Sankar Sen

Corporate Social Responsibility and Competitive Advantage: Overcoming the Trust Barrier

This research builds on the complementary corporate social responsibility (CSR) literatures in strategy and marketing to provide insight into the efficacy of CSR as a challengers competitive weapon against a market leader. Through an investigation of a real-world CSR initiative, we show that the challenger can reap superior business returns (i.e., more positive attitudinal and behavioral outcomes) among consumers who had participated in its CSR initiative, relative to those who were merely aware of the initiative. Specifically, participant consumers demonstrate the desired attitudinal and behavioral changes in favor of the challenger, regardless of their affective trust in the leader, whereas aware consumers reactions become less favorable as their affective trust in the leader increases. Furthermore, participant consumers, but not aware ones, form a communal, trust-based bond with the challenger. n nThis paper was accepted by Pradeep Chintagunta and Preyas Desai, special issue editors. n nThis paper was accepted by Pradeep Chintagunta and Preyas Desai, special issue editors.

Corporate social responsibility, multi-faceted job-products, and employee outcomes

This paper examines how employees react to their organizations’ corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives. Drawing upon research in internal marketing and psychological contract theories, we argue that employees have multi-faceted job needs (i.e., economic, developmental, and ideological needs) and that CSR programs comprise an important means to fulfill developmental and ideological job needs. Based on cluster analysis, we identify three heterogeneous employee segments, Idealists, Enthusiasts, and Indifferents, who vary in their multi-faceted job needs and, consequently, their demand for organizational CSR. We further find that an organization’s CSR programs generate favorable employee-related outcomes, such as job satisfaction and reduction in turnover intention, by fulfilling employees’ ideological and developmental job needs. Finally, we find that CSR proximity strengthens the positive impact of CSR on employee-related outcomes. This research reveals significant employee heterogeneity in their demand for organizational CSR and sheds new light on the underlying mechanisms linking CSR to employee-related outcomes. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2015