Consumer animosity and purchase behavior : the role of corporate social responsibility

• Main Author: ZHANG, Chun
• Format: Others
• Language: en
• Published: Digital Commons @ Lingnan University 2013
• Subjects: Marketing
• Online Access: https://commons.ln.edu.hk/mkt_etd/16; https://commons.ln.edu.hk/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1015&context=mkt_etd

Consumer animosity may have a negative impact on consumers’ purchase behavior for foreign products. The consequences of the negative influence include boycotting and reluctant to purchase. This study explores the research on consumer animosity and focuses on how to attenuate the negative effect of consumer animosity towards consumers’ purchase behavior. Corporate social responsibility (CSR) is considered to have a moderating effect on the relationship between consumer animosity and purchase intention. In addition, individual thinking styles are expected to influence the moderating role of CSR. In this study, a 2 (consumer animosity: high vs. low) x 2 (CSR: high vs. low) x 2 (thinking style: holistic vs. analytic) between-subjects factorial design was conducted. Participants were recruited in mainland China. Hypotheses were all supported by the results. The higher the level of CSR, the weaker impact of consumer animosity has on the purchase intention. Furthermore, when the holistic thinking style is dominant, the moderating influence of high (vs. low) CSR on the effect of consumer animosity is stronger. In contrast, when the analytic thinking style is dominant, the moderating influence of high (vs. low) CSR on the effect of consumer animosity is weaker. Managerial implications and limitations of the study are discussed.