �con- cern for society�, which include the three dimen- sions, along with the �concern for economic results�. Garcia de los Salmones et al. (2005) demonstrated
that for consumers, the economic dimension need
not be included in the overall CSR construct.
The economic responsibility, however, does not
merely suggest a pursuance of profit. It also includes
generating value and it translates into training and
motivating the staff involved in the sales process,
innovation and improvement of the productive
processes to offer quality products (De la Cuesta
and Valor, 2003). Thus from the consumer view-
point it is closely related to product commercialisa-
tion (Graafland et al., 2004). This dimension may
therefore be termed ‘‘commercial responsibility’’.
The management of socially responsible behav-
iour is important because of its impact on the per-
ception of the corporate brand. This is often evident
in the corporate brand dominance strategies where
brand associations include both attributes pertaining
to the product and those related to the company�s social activities (Balmer, 1995; Brown and Dacin,
1997). Rust et al. (2000) suggest enriching a brand
with ethical and social questions increases its value.
These associations may influence the consumer in
their assessment of products and in their recom-
mendations or brand loyalty (e.g. Brown and Dacin,
1997; Berens et al., 2005; Handelmann and Arnold,
1999; Lafferty and Goldsmith, 1999; Maignan et al.,
598 Jaywant Singh et al.
1999), as well as their evaluation of a brand manu-
facturer (e.g. Brown and Dacin, 1997; Fombrun and
Shanley, 1990; Swaen and Vanhamme, 2005).
Most studies testing consumers� perceptions of socially responsible behaviour are usually experi-
mental in nature. This means that the respondents
are presented with contrived scenarios, often with
fictitious brands and their responses are subsequently
measured (e.g. see Berens et al., 2005; Brown and
Dacin, 1997; Handelmann and Arnold, 1999; Sen
and Bhattacharya, 2001; Swaen and Vanhamme,
2005). In a real context (with well-known consumer
brands) the results may vary, because CSR practices
are not well-known, either due to their complexity
and their multidimensional nature (Mohr et al.,
2001), or due to the lack of communication forth-
coming from the companies about these matters.
Thus, it would be interesting to determine, first, to
what extent consumers know about the social
responsibility records of some CSR-oriented cor-
porations (Maignan, 2001).
Another significant issue is the possible existence
of cross-cultural differences in perceptions and
positioning about CSR. Culture has been docu-
mented as one of the most important variables
influencing ethical decision-making (Rawwas, 2001;
Rawwas et al., 2005). Crucially, consumer ethics has
been reported to vary from nation to nation due to
historical patterns of behaviour (Babakus et al.,
1994) and different concepts, norms and values
(Rawwas et al., 2005). This has previously been
studied in works generally focused on students and
other groups from dissimilar cultures. For instance,
Vitell and Paolillo (2004) and Vitell and Ramos
(2006) measured the perceived role of ethics and
social responsibility as a component of business
decisions on a sample of marketing professionals
from Europe and the United States. Similarly, Quazi
and O�Brien (2000) tested a two-dimensional model of CSR with a survey of chief executive officers
from Bangladesh and Australia.
With students as sample, some of the studies have
analysed differences in attitudes towards business
ethics (e.g. Grünhaum, 1997; Lysonski and Gaidis,
1991), ethical beliefs and moral philosophies
(Ahmed et al., 2003; Babakus et al., 2004; Rawwas
et al., 2005). Other studies, such as Burtin et al.
(2000) and Maignan (2001) are more focused on the
CSR concept and they examine differences in eco-
nomic, ethic, legal and philanthropic orientation
between students from different cultural settings –
USA and Hong Kong in the first case and between
U.S. and Europe in the second one.
The studies cited above have covered several
aspects of CSR, however most are focused on coun-
tries or continents that are economically and culturally
divergent. Little is known about the cross-cultural
perceptions in culturally homogeneous settings, such
as countries within one trading block or economic
area. Analysing differences in a culturally less-distant
setting would have more relevance, primarily because
the differences are less evident a priori (Polonsky
et al., 2001). Studies by Polonsky et al. (2001),
Rawwas et al. (1994) and Al Khatib et al. (2005)
compare neighbouring countries, but they focus on
ethics only. More work is needed to understand this
aspect of cross-cultural CSR perceptions.
Moreover, the existing literature does not have
many studies focused on consumers. Rawwas et al.
(2005) gathered data of a sample of individuals, but
they analyse the ethical and moral positioning, not
their perceptions about the business in CSR matters.
This study aims to fill this gap.
Research hypotheses
This study is centred on CSR perceptions of con-
sumers from two European countries – UK and
Spain. Their geographical location, in northern and
southern Europe, marks differences on several issues.
The two are culturally similar to an extent being part
of the European Union. At the same time, they have
differences that make their comparison interesting.
For instance, these are countries with their own
political traditions, historical and cultural develop-
ments (Bohata, 1997) that explain cultural (Hofstede,
1983) and ethical differences (Al Khatib et al., 1997;
Polonsky et al., 2001; Rossouw, 1994). Besides their
location in the north and south of Europe, marked
differences exist in overall economic development
and growth (Polonsky et al., 2001).
Even though a number of studies have attempted
to establish the link between CSR and a corporate
brand�s market performance, not much is known about how consumers perceive socially responsible
behaviour of frequently bought consumer goods
brands. Generally, consumers may show a high level
Understanding Corporate Social Responsibility 599
of awareness about a brand in a product category,
and at the same time might not know about the
manufacturer�s activities for the society�s benefit. Therefore it is appropriate to determine the extent
to which consumers perceive the manufacturers of
well-known brands inform them about their social
practices and analyse if they show an interest in
information about their social and ethical practices.
This knowledge of the consumers� perceptions could be crucial for developing an informed communica-
tion strategy for a CSR-minded company.
The corporate social communication directed to
consumers is still at an early stage of development
(Bigne et al., 2005). Mostly information on these
matters are found in the companies� annual reports. In fact several studies (e.g. Gray et al., 1995) con-
sider the CSR information to be directed to the
financial segment. However, consumers are known
to notice the more tangible aspects that might
influence their buying decisions directly, such as,
quality, innovation, compliance to standards, guar-
antees and other information provided about the
product (Fombrun, 1996; Maignan and Ferrell,
2001) – issues generally subsumed under commercial
responsibility. The ethical and social associations go
relatively unnoticed because the influence is usually
indirect and the concepts being of secondary
importance for most customers.
The impact of this commercial responsibility is
that businesses try to reach the consumers with a
concerted marketing effort, because this is easily
perceived. This is independent of the country or
cultural differences. However in different countries,
differences about the perception of CSR informa-
tion may appear. For example, UK is ahead of Spain
in the development of CSR, and it is considered an
exemplary case in its promotion. In Spain this con-
cept arrived much later, and it did not have credi-
bility until 2002 (Fundación Ecologı́a y Desarrollo,
2004). In fact, the concept is still unknown to a wide
percentage of Spanish people (Forética, 2006).
Therefore, it may be said that:
H1: Consumers from Spain consider communica-
tion about CSR practices to be less visible than
consumers from UK.
Each interest group has its own expectations and a
relationship with firms. The attributes of the latter
will, therefore, be valued to a greater or lesser extent
in certain situations, depending on the company�s interaction with its audiences (Caruana, 1997; Kel-
ler, 1993). Consumers are generally more interested
in information about marketing practices, a logical
attitude which also a reason why CSR is not a
dominant criterion in buying decisions (Boulstridge
and Carrigan, 2000). While accepting the impor-
tance of commercial perceptions, the question arises
about the interest generated by information on
corporate social responsibility. In this sense and
considering a different perspective on the concept, it
is proposed that Spanish consumers may have a
minor knowledge, which can cause a smaller public
awareness and interest for CSR. Therefore, it may
be said that:
H2: Consumers from Spain are interested to a
minor extent in obtaining information about
companies� CSR than consumers from UK.
While evaluating a company, perceptions
regarding commercial responsibility are most com-
monly taken into consideration. In spite of compa-
nies responding to social needs in a variety of ways,
these efforts seem to lack a unified collective impact
on public opinion (Robin and Reidenbach, 1987).
The ethical and social association go relatively
unnoticed mainly because the influence is usually
indirect and the concepts being of secondary
importance for most customers. This lack of
awareness may become an inhibitor of consumer
sensitivity and explain why they might not be taken
into account while appraising a company (e.g.
Maignan and Ferrell, 2004).
This suggests that the commercial responsibility
dimension, given its greater visibility and the fact
that it is more customer-focussed, will exert a greater
effect on overall perception of the company, inde-
pendent of the country analysed. Differences may
appear with the importance of CSR activities
involved in image generation. Taking into account
the same reasoning discussed on the previous
hypothesis, it is possible to say:
H3: CSR will have a minor influence on the
overall evaluation of a company in the case of
consumers from Spain than consumers from
UK.
600 Jaywant Singh et al.
Independent of the country differences, the
influence of CSR dimensions on image may be
conditioned by various moderator variables. A
moderator variable can be defined as a variable that
systematically modifies either the form and/or the
strength of the relationship between a dependent
variable and an independent variable (Anderson,
1986). Several issues could be proposed as modera-
tors of the relation between the corporate image and
corporate social responsibility dimensions. One of
them is the demographic profile of the individual
(Arlow, 1991; Maignan and Ferrell, 2001; Miesing
and Preble, 1985). The findings show that working
experience affects perceptions of these issues (Arlow,
1991) as younger people are found to be usually
more sensitive to the companies� social behaviour (Arbuthnot, 1977; Van Liere and Dunlap, 1980).
Similarly it has been shown that students see them-
selves as more concerned about social responsibility
than professionals (Beggs and Lane, 1989) while they
are less exposed to ethical questions (Miesing and
Preble, 1985). Therefore, it may be said that:
H4: The occupation of consumers moderates the
influence of CSR on the overall company
image.
The corporate social behaviour is linked to loy-
alty. Many proactive corporations monitor customer
satisfaction closely and as a result individuals may
express their trust and appreciation of the CSR
efforts by continuing to buy its products (Maignan
et al., 1999). On the other hand, the familiarity or
the degree of general user knowledge of a company
resulting from their experiences with that firm and
their loyalty may lead to conditioning the perception
of corporate behaviour (Park et al., 1992). Cus-
tomers� experience could allow them to develop strong beliefs and a more elaborate cognitive struc-
ture (Mitchell and Dacin, 1996) which implies
possible reference schemes to make different
appraisals, as compared to the customers at a lower
awareness level (Soderlund, 2002), and stronger ties
(Sen and Bhattacharya, 2001). It is foreseeable then,
that those with closer relations with a company will
have more information about it and will be able to
make a more conscious judgement of its behaviour.
It might also influence customer loyalty – the more
proactive the corporate citizenship, the greater the
loyalty. On the contrary, people who are less familiar
with that company will base their evaluations on
more subjective and less elaborate judgements, and
the influence of socially responsible behaviour will
be less acute. Therefore the hypothesis:
H5: User experience with a company moderates
the influence of CSR on the overall company
image.
Lastly, another moderator variable is the personal
values of the consumers (Maignan and Ferrell, 2001)
or their predisposition towards the socially respon-
sible practices of the companies (Sen and Bhattach-
arya, 2001). It follows that the consumers who
consider these practices as a purchasing criterion will
focus on them to a bigger extent. It is possible then
that they might take into account this behaviour
strongly in the valuation of a company, i.e.,
H6: The support to socially responsible business
when shopping moderates the influence of
CSR on the overall company image.
Methodology
This study investigates the above hypotheses for four
market leaders in their respective product categories
– dairy products (Danone), soft drinks (Coca Cola),
cereals (Kelloggs) and toothpaste (Colgate). These
brands represent a wide range of consumer products
and have high market shares. The selection of well-
known brands facilitates responses that correspond to
the respondent�s preference for the brands and their awareness of the brands� CSR activities. The survey carried out in this research, therefore, is less con-
trived as it includes brands that are well-known to
the consumers because of their market size. This is
also supported by the literature on attitude-behav-
iour link. A number of behavioural studies have
suggested that customers show stronger attitudes
towards bigger brands (e.g. Barnard and Ehrenberg,
1990; Barwise and Ehrenberg, 1985). The choice of
brands from across the categories obliterates the
comparisons within the product category. Moreover
consumers take activities of strong and powerful
organisations into account more easily and are more
affected as compared to the smaller companies
Understanding Corporate Social Responsibility 601
(Schröder and McEachern, 2005). These companies
are all active in the field of CSR, as evident from the
detailed profiles provided on their websites. They
have an ethical code of conduct and they draw up
annual company reports that give a breakdown of all
the actions they undertake for their interest groups.
Data was collected through surveys in the UK and
Spain. Altogether 144 and 148 valid questionnaires
were obtained from the two countries respectively,
through fieldwork carried out in the summer of
2005 at a number of busy public places. The
respondents were chosen through convenience
sampling. Table 1 shows the sample profile. Since
the hypotheses are tested in both countries, a
homogeneous sample was created.
Corporate image is measured with a single-
dimension question (e.g. Brown and Dacin, 1997;
Sen and Bhattacharya, 2001) which records the
general appraisal of each company on a ten-point
scale (1: highly unfavourable, 10: highly favourable).
The CSR scale is based on a commercial dimension,
which measures consumer perceptions about prod-
uct commercialisation strategy, an ethical dimension
referring to complying with the law and being
honest on their relations with the other interest
groups and a social dimension, which includes issues
referring to environmental protection and invest-
ment in the community (see Appendices).
For the questionnaire design, the reference vari-
ables taken are based on previous studies, such as
Brown and Dacin (1997), Lafferty and Goldsmith
(1999), Rust et al. (2000), Maignan (2001), Maignan
and Ferrell (2001) and Bigné et al. (2005). The
experience with each brand is measured by a cate-
gory question that records their purchase level:
regular purchaser, non-regular purchaser (knows the
brand and has tried it) and non-purchaser (knows the
brand but has never tried it). Consumers� support to responsible businesses was measured with Maignan�s scale (2001). Lastly, the survey analyses whether
consumers perceive that the communication on
commercial, ethical and social issues is adequate with
a categorical variable (yes/no) and the interest that
information on CSR dimensions arouses is evaluated
on a scale from one to ten (1: I am not interested at
all, 10: I am very interested).
Findings and analysis
For hypothesis 1, consumers recorded their opinion
on the level of communication about CSR practices
of the businesses. The information provided by the
companies concerning social and, above all, envi-
ronmental and ethic issues is perceived as insufficient
by the vast majority of individuals. This is reflected
in the results shown in Table 2 below. However
communication on questions related to product
commercialisation was generally considered ade-
quate. There are no statistically significant differ-
ences between consumers from UK and Spain with
regard to the communication on marketing issues. In
the same way, the degree of social communication is
perceived as similar in the two countries. It is
noteworthy that high-percentages consider the
information about social activities to be very poor,
although the other social responsibility issues (ethical
TABLE I
Sample profile
Population Percent UK Percent Spain
Gender Male 50.0 50.0
Female 50.0 50.0
Age Upto 34 years 25.7 28.4
34–54 years 43.7 45.3
More than 54 years 30.6 26.3
Employment status Student 17.4 15.0
Worker (self – employed or employed) 59.7 63.5
Unemployment, pensioner, homeworker 22.9 21.5
602 Jaywant Singh et al.
and environmental matters) are even less known.
This opinion was evident more prominently in the
Spanish consumers. There are significant differences,
so the hypothesis 1 can be partially supported. This
result could be because of the perspective taken in
this study – the minor public awareness, or simply
because Spanish people pay less attention on this
issue or, are less exposed to the information.
For hypothesis 2, an assessment is made for the
interest aroused by each dimension (Table 3). Com-
mercial responsibility specifically attracts the greatest
degree of interest, followed by the environmental
activities, social issues and ethical matters. These issues
have an intermediate interest in both countries, but
there are differences in the levels of emphasis. Spe-
cifically, the consumers from the UK are more
interested than their Spanish counterparts on envi-
ronmental and social issues, with significant differ-
ences in the level of interest on these matters. There
are no significant differences in the rest of issues,
therefore, hypothesis 2 is partially supported. The
interest regarding ethical issues is higher for the British
consumers, but the differences are not significant.
Therefore, hypothesis 2 is partially supported.
For other hypotheses, the validity and reliability
of the scales (CSR dimensions and support) is
assessed using a confirmatory factor analysis with
estimation for maximum likelihood in EQS 5.7
(Bentler, 1995). Firstly the goodness of fit of the
model is observed to be close to its reference
values (Hair et al., 1999). With respect to scale
reliability, the Cronbach�s alpha and composite reliability coefficients (Bagozzi and Yi, 1988) lie,
in all cases, above the minimum acceptance value
of 0.7, thus assuring their validity. On the other
hand, all standardised lambda values are statistically
significant and above 0.5 confirming a strong
convergent validity and therefore the best fit of all
the measurements (Steenkamp and Van Trijp,
1991). Lastly, the analysis of confidence intervals
for correlation between pairs of latent factors
(Anderson and Gerbing, 1998) confirms that none
of the confidence intervals defined contains the
unit, which allows us to confirm the discrimina-
tory validity of the measurements, i.e. the three
social responsibility dimensions are statistically
significantly different despite being correlated. All
these results guarantee the validity of the
TABLE II
Information on CSR activities
Appropriate Information
London Spain
Yes (%) No (%) Yes (%) No (%) v2
Commercial issues 78.5 21.5 76.4 23.6 0.634
Ethical behaviour 26.2 73.8 19.6 80.4 6.868***
Environmental behaviour 34.7 65.3 25.7 74.3 10.922***
Social behaviour 41.0 59.0 42.6 57.4 0.243
***One tailed significance < 0.01
TABLE III
Degree of interest on CSR activities (scale from 1 to 10)
Interest UK Interest Spain T-test*
Commercial issues 8.13 8.07 0.557
Ethical behaviour 6.09 5.91 0.226
Environmental behaviour 7.43 6.63 0.000
Social behaviour 6.93 6.39 0.000
* (No similar variances have been assumed, Levene Test)
Understanding Corporate Social Responsibility 603
dimensions (Tables 4 and 5) and thus they become
our working tools 3 .
In order to test the remaining hypotheses a
moderated regression analysis is used. This is one of
the most frequently used methods to identify the
moderator variables (e.g. Aydin et al., 2005; Blo-
emer and De Ruyter, 1998; Bobko and Russell,
1994; De Ruyter et al., 1998) and it has been
recommended over multiple group analysis by a
number of authors (Micheals and Dixon, 1994;
Sharma et al., 1981). Moreover, for the purpose of
this study, the moderated regression analysis is con-
sidered more appropriate in comparison to multiple-
group analysis because relationships among latent
constructs are not taken into account.
A full model for each country is elaborated,
including the companies� overall image as the dependent variable. The dimensions of corporate
responsibility and the moderating effects are expli-
cative variables. The variables of occupation and
loyalty are dummy variables, showing the results
over a reference variable base 4 . In order to minimise
the risk of multicollinearity resulting from the cor-
relation between the main and interaction effects,
when calculating the full effects model the ‘‘residual
centering’’ regression approach was used (Lance,
1988). With the restricted models it was proved that
the occupation and the support do not have a direct
effect on image, and therefore they cannot be con-
sidered predictor variables. Nevertheless, the level of
loyalty was significant. This result seems logical also
because positive relationship between loyalty and
image has been reported widely (e.g. Andreassen and
Lindestad, 1998; Selnes, 1993).
Our main interest is with regards to the behaviour
of the variables as possible moderators (and we did
not include any hypothesis regardless), the models
presented only introduce the interaction term
(Tables 6, 7). First of all, it notices how commercial
responsibility has a significant influence on overall
TABLE IV
Confirmatory Factor Analysis of Corporate Social Responsibility (UK)
Latent
variable
Measured
variable
Standard
lambda
R 2
Cronbach�s a Composite reliability
Goodness of
fit indices
Commercial
R. (CR)
CR1 0.52 0.27 0.78 0.80 BBNFI = 0.85
BBNNFI = 0.86
CFI = 0.88
IFI = 0.88
RMSEA = 0.07
CR2 0.60 0.34
CR3 0.86 0.74
CR4 0.84 0.71
Ethical
R. (ER)
ER1 0.64 0.38 0.78 0.81
ER2 0.77 059
ER3 0.73 0.53
ER4 0.74 0.55
Social R. (SR) SR1 0.76 0.59 0.84 0.83
SR2 0.83 0.69
SR3 0.70 0.49
SR4 0.71 0.52
Support
(SUP)
SUP1 0.72 0.72 0.83 0.84
SUP2 0.84 0.71
SUP3 0.72 0.52
SUP4 0.63 0.40
SUP5 0.66 0.43
Confidence intervals for the correlations
CR – ER CR – SR CR – SUP ER – SR ER – SUP SR - SUP
0.861 0.654 )0.112 0.77 )0.023 0.048 0.805, 0.917 0.574, 0.734 )0.192, –0.032 0.710, 0.803 )0.123, 0.077 )0.052, 0.148
604 Jaywant Singh et al.
ratings. Innovation, quality, accurate information
and the perception of honesty in their relations with
customers, as well as other issues related to product
commercialisation, all have a positive and direct
effect on company image. The social behaviour also
influences the overall valuation, although to a lesser
extent. However, the companies� ethics in relation to other interest groups was not significant. This
behaviour is less visible and people perceive that the
information is not enough. Besides, it generates less
interest in the consumers, the poor perception
explains that ethical behaviour has no influence.
People�s perception on information about social issues is relatively high. Here reinforced environ-
mental associations might help. The results in this
case are very similar in both countries. The
hypothesis 3 may therefore be rejected.
On including possible moderator effects, occu-
pation explains the differences between groups, i.e.
the strength of the relationship between image and
the CSR dimensions is not similar in all the intervals.
In the case of UK consumers, it is observed that the
individuals who are in a working environment or
individuals who are not working for different rea-
sons (e.g. pensioners, temporarily unemployed, etc.)
attach greater importance to the perceptions of
ethical behaviour when it comes to appraising a
company (as compared to the students).
However, in such groups, issues of a social nature
are given less weight. These findings seem to con-
firm that people have knowledge about the com-
panies in general, they notice or give greater
importance to companies� ethical behaviour when it comes to appraising them, whereas they give less
importance to their social activities. The students are
a contradiction, more likely because either they are
less knowledgeable about the ethical issues or less
exposed to them, or conversely because they might
have a greater social awareness.
In the Spanish market the relation between the
perception of social issues and the image is stronger
in the case of students as compared to other seg-
TABLE V
Confirmatory Factor Analysis of Corporate Social Responsibility (Spain)
Latent variable Measured
variable
Standard
lambda
R 2
Cronbach�s a Composite reliability
Goodness of
fit indices
Commercial
R. (CR)
CR1 0.59 0.35 0.79 0.80 BBNFI = 0.86
BBNNFI = 0.88
CFI = 0.90
IFI = 0.90 RMSEA = 0.06
CR2 0.79 0.62
CR3 0.70 0.48
CR4 0.74 0.54
Ethical
R. (ER)
ER1 0.71 0.57 0.77 0.76
ER2 0.75 0.56
ER3 0.69 0.47
ER4 0.50 0.25
Social
R. (SR)
SR1 0.71 0.50 0.77 0.77
SR2 0.71 0.51
SR3 0.66 0.44
SR4 0.64 0.41
Support
(SUP)
SUP1 0.66 0.44 0.84 0.85
SUP2 0.84 0.70
SUP3 0.81 0.66
SUP4 0.82 0.82
SUP5 0.50 0.26
Confidence intervals for the correlations
CR – ER CR – SR CR – SUP ER – SR ER – SUP SR - SUP
0.771 0.602 0.277 0.780 0.319 0.272
0.703, 0.839 0.506, 0.698 0.181, 0.373 0.626, 0.790 0.219, 0.419 0.172, 0.372
Understanding Corporate Social Responsibility 605
ments. However, commercial responsibility has less
impact in creation of the image for this group. It may
include fewer actual buyers of the products; this
could explain the lack of attention given to these
issues. Finally, the ethical activities do not have any
influence on any group in the study. Therefore
hypothesis 3 is not rejected in any of the countries.
Second, the brand purchasing level does not
explain differences for any group. Working with
well-known companies or market leaders, might
explain that the respondents have knowledge about
the companies. In addition, the type of products
analysed in our study (low involvement products)
may justify that loyal consumers do not generate
strong beliefs or different cognitive structures, which
means this is not a moderator variable. Therefore
hypothesis 4 cannot be accepted.
Finally, only in the Spanish market, the support to
socially responsible business while shopping moder-
ates the influence of commercial dimension on the
overall image. Specifically, the relation between the
variables is stronger for the consumers with a smaller
predisposition towards social and ethical issues.
However, the support to these matters does not have
any effect on other dimensions. The lack of a clear
association of the companies with ethics and social
issues explains the result. Therefore hypothesis 5
cannot be accepted.
Conclusions
Our study analysed the degree of interest that is
aroused in consumers through information on the
three responsibility dimensions (commercial, ethical
and social) and the effects that these can have on
company image. A cross-cultural perspective was
adopted in order to identify possible differences
between opinions and positioning of consumers
from two European countries, UK and Spain. Sev-
eral dissimilarities were anticipated, mainly because
TABLE VI
Effect of CSR dimensions on global image and modera-
tor variables (UK)
Standardized
Coefficients
(Constant)
CR 0.599***
ER )0.314 SR 0.312*
CR* worker )0.282 ER* worker 0.668**
SR* worker )0.414* CR* not worker )0.350 ER* not worker 0.676**
SR* not worker )0.319 CR* not regular consumer )0.141 ER* not regular consumer )0.177 SR* not regular consumer 0.008
CR* not buyer )0.308 ER* not buyer )0.179 SR* not buyer 0.128
CR*support 0.032
ER * support )0.269 SR* support 0.199
R 2
= 0.458 Adjusted R 2
= 0.440
***One tailed significance < 0.01 **One tailed signifi-
cance < 0.05 *One tailed significance < 0.1
TABLE VII
Effect of CSR dimensions on global image and modera-
tor variables (Spain)
Standardized
Coefficients
(Constant)
CR 0.474**
ER )0.110 SR 0.332*
CR* worker 1.044***
ER* worker )0.333 SR* worker )0.785** CR* not worker 0.958***
ER* not worker )0.170 SR* not worker )0.919** CR* not regular consumer 0.148
ER* not regular consumer )0.220 SR* not regular consumer )0.212 CR* not buyer )0.012 ER* not buyer )0.263 SR* not buyer 0.020
CR* support )0.469* ER * support 0.130
SR* support 0.360
R 2
= 0.553 Adjusted R 2
= 0.539
***One tailed significance < 0.01 **One tailed signifi-
cance < 0.05 *One tailed significance < 0.1
606 Jaywant Singh et al.
the promotion and development of the concept
varies between the two countries.
The analysis of data on four leading manufacturers
in the consumer market show that consumers
perceive companies as not providing enough infor-
mation on their social, ethical and environment-re-
lated activities. The consumers� main interest centres around obtaining information on the companies� products, which seems logical given that individuals,
in their role as consumers, attach more attention to
commercial issues. Companies could benefit from
maintaining continuous marketing communication
for sustaining the consumers� level of awareness and enhancing purchaser preferences for CSR-minded
companies. The interest on corporate social
responsibility issues is relatively low, but its impor-
tance should not be underestimated. The high sig-
nificance of commercial associations seems to
dominate other associations and, above all, the big
brands considered here do not seem to have strong
ethical attributes. Well-known brand manufacturers
have continuous visibility and a considerable impact
on their environment. These companies would be
welladvised to strengthen their associations through
publicity, visible public relations exercises, socially
responsible marketing campaigns, and by other
means of effective marketing communication.
The findings in this study highlight the need for
more emphasis on the CSR concept and its company-
to-consumer communication. At present a number of
companies� websites and their annual reports include information on these practices but the results show
that either this information does not reach the con-
sumers or the current communication strategy is not
strong enough to link the CSR actions to brands. As
suggested by Swaen and Vanhamme (2005), compa-
nies claiming to be socially responsible are more
positively perceived in the market, but if any of these
companies is accused of unethical behaviour, the
damage to their reputation will be greater than to
those companies with a lower social profile. While
consumers� reaction to information about irresponsi- ble practices is strongly negatively, they are less sen-
sitive to positive messages (Mohr and Webb, 2005;
Sen and Bhattacharya, 2001). As Bacon (2004) sug-
gests, consumers do not believe what is told to them,
they believe what the companies actually do. This
means that the ethical codes of company should not be
reduced to a mere declaration of principles, rather they
should underpin all the company�s activities that help in avoiding negative publicity.
While in consumer markets commercial associ-
ations will always have the greatest influence on
purchasing decisions and on overall appraisal of a
company, it cannot be overlooked that brand
positioning is also created through other impres-
sions. The results in this study show that social
issues are significant in order to create an image,
unlike ethical issues. This is either due to a lack of
knowledge or because of unclear perceptions.
However indirect effects have also been found,
explained by variables such as occupation. Loyalty
does not constitute a moderator variable (the
relationship with the image can be direct) and the
predisposition towards the socially responsible
practices of the companies while shopping does
not have a clear effect either.
Regarding the differences between the consumers
from Spain and the UK, several issues can be high-
lighted. First, Spanish consumers are more critical
about valuing the degree of information on ethical
and environmental activities. However, their interest
towards these practices is smaller. This finding
reflects a minor involvement of the Spanish con-
sumers in CSR, perhaps motivated by a lack of
general public awareness. Increasingly more com-
panies are becoming aware of this, and are trying to
raise the knowledge on CSR matters in different
segments of the consumers. Second, the commercial
issues do influence the global image more than the
others dimensions, and the moderator variables have
a similar effect in both countries.
This study has revealed several insights about the
influence of CSR on the perception of frequently
bought consumer brands. The study also has its
limitations. Four leading companies in the consumer
market have been studied in an aggregate way.
Though this has given conclusions on CSR per-
ceptions, a more specific individual brand-level
analysis could help to identify the differences be-
tween brands. Moreover, the sample was from large
cities, which might have an impact of the level of
CSR awareness. A future line of research could assess
this relationship by including further moderator
variables and by working with a bigger sample. A
future study could also use other methodologies,
such as multi-group analysis, to determine the dif-
ferences between the two countries.
Understanding Corporate Social Responsibility 607
Appendix
Notes
1 http://www.globalcompact.org
2 http://www.globalreporting.org
3 Values are averaged to facilitate the analyses.
4 The variable base of occupation is the category
‘‘student’’ (against the categories of ‘‘worker’’ [self
employed or employed] and ‘‘not worker’’ [unemploy-
ment, pensioner, home worker]) and the base for loy-
alty is ‘‘regular purchaser’’.
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Jaywant Singh
Kingston Business School,
Kingston University,
Kingston, Surrey, KT2 7LB, UK
E-mail: j.singh@kingston.ac.uk
Maria del Mar Garcia de los Salmones Sanchez and
Ignacio Rodriguez del Bosque
Business Administration and Economic Faculty,
University of Cantabria,
Avenida de los Castros s/n, 39005, Santander, Spain
Understanding Corporate Social Responsibility 611