CSR FROM A GLOBAL PERSPECTIVE: THE CONFLICT BETWEEN DOMESTIC AND OVERSEAS CONSUMER SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY

Master Thesis

CSR FROM A GLOBAL PERSPECTIVE: THE

CONFLICT BETWEEN DOMESTIC AND

OVERSEAS CONSUMER SOCIAL

RESPONSIBILITY

By

Simone De Cesare

University of Groningen — Newcastle University Business School Faculty of Economics and Business

Double Degree Master in International Business and Management Advanced Marketing

Supervisors: Dr. Miriam Wilhelm and Dr. Laurence Vigneau Via Girolamo Tiraboschi 14

00141 Roma +393395864837

To Priscilla, my mum and the brightest star in my sky

Acknowledgments

Abstract

This research combines insights from the international business research on the debate on the conflict between domestic and overseas CSR and the research on the impact of CSR on the consumer attitudes towards ethical consumption. This study addresses the gap of whether consumers care more about domestic or overseas CSR, also considering the several determinants of ethical consumption identified in literature. The impact of positive and negative information on domestic and overseas CSR on several variables referred to ethical consumption is analyzed. Further, the impact of values on the consumer attitudes towards overseas CSR and the consumer sensitivity to two different domains of CSR, the social and the environmental, are analyzed. The research builds on a sample of 306 young consumers in Europe, using a questionnaire and two different scenarios that were presented to half of the participant group and an experimental design with a manipulation of the positive and negative information on CSR. This study shows that young consumers in the domestic market have a preference for the domestic, rather than overseas CSR dimension, when they receive positive information. Domestic consumers that score high in universalism, benevolence and self-direction and low in power, achievement and security have greater purchasing intentions towards overseas CSR than the rest of the groups. Domestic consumers are more sensitive to the environmental domain when it comes to negative overseas CSR and to the social domain when it comes to positive overseas CSR. This study has several implications for research and practice. On the one hand, this study contributes to the research on the debate of the conflict between domestic and overseas CSR, the literature on the impact of values, information on CSR and price on ethical consumption and to the research on consumer sensitivity to different domains of CSR, adopting for the first time a broad, multi-dimensional view of CSR. On the other hand, among others, this research offers insights to MNEs into which dimension and domain of CSR to favor, when faced with scarce resources and which values they should communicate in their campaigns to enhance their profitability in the domestic markets.

Table of Contents

1. Introduction

In their research on the new challenges for CSR resulting from globalization, Scherer and Palazzo (2011) note that corporations have been shifting a consistent part of the global production towards areas lacking of democratic control. Therefore, MNEs are increasingly taking part in the new global governance infrastructure around CSR. However, Peng and Miles (2009) argue that from a global strategy perspective, firms are faced with several challenges when it comes to balance the conflicting demands between overseas and domestic CSR as, for instance, it is crucial for MNEs to be profitable and meet both the domestic and the overseas communities’ needs, rather than focus only on one of these two dimensions. In detail, Barnett (2007) argues that, under the assumption of limited corporate resources, global firms’ investments in domestic CSR often implies fewer investments in overseas CSR, or vice versa.

Therefore, the conflict between domestic and overseas CSR might also be extended to the discourse on the many inequalities resulting from modern capitalism, as addressed by Taylor (2008). The author argues that only a small percentage of the global population really benefits from growth. In particular, Edward and Sumner (2013) remind that only the 3 percent of the global population spend more than fifty dollars per day, while the 35 percent spend less than two dollars. The 69 percent of the people in India and the 23 percent in China live with less than two dollars per day, while none of the people in the UK and US falls in the

zero to two dollars range. On the other hand, among others, Prahalad (2004) proves that

relationship between domestic and overseas CSR from the global strategy perspective, as suggested by the contributions by London and Hart (2004) and Prahalad and Hammond (2002) and the most recent by Hah and Freeman (2014) and Busse et al. (2013). Nevertheless, the existing literature fails to consider what consumers think and feel about CSR and how they adapt their attitudes in relation to this debate, thus focusing merely on the corporate side dimension. Vogel (2005) agrees with Zadek et al. (2003) that consumers can make a change in addressing the aforementioned inequalities, supporting the responsible, rather than the unethical corporations. On the one hand, both these authors stress the lack of a “market for virtue” (Vogel, 2005, p.20), as there is no tangible evidence that corporate virtuous behaviors result in enhanced profits and responsible firms outperform the irresponsible ones. In particular, Vogel (2005, p.32) proves that the “impact of CSR on the long-term financial performance of companies is typically dwarfed by a host of other factors” with consumers that might “go elsewhere because the company’s offering is not good enough.” On the other hand, several authors prove that consumers do care about ethics, carrying out experiments that take into account the whole array of determinants affecting ethical consumption, including price, the consumer knowledge of the ethical attributes and the personal values, needs and motivation (De Pelsmacker et al., 2005; Vermeir and Verbeke, 2006; Creyer and Ross, 1996).

ethical consumption that focus on a single, specific dimension of CSR (Pomering and Dolnicar, 2006), this study draws on the multi-dimensional definition of CSR provided by the European Commission (2011) to investigate whether consumer ethical attitudes vary according on each CSR domain.

2. Theoretical Framework

2.1 CSR and ethical consumption

The debate on the conflict between domestic and overseas CSR falls in the broader and “elusive” research on the responsibilities of business in society. Garriga and Melé (2004, p. 51) prove that the CSR field is characterized by a proliferation of approaches and theories that make the topic “unclear, complex and controversial.” Specifically, the aforementioned authors gather the long tradition of research on CSR into four themes, each associated with extremely different definitions of the socially responsible corporation: instrumental, political, integrative or ethical theories are thus identified. This research is mostly centered on an instrumental view that defines CSR as an instrument to achieve the economic goals of corporations and, ultimately, wealth creation. Friedman (1970) argues that the only responsibility of business is to maximize profits within the legal framework provided by the institutions. Interestingly, Garriga and Melé (2004) argue that this does not mean to ignore the stakeholders’ interests and perceptions when it comes to set the CSR strategies to implement and their goals. In particular, it is interesting to note that most of the researchers adopt a corporate side view when it comes to CSR, as research on the consumer social responsibility is lacking (Vitell, 2015; Caruana and Chatzidakis, 2015). However, Mitchell et al. (1997) and Ogden and Watson (1999) argue that the maximization of the shareholder value also depends on the satisfaction of the interests of those who have a stake in the firm. Several authors stress the importance of a consumer perspective that focuses on how the 1 stakeholders, including consumers, react to CSR initiatives. In particular, Mohr et al. (2001, p.47) define the socially responsible consumer as “a person basing his or her acquisition,

usage, and disposition of products on a desire to minimize or eliminate any harmful effects and maximize the long-run beneficial impact on society.” In a similar fashion, Doane (2001, p.6) refers to the ethical consumption as “the purchase of a product that concerns a certain ethical issue and is chosen freely by an individual consumer.” Consumers can either buy products for their positive qualities or boycott products for their negative ones, thus affecting the financial performance of corporations. To provide further evidence, Becker-Olsen et al. (2006) prove that the 52 percent of the participants taking part in their study on the impact of perceived CSR consumer behavior would boycott companies that are not involved in CSR, when competitor products are available. Further, Lindenmeier et al. (2012) argue that consumer boycotts can have a dramatic impact on a company’s financial position. Following that path, Carrigan and Attalla (2001, p.565) address the Nestlé and the Shell boycotts to provide tangible evidence of the aforementioned negative impact on the financial and commercial positions and argue that “the power of consumer boycotts is increasing.” To conclude, Carrigan and Attalla (2001) prove that the global access to the internet has made the boycotts more effective and more frequent.

2.2 The conflict between overseas and domestic CSR: the international business perspective

strategy perspective. For instance, Peng and Miles (2009) argue that as MNEs expand overseas, mostly towards the emerging markets, they not only increase their profits, but also provide employment and development opportunities to the developing countries. On the other hand, Peng and Miles (2009, p.59) note that “this is often done at the expense of the domestic employees and communities.” Barnett (2007) argues that “resources devoted to one dimension of CSR result in fewer resources devoted to the other dimension.” Sundaram and Inkpen (2004) argue that when corporations have enough resources, they should take care both of the domestic and the overseas communities’ needs. However, when faced with scarce resources, managers have to make decisions on which of the two dimensions of CSR must be prioritized.

CSR, as MNEs have increasingly taken political and social responsibilities that exceed their legal requirements.

(CSV) at the bottom of the pyramid, even if mostly focused on the corporate, rather the local communities side, there is no research on the domestic consumer perceptions of these 2 initiatives in such markets and whether they might lead to an enhanced profitability in the developed or domestic markets through an increased reputation.

Insights into the consumer behavioral intentions towards overseas CSR would provide several benefits to the MNEs that need to balance the conflicting demands of the two global dimensions of CSR in order to enhance their profitability, fulfilling the domestic and overseas communities’ needs. On the other hand, there is a growing critique of the CSV and the BOP theories. In particular, Crane et al. (2014, p.130) argue that such theories are based on a “shallow conception of the corporation’s role in society.” In detail, they argue that these theories continue to place markets first and shareholder value takes always the priority, thus making it difficult to align societal value with shareholder value. To conclude, Crane et al. (2014) claim that both the CSV and the BOP theories cannot move away from an instrumental view of CSR and boost a wider, new view of capitalism.

2.3 Consumer Social Responsibility (CnSR): the ethical consumption perspective

Vitell (2015) and Caruana and Chatzidakis (2015) argue that, unlike the research on CSR, the research on consumer social responsibility (CnSR) is largely under-theorized, as only few articles stress the crucial role of consumers in achieving corporate social responsibility. The research carried out by Lafferty and Goldsmith (1999) through the manipulation of corporate credibility and the study by Handelman and Arnold (1999) through the manipulation of store images attributes have demonstrated that CSR can have a significant impact on behavioral intentions, especially when it comes to boycott socially irresponsible firms, confirming again

2.4 The determinants of ethical consumption and the behavioral intentions gap

Several studies on ethical consumption aim to investigate whether and how CSR affects purchasing decisions. In their research on sustainable food consumption, Vermeir and Verbeke (2006) identify the consumers’ needs, values and goals, their awareness, information and knowledge as the main determinants of behavioral intentions. Further, De Pelsmacker et al. (2005) and Carrigan and Attalla (2001) argue that also other factors influence the attitudes towards ethical consumption. Price, convenience, brand loyalty and firm’s credibility and reputation can be taken into account, too.

The impact of values on ethical consumption

Schwartz (1992) defines values as beliefs concerning specific modes of conduct that guide the evaluation and selection of behaviors, events and people and that can be ordered depending on their priority relative to the other values. Schwartz (1994) argues that it is crucial to identify a limited set of value types recurrent in humans, as there is an almost infinite number of values to study. Then, the author proposes a value theory centered on a quasi-circular structure that forms a two-dimensional space. Ten values, each defined in terms of their central goal, are spaced on a circle depending on their grade of compatibility with each other. Schwartz (1992, 1994) argues that the first dimension, the conservation vs.

openness to change, opposes values emphasizing the preservation of the status quo and the

Figure 1: Quasi-circular structure of values

Values define the needs and goals that motivate the people to execute a specific action. De Pelsmacker et al. (2005) argue that this inevitably concerns ethical consumption, too. In detail, Vitell et al. (2001) argue that values and principles, rather than the positive or negative consequences of their behaviors guide the consumers’ attitudes towards ethical consumption. Vermeir and Verbeke (2006, p.174) focus on the consumers’ involvement, defined as a “basis for a motivational force”, or more simply as a specific type of motivation driven by values. In that sense, the authors prove that consumers tend to purchase more frequently products that are perceived as instrumental in meeting their values, goals and needs. For instance, in their study on the dichotomy between high and low involvement in a routine food shopping, Beharrel and Dennison (1995) prove that several common consumption behaviors, including brand commitment and a long search for information, arise from a high involvement.

In their research on sustainable food consumption, Vermeir and Verbeke (2004) review several studies that have investigated the relationship between values and ethical consumption and note that in general, most of the authors link self-direction, equality, idealism, universalism, benevolence, honesty, responsibility and freedom to sustainable consumption, whereas conformity, security, ambition, hedonism, power and tradition are associated with less ethical or less sustainable consumption patterns. In a similar fashion, Doran (2009) identifies a significant link established in literature between values and a wide array of consumer behaviors, for instance concerning the fair trade consumption and the pro-environmental attitudes and behaviors. Interestingly, there is no existing literature that addresses how values, goals and needs shape the consumer perception of the conflict between domestic and overseas CSR. In particular, the aforementioned studies do not distinguish between the two dimensions and, considering again the tendency of the literature to focus on the domestic, rather than the overseas domain, this study aims to provide insights into how consumer values affect the consumer purchasing intentions towards the second of the two.

élite. This discourse might then be extended to the debate on the conflict between domestic

and overseas CSR, as drawing on the definitions of the two dimensions, the domestic CSR initiatives are aimed at benefiting local communities in the domestic markets, opposed to overseas CSR initiatives that benefit the overseas communities. Then, it might be expected that the first of the two dimensions concerns domestic consumers more than the other in terms of potential gains, when it comes to positive CSR, and losses, when it comes to negative CSR. On the other way around, the values universalism, stimulation, self-direction and benevolence promote the equality among people, responsibility, harmony and the general tendency to put the own good behind the interest of the others, transcending any selfish concerns. To conclude, Schwartz (1996, p.126) adds that power and achievement are the “strongest predictors of failure to cooperate”, as they emphasize the need to “maximize gain, even at the expense of the others” and they also promote social superiority. By contrast, benevolence and universalism are presented as the “strongest predictors of cooperation.” Cooperation is a recurrent word in the reports by the United Nations (2007) and the European Commission (2016) on developmental aid and the inequalities between developed and developing countries and thus the willingness to cooperate stands as a crucial element to consider when it comes to assess the consumer position in the conflict between domestic and overseas CSR. In other words, this study on how values impact the attitudes towards overseas CSR might be also intended as getting to know whether consumers in the domestic markets are willing to cooperate to help people in developing, overseas countries or are mostly focused on the maximization of their own interests.

dimensions and the values listed in the appendix, it can be expected that individuals scoring high in the values referring to the self-enhancement and the conservation dimensions have lower purchasing intentions towards overseas CSR than those scoring low. Moreover, it can be expected that the individuals scoring high in the values referring to the openness to change and the self-transcendence dimensions have greater purchasing intentions towards overseas CSR than those scoring low. Two hypothesis can be formulated:

Hypothesis 1a: Domestic consumers that score high in universalism, stimulation, self-direction and benevolence have greater positive purchasing intentions towards positive overseas CSR and lower negative purchasing intention towards negative overseas CSR than

those scoring low in the same values.

Hypothesis 1b: Domestic consumers that score low in power, hedonism, tradition, security, conformity and achievement have greater positive purchasing intentions towards positive overseas CSR and lower negative purchasing intention towards negative overseas CSR than

those scoring high in the same values.

The role of information on CSR on ethical consumption

versa, positive CSR records are associated with a higher and greater purchasing intention. Finally, Sen et al. (2006) have carried out a field experiment to manipulate the level of awareness of CSR, claimed to be extremely low in consumers, to prove that the awareness of a company’s CSR is associated with a greater intention to consume the company’s products. Interestingly, the research on the consumer awareness of CSR can be linked to the research on how CSR should be communicated to raise the level of information and knowledge among consumers. For instance, Dickson (2001) and Verbeke (2005) focus on the effectiveness of labels to offer appropriate insights to consumers when purchasing sustainable products. The research on consumer awareness of CSR can thus be integrated with the research on how the values, goals and needs of consumers drive their purchasing intention. Further details will be provided in the Discussion section.

uneven between developing and developed countries. At the same time, the report (UN, 2013, p.63) gives evidence that the developed countries have “gained disproportionally from the economy growth of the past two decades.” The European Commission (2017) reports that the 89 percent of the participants in a study on the EU citizens’ views on development, cooperation and aid agree that it is important to help people in developing countries. Nevertheless, only the 42 percent of the respondents rank the issue as very important, rather than fairly important. Further, a previous survey conducted by the European Commission (2005) shows that only the 10 percent of the respondents think that promoting more private investments in developing countries is a top priority that local governments in developed countries need to tackle. To conclude, the European Commission (2016) adds that the 49 percent of the respondents to a survey on attitudes towards development aid are not directly involved in helping developing countries and just the 22 percent of them make ethical choices to aid developing countries when shopping for groceries or shopping. Two hypothesis are presented below.

Hypothesis 2a: Positive information on the MNE’s domestic CSR activities has a stronger positive effect than the positive information on the MNE’s overseas CSR activities on

consumer’s purchasing intentions and their evaluation of the firm’s product.

Hypothesis 2b: Negative information on the MNE’s domestic CSR activities has a stronger negative effect than the negative information on the MNE’s overseas CSR activities on

The behavioral-intentions gap

Interestingly, in spite of the several studies proving a high and growing attitude towards ethical consumption, MacGillivray (2000) argues that the ethical initiatives have a de facto market share of less than one percent. This refers to the so-called attitude-behavior gap, defined as the “misalignment of ethical intentions into actual behavior” (Carrington et al., 2012, p.2759). In detail, several authors provide frameworks that prove the existence of a clear link between attitudes and behaviors. However, attitudes alone cannot predict the ethical consumption behaviors. For instance, the European Commission (2014) reports that the 75 percent of the respondents of a poll on the attitudes towards the environment say that they would be willing to buy environmentally friendly products even when more expensive, but only the 17 percent have actually done so in the month before the survey. De Pelsmacker et al. (2005, p.365) argue that “in estimating the intended behavior, consumers need to be confronted with multi attribute situations”, as price, convenience, brand familiarity and quality, rather than CSR account as the most dominant factor affecting the purchase decision. In his quantitative study on consumer behavioral intentions, Kraus (1995) argues that attitudes fail to predict consumption behaviors and in their study on the ethical consumer carried out through group discussions, Carrigan and Attalla (2001) prove that product quality, price and convenience, rather than consumer intentions guide the buying decision. Moreover, Belk et al. (2005) prove that consumers from eight countries, including China and the US, are more concerned with convenience rather than labor conditions, environmental abuses and resource exploitation when purchasing their products.

good impression on the researcher or any other participant involved in a group research (King and Bruner, 2000). However, Carrigan and Attalla (2001, p.564) argue that there is a “notable difference recorded between supporting an action and actually carrying out oneself.” Interestingly, Mohr et al. (2001, p.50) argue that social desirability issues do not concern much experiments, defined as less likely to suffer from a social desirability bias in comparison with surveys in which “the cost of answering questions is lower than the actual behavior.”

Interestingly, there is no research that links the discourses on price and ethical consumption to a broad, global view of CSR. In detail, drawing on the reasons mentioned in the earlier section, it can be expected that, when awareness of positive and negative CSR has been established, consumers would be more inclined to pay more for the domestic, rather than the overseas CSR products. In fact, the findings from the European Commission (2005, 2016, 2017) prove that consumers in Europe agree that it is important to help people in developing countries, but only few of them rank the issue as very important rather than fairly important. Further, only a small percentage of the people taking part in a survey on the attitudes towards developmental aid (European Commission, 2016) claim to make ethical choices to aid developing countries when shopping for groceries or shopping and half of them is not involved directly in helping developing countries. For the same reasons, it can be expected that consumer would be less inclined to ask for a price reduction when it comes to negative domestic, rather than overseas CSR. Then, two hypothesis are formulated:

Hypothesis 3a: Positive information on the MNE’s domestic CSR activities has a stronger positive effect than the positive information on the MNE’s overseas CSR activities on the

consumer’s willingness to pay a premium price for the firm’s product.

Hypothesis 3a: Negative information on the MNE’s domestic CSR activities has a stronger negative effect than the negative information on the MNE’s overseas CSR activities on the

2.5 Consumer sensitivity to different dimensions of CSR: the environmental vs. the social dimension in the debate between domestic and overseas CSR

Based on the review of the existing literature on ethical consumption, there is no existing research on how consumers react and how sensitive they are in relation to a wide range of different CSR initiatives. In fact, the studies that address the impact of CSR on ethical consumption focus only on a narrow conception of CSR, defined as a “single-issue stimulus” (Pomering and Dolnicar, 2006, p.1). There are studies that investigate how the green friendly activities of the companies affect the consumer behaviors (Dietz et al., 2002; Osterhus, 1997; Schultz and Zelenzy, 1998) or the effect of philanthropic initiatives (Brown and Dacin, 1997) on ethical consumption. Nevertheless, researchers fail to get a broad, multidimensional view of CSR to compare to which kind of initiatives consumers are the most sensitive. Similarly to the debate on the conflict between domestic and overseas CSR, a multidimensional view of CSR would add powerful insights into to which domain of CSR MNEs should aim their initiatives, in order to enhance their sales and profitability, when faced with scarce resources and with the dilemma on which domain to favor.

dimension as the one referring to the corporate initiatives aimed at building a better society. Firms as social actors need to assess their impact on human communities for what concerns the human rights, the labour rights and practices and other social issues. The environmental dimension, defined by Nasrullah and Rahim (2014, p.20) as the “most significant concern of business enterprises across the world today”, refer to the corporate activities that have an “impact on the living and non living natural resources, including ecosystems, water, land and air.” Firms as environmental actors have to make efficient use of resources, energy and materials and minimize the adverse environmental impact, among others.

agree, while only the 4 percent totally disagree that environmental problems have a direct effect on their lives.

!

Figure 4: Results of the survey by the European Commission (2014) on the main environmental issues

people are worried about

Interestingly, the EU citizens’ perceptions change when it comes to developing countries. In fact, according to the European Commission (2016) report on the attitude towards development aid, the 38 percent of the respondents assess education and health as the most pressing challenges for the future of developing countries. Further, the participants tend to stress the crucial role of the human rights and democracy (24 percent), rather than the environmental protection (11 percent) when it comes to the future of developing countries.

Figure 5: The most pressing challenges for the future of developing countries. EC (2016)

Hypothesis 4a: Negative information on the environmental, rather than social dimension of an MNE’s domestic CSR is more likely to reduce the intentions of domestic consumers to

purchase the firm’s product.

Hypothesis 4b: Positive information on the environmental, rather than social dimension of an MNE’s domestic CSR is more likely to increase the intentions of domestic consumers to

purchase the firm’s product.

Hypothesis 4a: Negative information on the social, rather than environmental dimension of an MNE’s overseas CSR is more likely to reduce the intentions of domestic consumers to

purchase the firm’s product.

Hypothesis 4b: Positive information on the social, rather than the environmental dimension of an MNE’s overseas CSR is more likely to increase the intentions of domestic consumers to

purchase the firm’s product.

2.6 Conceptual model

differences in value priorities affect the domestic consumer purchasing intentions towards overseas CSR. The second refers to the hypothesis 2 and 3 and shows how positive or negative information on domestic/overseas CSR affect the domestic consumer purchasing intentions, the positive evaluation of the firm’s product, the willingness to ask for a premium price and to ask for a price reduction. Finally, the last sub-model refers to the hypothesis 4 on how differences in the CSR domain, that might be social or environmental, have an impact on the domestic consumer purchasing intentions towards domestic and overseas CSR.

+

H1

Figure 6: Conceptual model

3. Methodology

3.1 Research strategy and design

256). In detail, the aforementioned authors manipulate CSR, by creating alternative scenarios to present to the the experimental and the control groups. Only the half of the respondents randomly assigned to the experimental group receive the scenario with the manipulation of the independent variable. The aim of this design is to measure the experimental effect, defined as the difference between the observations referring to the experimental and the control groups. The model is briefly summarized below.

Experimental group:

(R) X O

1 Control group:

(R) O

2

E = O₁ − O₂

O = The measurement of a dependent variable


X = The manipulation, or change, of an independent variable


R = Random assignment of subjects, the consumers, to experimental and control groups E= The experimental effect

and the lack of a control group that does not receive the treatment might affect the external validity of the study. The model is briefly summarized below.

X O

O = The measurement of a dependent variable


X = The manipulation, or change, of an independent variable


5.2 Sample and procedure

This research is based on a laboratory, rather than field experiment. In that sense, Burns and Bush (2014) argue that laboratory experiments provide a wide array of advantages, enabling a better control on extraneous variables, but raising concerns in term of their external validity. Then, following from the several experimental studies on ethical consumption, including Vermeir and Verbeke (2006) and De Pelsmacker et al. (2005), the researcher emailed the participants an online questionnaire whose outline will be defined in the following paragraphs and to fill in through the Qualtrics platform. The sample of this research is drawn from a population of 18-30 years old European consumers selected through a snowball 3 sampling technique and approached through social media. Following Vermeir and Verbeke (2006, p.178), this sampling strategy reflects two reasons. First, the selection of an uniform group allows to control for variables like income, age and demography. Second, this segment refers to the “consumers of the future”, most likely to keep their habits as they grow up, giving MNEs the chance to define long term, rather than short time CSR and communication strategies to implement. The independent variables in this research refer to the positive and negative information on overseas and domestic CSR and the aforementioned values drawn on

Developed and transitional markets have been included only, drawing on the UN (2012)

Schwartz (1992, 1994), while the dependent variables refer to the consumer purchasing intention, the evaluation of the firm’s product and the willingness to spend a premium price for the MNE’s product, directly associated to the tendency to purchase the product, drawing on the studies on price and ethical consumption earlier mentioned in the literature review.

5.3 The questionnaire design: manipulations and measures

To test the hypothesis 2, 3 and 4, two similar purchasing scenarios have been evenly and randomly presented to each half of the respondents to control for the length of the questionnaire and allow to measure whether there is any significant difference in the observations after the exposition to positive or negative information on the social or the environmental dimension of CSR. In that sense, a brief pre-test carried out by the author proved a questionnaire including both the scenarios to be so long and redundant, that would 4 have discouraged the participants to complete it. In detail, each scenario refers to shopping for shoes online. Participants are asked to pretend that they like four pairs of shoes of the same quality yet priced differently and produced each by a different company. First, the choice of fictitious companies is explained by the previous numerous experiments on ethical consumption, that justify the necessity to avoid existing companies to control for extraneous factors, like the brand loyalty and the firm’s credibility and reputation (Vermeir and Verbeke, 2006). Second, the choice of the product is drawn on Mohr and Webb (2005) and Creyer and Ross (1997). In general, researchers both use high and low involvement products in their experiments on ethical consumption. Drawing on the previous considerations on values and involvement and the definitions provided by Kotler et al. (2014), high involvement products 5 are those that require a great decisional effort and an extensive information processing. The length of the informational processing can be explained by the values, motivations and needs of the consumer as well as by the characteristics of the product. High involvement products are often complex, costly and purchased once in a long time, such as cars, laptops and televisions. Interestingly, Sriram and Forman (1993) prove that consumers’ ethical attitudes differ depending on how frequently they purchase a product. In particular, consumers care

Up to twenty minutes

less about firms’ environmental performance when it comes to less frequently, opposed to more frequently purchased products. Familiarity with the shopping scenario, rather than involvement has been considered for this research. Mohr and Webb (2005) argues that everyone, regardless of age and gender, is familiar with shopping for shoes. The great familiarity of the sample selected for this research with shopping for shoes then explains the choice of this product. To conclude, images of fictitious shoes have been used to enhance the validity of the study, to replicate the visual stimuli perceived when shopping online (Hollensen, 2012). Any brand or feature that would have enabled the identification of the shoes with existing ones, altering the researcher ability to control for the aforementioned extraneous factors, has been digitally removed through Photoshop (2017).

Each pair of shoes is associated with a different specific CSR construct based on the manipulation of the independent variables positive information on CSR and negative

information on CSR. In detail, each manipulation relies on the combination of the scope of

the CSR initiatives, that might be domestic or overseas, and the environmental or the social domains drawn on the definition of CSR by the European Commission (2011). The eight manipulations Xi are presented below.

Table 1: The manipulations of the independent variables

Positive Information on CSR Negative Information on CSR

X1 Overseas Environmental + X5 Overseas Environmental

-X2 Domestic Environmental + X6 Domestic Environmental

-X3 Domestic Social + X7 Domestic Social

-A constant attention to the external validity of this study has been posed throughout the development of the methodology. First, the eight constructs are mixed in order to get a

two-domestic/two-overseas and two-positive/two-negative combinations that allow the researcher

to test the hypothesis and provide the participants with a wide array of different choices that make the scenario appealing. All the companies have been presented as making high quality and durable shoes and being headquartered in Europe, to emphasize the domestic, opposed to the overseas dimension. Further details on the combinations of the constructs provided for each scenario are presented in the Table 2. Second, following from Mohr and Webb (2005) and Handelman and Arnold (1999), price has been manipulated. Specifically, the shoes associated with the negative information on CSR has been priced 50 euro, while a 50 percent premium price has been selected for the shoes that refer to the positive information, in order to make the price difference consistent. Third, each construct has been drawn on real cases of CSR reported from magazines or mentioned in the literature on CSR. For instance, the

positive overseas social CSR case of a BOP solution to provide high quality and low price

Table 2: The two scenarios evenly presented to half of the respondents

The aim of this study is to observe the impact of the manipulations of the independent variables on the aforementioned dependent variables. In detail, the purchasing intention, the willingness to pay for a premium price and the willingness to ask for a price reduction are assessed through a 7-point Likert scale (extremely unlikely/extremely likely), largely used in the studies on marketing (Burns and Bush, 2014), while the positive and the evaluation of the firm’s product is assessed through a 5-point Likert scale (strongly disagree/strongly agree). The analysis on the reliability of the scales will be provided in the following section. The study design that refers to the first scenario proposed in order to test the hypothesis 2, 3 and 4 is presented below.

X

O

X

O

X

O

X

O

O = The measurement of the dependent variables


X = The manipulation, or change, of an independent variable


Scenario A Scenario B

Overseas Environmental - 50 Domestic Environmental - 50 Domestic Environmental + 75 Overseas Environmental + 75

Overseas Social + 75 Domestic Social + 75

4. Data analysis and results

4.1 Construct validity and descriptive statistics

Data analysis methods include simple, paired and independent t-test to compare different means of two groups in order to test the aforementioned hypothesis 1, 2, 3 and 4 and a one-way ANOVA test to compare the means among three or more sub-groups within the sample . 6 Preliminary reliability checks were implemented to assess the reliability of the constructs used in this study. Netemeyer et al. (2003) argue that it is not possible to assess the reliability of single-item scales with the Cronbach’s alpha, that in fact requires at least three items. Then, the reliability and the validity of the single-item scales on the purchasing intentions, the evaluation of the firm’s product and the willingness to pay a premium price or ask for a price reduction were drawn on the study on the predictive validity and reliability of purchase intention measures by Kalwani and Sink (1982) and further reinforced by the existing research that examine the characteristics of single-item measures in Likert format (Alexandrov, 2010) and the previous researchers that used single-item scales in their marketing studies. The reliability and the validity of the short Schwartz’s Value Survey (SVS) were examined by Lindeman and Verkasalo (2005) in four studies proving that the values obtained with the SVS correlate with the values obtained with the PVQ (Schwartz et al., 2001) and the SVS (Schwartz, 1992, 1996). 306 of the 358 questionnaire collected on Qualtrics (2017) were returned as usable, as 52 participants left the survey completing only the first section on demographics. The sample of this study consisted of three-hundred-and-six participants aged from 18 to 30 years old (M = 22,89) and coming from seventeen different countries in Europe. The evident predominance of Italian respondents is explained

All the analysis have been run through SPSS 23 (2017).

by the choice of a convenience sampling technique. Female respondents (n = 154) slightly exceeded the males (n = 152). The sample was quite well educated, as around the 75 percent of the respondents was achieving or had already achieved at least a bachelor degree. The two scenarios were almost evenly presented to half of the respondents (n =137 vs. n = 169). The respondents scored notably high in stimulation (M = 6,27), self-direction (M = 6,73), universalism (M = 6,33) and benevolence (M = 6,57), all measured on a 9-point scale. Further details on the amount of respondents, the demographics and the the individual characteristics are presented in the Table 3 and the Figures 7 and 8.

Table 3: Descriptive statistics for the individual characteristics

Interestingly, no differences were found in the purchasing intentions for male versus female respondents or for participants with different levels of education (p > 0.05). Differences in the purchasing intentions for respondents with different nationalities were not tested and will lead to further clarification in the next section on the opportunities for further research.

4.2 Values and purchasing intention

To test the hypothesis 1 on the impact of values on the purchasing intentions towards overseas CSR, the researcher drew on Vermeir and Verbeke (2006) and used median split to assign participants to different groups based on whether they score high or low for each individual characteristic. In detail, participants scoring below the median were assigned to the “low” category and respondents scoring above the median were assigned to the “high” group. A sequence of independent t-tests was carried out to test whether there is a significant difference between respondents in the “high” and the “low” groups in relation to purchasing intentions towards overseas CSR. In line with the hypothesis , the results in the Table 4 prove 7 that respondents in the “low” power, achievement and security groups had greater purchasing intentions towards positive overseas CSR and lower purchasing intentions towards negative overseas CSR than respondents in the respective “high” groups. Alternatively, participants scoring high in self-direction, universalism and benevolence had greater purchasing intentions towards positive overseas CSR and lower purchasing intentions towards negative overseas CSR compared with those scoring low in the same values. No significant differences were found in the purchasing intentions towards overseas CSR for individuals scoring high versus those scoring low in hedonism, stimulation, tradition and conformity (p > 0.05). Not surprisingly, the participants that score high in universalism refers to the group with the highest purchasing intentions towards positive overseas CSR (M = 5,32) and the respondents scoring high in power are those with the lowest purchasing intentions towards positive overseas CSR (M = 4,85). This confirms the findings by Schwartz (1996) about the effects of values on cooperation.

Table 4: Mean comparison and T-stats for participants scoring “high” and “low” in values Purchasing intentions towards

Positive Overseas CSR Mean (Std. dev)

Purchasing intentions towards Negative Overseas CSR Mean (Std.

4.3 Domestic vs. overseas CSR

To test the hypothesis 2 and 3, two complementary analysis were implemented. First, drawing on Creyer (1997), a simple t-test was used to measure whether the mean for each of the four macro-constructs is significantly different from the midpoint of the scale, thus 8 assessing whether the positive or negative information on domestic or overseas CSR had a positive or negative effect on the dependent variables. In detail, to test the hypothesis about the effect of positive or negative information on domestic or negative CSR on the purchasing intentions, the willingness to pay for a premium price or ask for a price reduction, the null hypothesis is that the mean is equal to four and the alternative hypothesis is that the mean is different than four. Alternatively, to test the hypothesis about the effect of positive or negative information on domestic or negative CSR on the positive and the negative evaluation of the firm’s product, the null hypothesis is that the mean is equal to three and the alternative hypothesis is that the mean is different than three. As shown in the Table 4 and 5 below, for all of the constructs, the means are significantly different from the midpoint of each scale (p

< 0.0001). In line with the hypothesis, the positive information on domestic and overseas

CSR had a positive impact on the purchasing intentions, the willingness to pay for a premium price and the positive evaluation (t values are positive). On the other hand, the negative information on domestic and overseas CSR had a negative impact on the aforementioned dependent variables.

Positive / Negative + Domestic / Overseas CSR

Table 5: Simple t-test results to test for significant differences from the midpoint of the scale — 4

Table 6: Simple t-test results to test for significant differences from the midpoint of the scale — 3

Measure Mean Std. dev. N t

Purchasing intentions Overseas Negative 2,71 1,623 282 -13,356 Purchasing intentions Domestic Positive 5,41 1,395 282 17,038 Purchasing intentions Overseas Positive 5,02 1,486 282 11,497 Purchasing intentions Domestic Negative 2,65 1,553 282 -14,569 Premium Price Overseas Negative 1,87 1,322 282 -27,018 Premium Price Domestic Positive 4,54 1,679 282 5,427 Premium Price Overseas Positive 4,37 1,764 282 3,546 Premium Price Domestic Negative 1,92 1,263 282 -27,628 Price Reduction Overseas Negative 4,22 2,029 282 1,820 Price Reduction Domestic Positive 3,16 1,608 282 -8,740

Price Reduction Overseas Positive 3,29 1,702 282 -6,997 Price Reduction Domestic Negative 4,06 2,029 282 0,470

Measure Mean Std. dev. N t

Positive Evaluation Overseas Negative 2,01 1,075 282 -15,449 Positive Evaluation Domestic Positive 4,06 0,848 282 21,002 Positive Evaluation Overseas Positive 3,90 0,943 282 15,972 Positive Evaluation Domestic Negative 2,05 1,037 282 -15,332 Negative Evaluation Overseas Negative 3,56 1,201 282 7,782

Table 7: Results of the paired samples test to test significance of the differences and compare the

means

Further, a specific analysis for each scenario was carried out to provide further insights into whether consumers care more about domestic or overseas CSR. In detail, an additional simple t-test was used to measure whether the means for each of the eight micro-constructs 9 are significantly different from the midpoint of the scale that refers to consumer purchasing intentions. The null hypothesis and the alternative hypothesis are drawn from the first paragraph in this section. The results in the Table 7 prove that each mean is significantly different from the midpoint of the scale (p < 0.0005). Then, a paired t-test was conducted to compare the means of each pair of parallel micro-constructs. The results in the Table 8 prove that all the pairs are significantly different from each other (p > 0.05). In detail, for the first scenario (n = 137), the negative information on environmental overseas CSR had a greater negative impact than the negative information on social domestic CSR on the purchasing intentions (M = 2,50 vs. M = 2,80), while the positive information on environmental domestic CSR had a greater positive impact than the positive information on the social overseas CSR (M = 5,44 vs. M = 5,03). For what concerns the second scenario (n = 145), the

Positive / Negative + Domestic / Overseas + Environmental / Social CSR

negative information on environmental domestic CSR had a greater impact than the negative information on social overseas CSR on the purchasing intentions (M = 2,51 vs. M = 2,91) and the positive information on social domestic CSR had a greater positive effect than the positive information on the environmental overseas CSR (M = 5,39 vs. M = 5,01).

Table 8: Results of the simple t- test to test significance of the differences from the midpoint of the

scale

Table 9: Results of the paired samples test to test significance of the differences and compare the

means

Measure — Purchasing Intentions Scenario Mean Std. dev. N t

Environmental Negative Overseas 1 2,50 1,501 137 -11,728 Environmental Positive Domestic 1 5,44 1,455 137 11,571

Social Positive Overseas 1 5,03 1,581 137 7,620 Social Negative Domestic 1 2,80 1,590 137 -8,814 Environmental Negative Domestic 2 2,51 1,510 145 -11,881

Social Positive Domestic 2 5,39 1,340 145 12,518 Environmental Positive Overseas 2 5,01 1,397 145 8,680

4.4 Environmental vs. social CSR

Table 10: Descriptive statistics for the purchasing intentions towards overseas and domestic CSR for

each scenario

Table 11: Results of independent sample test to check for significance in purchasing intentions

towards domestic and overseas CSR for participants in the first versus those that received the second scenario

Table 12: Overview of hypothesis testing results

Hypothesis Results Details

Hypothesis 1 Partially confirmed

Participants scoring high in universalism, benevolence and self-direction had greater attitudes towards overseas CSR than the rest. Participants scoring low in power, achievement an security

had have greater attitudes towards overseas CSR than the rest.

Hypothesis 2 Partially confirmed Participants had greater attitudes towards domestic, rather than overseas CSR, when faced with positive information on the MNEs’ CSR.

Hypothesis 3 Confirmed

Participants are willing to pay for a premium price and unwilling to ask for a price reduction for the ethical company. Participants are not willing to pay for a premium price and willing to ask for a

price reduction for the unethical company. Participants are more willing to pay for a premium price when faced with positive

information on domestic, rather than overseas CSR.

5. Discussion

5.1 The impact of values on ethical consumption

scoring low in hedonism, stimulation, tradition and conformity. Also, these findings add further insights into the research by Vermeir and Verbeke (2006) on how values impact the ethical behavioral intentions of consumers in Europe and draws further considerations on the application of the value theory to the attitudes (Schwartz, 1992, 1994, 1996), adopting for the first time a broad, global view of CSR. To conclude, these findings confirm that differences in value priorities explain differences in attitudes towards ethical consumption.

5.2 Domestic vs. overseas CSR

Further, this study aims to provide an original contribution to the debate on the conflict between domestic and overseas CSR, adopting for the first time a consumer, rather than corporate side perspective. In detail, it is aim of this research to investigate which is the impact of the positive and the negative information of CSR on the two aforementioned dimensions of CSR. Positive and negative information on CSR deserve separate discussions, as contrasting findings have been found for the two of them.

Positive information on CSR

importance of awareness, knowledge and information as determinants of ethical consumption (Vermeir and Verbeke, 2006). Second, participants faced with positive information on CSR have greater positive purchasing intentions, positive evaluation and willingness to pay for a premium price for the product associated with the positive domestic, rather than the positive overseas CSR initiatives. This implies that domestic consumers do care about CSR, but they also consider whether they might actually benefit from this CSR. This finding confirms the results of the surveys conducted by the European Commission (2005, 2016, 2017) arguing that only low percentages of domestic consumers make ethical choices to aid overseas countries in order to address the several inequalities existing between developing and developed countries (Edward and Sumner, 2013), although they rank the issue as important. The findings provided by the European Commission (2005, 2016, 2017) are here further developed, facing the participants with a real online purchasing scenario drawn on the several experiments on ethical consumption, such as the ones by Mohr and Webb (2005) and Creyer and Ross (1996), just to name a few. This finding stands as an original and unprecedented contribution to the international business (IB) research, addressing for the first time which is the domestic consumers’ position in the debate on how to balance the conflicting demands between domestic and overseas CSR (Peng and Miles, 2009). Also, this study contributes to the literature on ethical consumption, as there is no previous research that has investigated the attitudes of the consumers towards CSR, perceived in a global, broad, multi-dimensional perspective.

Negative information on CSR

fact, no significant differences were found in the impact of the negative information on CSR on the purchasing intentions, the evaluation of the products and the willingness to pay for a premium price or ask for a price reduction for the domestic versus the overseas dimension. In other words, consumers faced with negative information on domestic and overseas CSR tend to boycott the MNEs’ products regardless of the scope of their CSR initiatives. Opposed to the positive information on CSR, the negative information on domestic and overseas CSR has a negative impact on ethical consumption. This finding confirms the research by Carrigan and Attalla (2001) and Becker-Olsen et al. (2006) on the impact of negative CSR on sales and profitability. Consumers would like to boycott the unethical companies, when there are competitors available. This might entail for them to pay a premium price for the ethical alternative.

5.3 Price and ethical consumption: the existence of a “market for virtue”

CSR and proving that consumers in the domestic market are more willing to pay for a premium price when faced with positive information on domestic, rather than overseas CSR. This finding provides further evidence to the previous discussion on the debate between domestic and overseas CSR. Further, the willingness to pay for a premium price for positive domestic and overseas CSR might prove the existence of a “market for virtue”, contrary to Vogel (2005) and Zadek et al. (2003) and on the same line with De Pelsmacker et al. (2005) and Vermeir and Verbeke (2006).In detail, Vogel (2005) argues that consumers do not reward the corporate ethical behaviors, as they select products for other qualities than ethics. Alternatively, this finding proves that consumers do care about ethics, despite of the greater price they would need to pay for it. It is important to remind that this finding might be explained by the social desirability bias, namely the participants’ tendency to provide socially desirable answers to make a good impression on the researcher or any group of people involved in studies on ethical consumption (King and Bruner, 2000). Nonetheless, the external validity of this research has been ensured by controlling for price and any other extraneous variable that might stand as a determinant of ethical consumption, such as the quality and the features of the products or the credibility of the companies.

5.4 Sensitivity to different domains of CSR

climate change, as they are mentioned in the text of the Paris Agreement by the UNFCC (2015) that lead consumers to condemn any misbehaviors of large corporations in that sense. In the end, all the people in the world share one ecosystem and most environmental damages are not necessarily geographically restricted. In other words, environmental damages exceed the debate of the conflict between domestic and overseas dimension, concerning the global population as a whole instead. Following from the previous considerations on the position in the debate on the conflict between overseas and domestic CSR, any MNE’s social misconduct that produce effects only on the overseas dimension does not affect the domestic consumers in a tangible way as environmental issues would do instead, for instance contributing to the climate change and impacting on the quality of life of all the citizens in the world. Then again, it seems that consumers in the domestic markets do care about ethics, but also that their attitudes towards ethical consumption largely rely on what degree they might directly benefit from the CSR initiatives or they might be directly threatened by the MNEs’ misconduct.

5.5 Managerial implications for MNEs

companies that promote overseas CSR initiatives should target their campaigns at those individuals scoring high in universalism, benevolence and self-direction and low in power, achievement and security thus promoting the need to transcend the selfish focus on the own gains to enhance the importance to share welfare with the people in overseas, developing countries.

6. Conclusions

This research offers an unprecedented and original contribution to the existing debate on the conflict between domestic and overseas CSR identified by Peng and Miles (2009) and recently developed by the international business researchers, adopting for the first time a consumer, rather than corporate side perspective and using an experimental design to prove that consumers in the domestic markets have a preference for the first of the two dimensions, when awareness of positive CSR initiatives has been established. This research is the first that integrates a global, broad, multidimensional construct of CSR in the research on the impact of information on CSR on the attitudes towards ethical consumption and the discourses on how differences in value priorities affect attitudes and behaviors. In detail, consumers are proven not to be a homogeneous group when it comes to the debate of the conflict between domestic and overseas CSR. They are also proven to be willing to pay for a premium price for the ethical company and willing to ask for a price reduction for the unethical one. To conclude, this research shows that consumers’ attitudes towards overseas CSR may vary according on the the different stimuli that they receive. In detail, when faced with positive information on overseas CSR, consumers are more sensitive to the social dimension, while, when faced with negative information on negative CSR, they are more sensitive to environmental, rather than social issues. Of course, there are several limitations and opportunities for further research that can be now considered.

6.1 Limitations

and overseas CSR. Then, the researcher prioritized the focus on the overseas, rather than the domestic CSR, as there is no previous research that follows that path.

6.2 Future research

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