Doing well by doing good: A quantitative investigation of the litter effect

Stuart Roper and Cathy Parker

Journal of Business Research, 2013, vol. 66, issue 11, 2262-2268

Abstract: Corporate social responsibility can prove challenging for traditional businesses as a profit-making agenda may well be in conflict with the wishes and expectations of other stakeholders. Nevertheless, if organizations can align the incentive of better business performance with beneficial outcomes on a wider social and/or environmental level, so called doing well by doing good, conflict ceases between the two aims. This paper investigates a particular global problem within the context of the fast-food industry. Discarded fast-food packaging is the fastest growing type of litter in many Western countries. The paper establishes, by using a quasi-experimental method (n=1000), that multiple levels of a brand's evaluation are negatively affected when that brand's packaging is seen as litter. This paper also quantifies the financial impact of the litter effect on a company.

Keywords: Corporate social responsibility/performance; Sustainability; Litter effect; Branding; Branded litter; Experiment (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2013
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (7)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0148296312000501
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

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:eee:jbrese:v:66:y:2013:i:11:p:2262-2268

DOI: 10.1016/j.jbusres.2012.02.018

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Business Research is currently edited by A. G. Woodside

More articles in Journal of Business Research from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().