Laura Marie Schons

Warm Glow or Extra Charge? The Ambivalent Effect of Corporate Social Responsibility Activities on Customers’ Perceived Price Fairness

Prior research has firmly established that consumers draw benefits from a firms engagement in corporate social responsibility (CSR), especially the feeling of a “warm glow.” These benefits positively affect several desirable outcomes, such as willingness to pay and customer loyalty. The authors propose that consumers do not blindly perceive benefits from a firms CSR engagement but tend to suspect that a firms prices include a markup to finance the CSR engagement. Taking customers’ benefit perceptions and price markup inferences into account, the authors suggest that CSR engagement has mixed effects on consumers’ evaluation of price fairness and, thus, on subsequent outcomes such as customer loyalty. The authors conduct one qualitative study and four quantitative studies leveraging longitudinal field and experimental data from more than 4,000 customers and show that customers indeed infer CSR price markups, entailing mixed effects of firms’ CSR engagement on price fairness. The authors find that perception critically depends on customers’ CSR attributions, and they explore the underlying psychological mechanisms. They propose communication strategies to optimize the effect of CSR engagement on perceived price fairness.

Engaging Customers in Coproduction Processes: How Value-Enhancing and Intensity-Reducing Communication Strategies Mitigate the Negative Effects of Coproduction Intensity

Coproduction offerings, in which customers engage in the production of goods and services, are ubiquitous (e.g., ready-to-assemble products, self-service technologies). However, although previous research has predominantly identified beneficial aspects of coproduction in contrast to traditional firm production, the pivotal role of coproduction intensity within coproduction processes has largely been neglected. Furthermore, little is known about strategies that firms can employ to positively influence customers’ perceptions of coproduction processes. Drawing on a large field experiment with 803 customers engaging in actual coproduction processes, the current study makes a first attempt to address these research voids. The results show that coproduction intensity negatively affects customers’ satisfaction with the coproduction process. Furthermore, the study offers first insights into how firms can mitigate these negative effects by employing corporate communication strategies that either emphasize specific coproduction value propositions (value-enhancing communication strategies) or highlight additional coproduction service supplements (intensity-reducing communication strategies).

Loyalty program types as drivers of customer retention: a comparison of stand-alone programs and multi-vendor loyalty programs through the lens of transaction cost economics

Loyalty programs have enjoyed a steady increase in popularity, particularly in retailing. Past research has explored whether the membership in a loyalty program affects important customer outcomes. However, none of the previous contributions has differentiated between the effects of different loyalty program types on customer retention. This paper intends to fill this research gap by focusing on the question whether different types of loyalty programs, i.e. multi-vendor loyalty programs (MVLP) or stand-alone programs (SAPs) are most effective in retaining customers. Based on a transaction cost theoretic analysis of benefits generated by the two types of programs, two empirical studies are conducted in the retail sector. Our results clearly indicate that a higher level of customer retention cannot be achieved by joining an MVLP, but by setting up an SAP. It is, however, possible to win new customers through joining an MVLP which does not seem feasible through setting up an SAP.

Tell Me How You Treat Your Employees

In communicating their good deeds to customers, most companies focus on company-external discretionary Corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities such as philanthropy. In contrast with this prevailing managerial practice, the present paper proposes that customers react less positively to communications on how companies allocate profits to company-external good causes and more positively to communications on how companies make their profits in the first place, i.e., how they treat their employees. A preliminary study among customers of an international retailer (N = 11,587) suggests that customers perceive the domain of employee CSR to be significantly more important than other CSR domains. Based on a qualitative study using focus-group interviews, the authors propose that employee support CSR messages elicit the highest intrinsic attributions among customers and enhance customer identification with the company. A large-scale field experiment of customers of the focal retailer (N = 5,586) delivers evidence that supports these propositions for four real CSR communication messages from different CSR domains. More specifically, the study results suggest that an employee support message elicits the most positive customer responses, not only by increasing attributions of the companys intrinsic motives for engaging in CSR but also by increasing customer identification with the company.

Internal Marketing of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) Initiatives: CSR Portfolio Effects on Employee Perceptions of Corporate Hypocrisy, Attitudes, and Turnover

Firms invest significant budgets in Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) activities. Donations to nonprofit organizations that fight poverty or protect the environment demonstrate support of a firm’s external stakeholders. Customers are increasingly interested in how firms support their internal stakeholders (i.e., employees), yet many firms are lagging on such CSR activities.

Durchsetzung sozialer Normen in Hochkostensituationen / Norm Enforcement in High-Cost-Situations

Zusammenfassung Hochkosten- und Niedrigkostensituationen wurden in der Literatur vielfach konzeptionell diskutiert und besonders die „Low-Cost-Hypothese” war Gegenstand zahlreicher Studien zu prosozialem Verhalten. In der vorliegenden Studie werden Personen in Indonesien befragt, die bedingt durch ein sehr niedriges Einkommen unter einem sehr starken ökonomischen Druck stehen. Wir bedienen uns eines Ansatzes aus der experimentellen Spieltheorie (des Ultimatumspiels) und finden eindeutige Hinweise für die Existenz von Hochkostensituationen; Situationen also, in denen die Befragten dazu gezwungen sind, sich den Prognosen der klassischen Rational-Choice-Theorie entsprechend zu verhalten. Des Weiteren ermçglicht es unsere experimentelle Methodologie, die Effekte des Einkommens (als Restriktion) und Spielbetrags (als situativen Anreizes) separat zu quantifizieren und auf Nichtlinearitäten zu überprüfen. Abstract High-cost and low-cost situations have been frequently discussed in the literature whereby it is especially the so-called low-cost hypothesis which has been empirically explored in various studies on pro-social and pro-environmental behavior. The study at hand uses a sample of Indonesian respondents who, due to very low income, are subject to tight economic constraints. We make use of the ultimatum game from experimental economics and find clear evidence for the existence of high-cost situations, i. e. situations in which the respondents are forced to act in line with traditional rational choice theory. Moreover, our experimental methodology allows us to estimate separately the effects of low income (a constraint) and size of the stake (an incentive) as different components of situational pressure on the behavior of responders and to test for non-linearities in the effects.

Log-likelihood-based Pseudo-R2 in Logistic Regression: Deriving Sample-sensitive Benchmarks

The literature proposes numerous so-called pseudo-R2 measures for evaluating “goodness of fit” in regression models with categorical dependent variables. Unlike ordinary least square-R2, log-likelihood-based pseudo-R2s do not represent the proportion of explained variance but rather the improvement in model likelihood over a null model. The multitude of available pseudo-R2 measures and the absence of benchmarks often lead to confusing interpretations and unclear reporting. Drawing on a meta-analysis of 274 published logistic regression models as well as simulated data, this study investigates fundamental differences of distinct pseudo-R2 measures, focusing on their dependence on basic study design characteristics. Results indicate that almost all pseudo-R2s are influenced to some extent by sample size, number of predictor variables, and number of categories of the dependent variable and its distribution asymmetry. Hence, an interpretation by goodness-of-fit benchmark values must explicitly consider these characteristics. The authors derive a set of goodness-of-fit benchmark values with respect to ranges of sample size and distribution of observations for this measure. This study raises awareness of fundamental differences in characteristics of pseudo-R2s and the need for greater precision in reporting these measures.

Tue Gutes und rede darüber

Die Autorin beschaftigt sich anhand einer dreistufigen feldexperimentellen Studie in Kooperation mit einem grosen internationalen Handelsunternehmen mit der Frage der optimalen Ausgestaltung von CSR. Das Feldexperiment eins beschaftigt sich mit der Frage nach der Form des Engagements, dem sogenannten CSR-Mix bzw. CSR-Portfolio und der Auswahl der zu kommunizierenden Aktivitaten unter Berucksichtigung von konfliktierenden Stakeholderinteressen. Der Inside-out-Ansatz des CSR-Engagements stellt hierbei ein erstes Ergebnis dar. Die Involvement-Strategie in den Stufen Information, Response und Involvement stellt das Kernthema des zweiten Feldexperiments dar. Das dritte Feldexperiment befasst sich mit der stark emotionalisierten Kommunikationsmethode des Storytellings. Hierbei gilt es zu hinterfragen, ob die bei CSR-Kommunikation vorherrschende Skepsis durch emotionalisierte Kommunikation verstarkt oder aufgehoben wird, also ob Storytelling eine effektive Methode der CSR-Kommunikation sein kann.

Ärztliches Handeln zwischen professionellem Ethos und finanziellen Anreizen

Mixed Methods-Designs konnen als empirischer Forschungsansatz zur Beantwortung von Fragestellungen im Gesundheitswesen auf eine langere Tradition zuruckblicken (siehe fur einen Uberblick O‘Cathain 2009; O‘Cathain et al. 2008). Auch wenn Siegrist (1978) seine Untersuchung im Krankenhaus nicht als Mixed Methods-Design klassifiziert hat, so hat er bereits qualitative und quantitative Methoden gewinnbringend miteinander kombiniert. Auch in jungeren Forschungsarbeiten (z.B. Braun et al. 2010; Wilkesmann et al. 2014) werden methodenverknupfende Verfahren eingesetzt, wenn komplexe Phanomene untersucht werden.