Consumers are increasingly mindful of CSR when making purchase and consumption decisions. While extant research suggests small, positive effects of CSR on measures of firm financial valuation, consumers' behavioral response to CSR initiatives in the form of actual purchase decisions remains undocumented. This paper introduces a framework categorizing firm-initiated CSR efforts as “Corrective,” “Compensating,” or “Cultivating goodwill” actions, and documents the influence of these different types of CSR on brand sales. Leveraging a database of CSR press releases and sales data from leading CPG brands, the authors examine the effect of CSR announcements on brand sales. The findings suggest that CSR initiatives that genuinely seek to reduce a brand's negative social or environmental impact (“Corrective” and “Compensating”) produce the greatest sales lift, while CSR actions consisting of purely philanthropic-type efforts (“Cultivating goodwill”) can actually hurt sales. The experimental results show that, conditional on CSR reputation, consumers perceive varying degrees of sincerity in the different CSR types, which mediate the effect of CSR type on purchase intentions. Overall, the results suggest that consumers are more inclined to reward firms that directly reduce the negative by-products of their own business practices than to be impressed by public goodwill gestures.

消费者在做出购买和消费决策时越来越关注企业社会责任。虽然现有的研究表明企业社会责任对公司财务估值的衡量标准有微小的积极影响，但消费者对实际购买决策形式的企业社会责任举措的行为反应仍未记录在案。本文介绍了一个框架，将企业发起的 CSR 工作分类为“纠正”、“补偿”或“培养商誉”行为，并记录了这些不同类型的 CSR 对品牌销售的影响。作者利用 CSR 新闻稿和领先 CPG 品牌的销售数据数据库，研究了 CSR 公告对品牌销售的影响。调查结果表明，真正寻求减少品牌的企业社会责任举措 负面的社会或环境影响（“纠正”和“补偿”）产生最大的销售提升，而由纯粹的慈善型努力（“培养商誉”）组成的企业社会责任行动实际上可能会损害销售。实验结果表明，以企业社会责任声誉为条件，消费者对不同企业社会责任类型的诚意感知程度不同，这在企业社会责任类型对购买意愿的影响中起中介作用。总体而言，结果表明，消费者更倾向于奖励那些直接减少其自身商业行为的负面副产品的公司，而不是被公共善意的姿态所打动。消费者在不同CSR类型中感知到不同程度的诚意，这介导了CSR类型对购买意愿的影响。总体而言，结果表明，消费者更倾向于奖励那些直接减少其自身商业行为的负面副产品的公司，而不是被公共善意的姿态所打动。消费者在不同CSR类型中感知到不同程度的诚意，这介导了CSR类型对购买意愿的影响。总体而言，结果表明，消费者更倾向于奖励那些直接减少其自身商业行为的负面副产品的公司，而不是被公共善意的姿态所打动。