The impact of self-centered factors on skepticism towards CSR claims during large-scale external crises
Vinyals Mirabent, Sara (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona)
Rodero Antón, Emma (Universitat Pompeu Fabra)
Rodríguez-de-Dios, Isabel (Universidad de Salamanca)
Mas Manchón, Lluís (Universitat Pompeu Fabra)

Date:	2025
Description:	17 pàg.
Abstract:	External crises create opportunities to strengthen companies' commitment to society through CSR claims; however, consumers often perceive them as opportunistic. This study leverages the unique setting of COVID-19 to determine the power of consumer self-centered factors (i. e. , concern about the crisis, personal impact, and political ideology) to predict situational skepticism towards CSR communication during a large-scale external crisis. An online survey of 1,000 consumers, analyzed using structural equation modeling, revealed that self-centered variables are key determinants to predict skepticism during external events. This effect is mediated by the inferential process of attributing motives. Their predictive power is consistent across the four CSR domains (i. e. , customer, environment, employees, philanthropy). This study moves forward on the egocentric pattern projection and the attribution theories by addressing reactive CSR to external crises, a type of crisis that has been overlooked, and supports managerial decisions to mitigate CSR skepticism for potential external crises to come.
Rights:	Aquest document està subjecte a una llicència d'ús Creative Commons. Es permet la reproducció total o parcial, la distribució, i la comunicació pública de l'obra, sempre que no sigui amb finalitats comercials, i sempre que es reconegui l'autoria de l'obra original. No es permet la creació d'obres derivades.
Language:	Anglès
Document:	Article ; recerca ; Versió publicada
Subject:	Corporate Social Responsibility ; CSR communication ; Consumer skepticism ; Egocentric pattern projection ; Attribution theory ; External crises ; SDG 12 - Responsible Consumption and Production
Published in:	Communication & Society, Vol. 38, Num. 1 (2025) , p. 146-162, ISSN 2386-7876

DOI: 10.15581/003.38.1.012

17 p, 581.2 KB

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