THE ROLE OF CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY IN CONSUMER BEHAVIOUR: AN UNRESOLVED PARADOX

Rosetta Lombardo ()
Additional contact information
Rosetta Lombardo: Dipartimento di Economia e Statistica, Università della Calabria

No 201115, Working Papers from Università della Calabria, Dipartimento di Economia, Statistica e Finanza "Giovanni Anania" - DESF

Abstract: Business activity and consumption activities are recognised as impacting, often negatively, on the environment. The challenge of ‘satisfying the needs of the present generation without compromising the chance for future generations to satisfy theirs’ requires, however, contributions by all societal actors. A growing number of firms “overcomply” with environmental regulation for several reasons. Firms satisfy consumer demand and try to shape that demand. In doing so, they may create a taste for environment protection and sustainability. Corporate social responsibility has received considerable attention. The concept of ‘consumer social responsibility’ has received comparatively little attention probably because of the dominance of the notion of consumer sovereignty. If consumers’ perception of corporate social responsibility practices drives their purchase behaviour, firms are motivated to invest in socially responsible practices. However, there exists a wide gap between positive attitudes toward social responsibility and actual purchase behaviours. This paper tries to shed some light on what affects individuals’ perceptions about their responsibilities as citizens/consumers and their consumption behaviour.

Keywords: Environment; Sustainability; Corporate Social Responsibility; Consumer Sovereignty; Consumer Social Responsibility; Preferences; Social norms (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D01 D21 D62 M14 Q28 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 14 pages
Date: 2011-11
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-env and nep-mkt
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.ecostat.unical.it/RePEc/WorkingPapers/WP15_2011.pdf First version, 2011-11 (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:clb:wpaper:201115

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Working Papers from Università della Calabria, Dipartimento di Economia, Statistica e Finanza "Giovanni Anania" - DESF Università della Calabria, Dipartimento di Economia, Statistica e Finanza "Giovanni Anania", Ponte Pietro Bucci, Cubo 0/C, I-87036 Arcavacata di Rende, CS, Italy. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Giovanni Dodero ().