Corporate social responsibility and consumers' attributions and brand evaluations in a product–harm crisis

A growing body of research on Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) in marketing has shown that (1) CSR plays a role in consumers' brand and product evaluations, over and above economic or ‘rational’ considerations such as product attributes; and (2) CSR has a spillover or ‘halo effect’ on otherwise unrelated consumer judgments, such as the evaluation of new products. Yet CSR's halo on consumer behavior may extend beyond product evaluations, into nonroutine types of judgments such as attributions. We examine the possibility that the CSR halo affects consumers' attributions in a product–harm crisis situation. In two studies that employ experimental manipulations of prior CSR on a sample of consumers, we examine whether attributions that are influenced by CSR mediate the impact of product–harm crises on consumers' brand evaluations. The results of Study 1 support the hypothesis. Study 2 introduces a boundary condition on the results of Study 1, showing that mediation effects are only found for consumers that are CSR-sensitive. The findings point to a role of CSR in consumer behavior that is more complex than previously conceptualized.