Purpose - The current research seeks to investigate how consumers respond to a company’s CSR activities in the product-harm crisis in the foreign market, focusing on the case of the Samsung Galaxy Note 7 Battery Explosion case in 2017 in the U.S. market. Adopting the specific types of corporate responsibilities that Carroll (1991) suggests, we classified the CSR activities into three (i.e., the legal, ethical, and philanthropic responsibilities) and examined which type of CSR activity is the most effective in dealing with consumer response to the product-harm crisis. Design/Methodology/Approach - For this purpose, we experimented in the United States. 65 US participants were recruited for our experiment. Samsung’s Galaxy Note 7 Battery Explosion crisis was described to participants first; then one of the three types of CSR activities was presented according to the conditions in which participants were randomly assigned. Then participants indicated the evaluation of Samsung. Findings - The results indicate that consumers’ evaluation of Samsung was more positive when Samsung involves in ethical or philanthropic responsibility than a legal responsibility. Research Implications - We make significant theoretical and managerial contributions. We advance the CSR literature as well as the product-harm crisis literature by incorporating that companies’ CSR initiatives could be a good way to soothe dissatisfactory consumers. Our results are also managerially meaningful by providing specific guidelines regarding which type of CSR activity is more effective in handling the negative consequences due to a product-harm crisis.
Ⅰ. Introduction
Ⅱ. Theoretical Framework
Ⅲ. Study
Ⅳ. Discussion
References