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The Impact of Moral Emotions on Cause-Related Marketing Campaigns: A Cross-Cultural Examination

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Abstract

This research was focused on investigating why some consumers might support cause-related marketing campaigns for reasons other than personal benefit by examining the influence of moral emotions and cultural orientation. The authors investigated the extent to which moral emotions operate differently across a cultural variable (US versus Korea) and an individual difference variable (self-construal). A survey method was utilised. Data were collected from a convenience sample of US (n = 180) and Korean (n = 191) undergraduates. Moral emotions significantly influenced purchase intention for a social-cause product. The influence of an ego-focused moral emotion (i.e., pride) on purchase intention was greater for US than Korean participants. The influence of another-focused moral emotion (i.e., guilt) on purchase intention was greater for high-interdependent participants than for low-interdependent participants. The findings of this research provide important and relevant implications to marketers and policy makers in developing persuasive messages and customer relationship programmes.

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Notes

  1. We used student sample in this study because the focus of this study was theory application. Researchers have argued that homogeneous student samples are desired in research when the goal of the research is theoretical in nature (Calder et al. 1981; Peterson 2001). The homogeneity of samples between two cultures was important to exclude any alternative explanations caused by the heterogeneity of samples within a culture. A student sample is also considered to be appropriate when researchers aim to simultaneously compare differences in views and values within as well as between countries and cultures (Bello et al. 2009).

  2. Controversy exists over the use of Cronbach’s alpha for two-item scales and whether or not a correlation coefficient is the appropriate indicator (Hulin et al. 2001). As a result, the correlation coefficient for the two items was equal to .79 and is also reported here.

  3. We tested three-way interaction effects among the two types of self-construal (independent, interdependent) and moral emotions. Our results were non-significant.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Business School, Auckland University of Technology, Private Bag 92006, Auckland, 1142, New Zealand

    Jae-Eun Kim

  2. Retail Merchandising Program, College of Design, University of Minnesota, 240 McNeal Hall, 1985 Buford Avenue, St. Paul, MN, 55108, USA

    Kim K. P. Johnson

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Kim, JE., Johnson, K.K.P. The Impact of Moral Emotions on Cause-Related Marketing Campaigns: A Cross-Cultural Examination. J Bus Ethics 112, 79–90 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-012-1233-6

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