CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY AND CONSUMER RELATIONSHIPS: AN APPLICATION OF THE MOTIVATOR-HYGIENE THEORY

摘要

While corporate social responsibility (CSR) has emerged as an important tenet of contemporary business practices, the impact of CSR efforts on consumer relationships remains ambiguous. In general, stakeholder groups, such as employees, suppliers, customers, and community members perceive value in CSR but despite additional knowledge gained from recent academic literature a key question remains; namely, to what extent does CSR motivate consumer relationships? In order to increase the collective knowledge of the influence and limitations of CSR as a motivation factor, this consumer behavior study develops and tests a conceptual model influenced by Herzberg' s motivator-hygiene theory (Herzberg, Mausner, and Snyderman 1959) and explores the role of CSR as a relationship motivating factor and/or as a hygiene business requirement that if perceived to be subpar would instead only weaken the consumer's relationship with the company.