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Containing Cause-Related Marketing Skepticism: A Comparison across Donation Frame Types

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Abstract

This study examines how companies can better manage consumer attributions (ie, perceived company underlying motives) to corporate social responsibility (CSR) through CSR-related communications. Specifically, the article focuses on cause-related marketing (CRM) initiatives and investigates how different types of CRM donation frames influence consumers’ perceptions of a company’s motivation to support a social cause. Drawing from the psychology of money and CSR literature, the article finds that the in-kind CRM donation frame works best at reducing consumers’ causal attributions of companies’ self-centered motives.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. ALBA Graduate Business School at the American College of Greece, Athens, Greece

    Pavlos A Vlachos

  2. ALBA Graduate Business School at the American College of Greece, Athens, Greece

    Christos D Koritos

  3. DEREE Graduate School, The American College of Greece, Athens, Greece

    Areti Krepapa

  4. DEREE Graduate School, The American College of Greece, Athens, Greece

    Konstantinos Tasoulis

  5. INSEEC Business School, Paris, France

    Ioannis G Theodorakis

Authors
  1. Pavlos A Vlachos
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  2. Christos D Koritos
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  3. Areti Krepapa
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  4. Konstantinos Tasoulis
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  5. Ioannis G Theodorakis
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Appendices

Appendix A

Table A1

Table A1 Scenarios Used in the Study
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Appendix B

Table B1

Table B1 Scales
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Vlachos, P., Koritos, C., Krepapa, A. et al. Containing Cause-Related Marketing Skepticism: A Comparison across Donation Frame Types. Corp Reputation Rev 19, 4–21 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1057/crr.2015.23

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/crr.2015.23

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