The short and long-run impact of empowering customers in corporate social responsibility initiatives

Grant E. Donnelly, Duncan I. Simester and Michael I. Norton

Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 2021, vol. 192, issue C, 616-637

Abstract: Rather than just informing customers about their corporate social responsibility initiatives, many for-profit firms have sought to engage their customers in these activities. Previous research assessing the impact of these programs has focused on short-run effects on customer behavior, typically documenting positive effects. We report the results of a quasi-experiment, in which customers either received information about a firm's charitable campaign or were given that information and the opportunity to vote for the charitable recipient. Our results demonstrate that the long-run effect is the reverse of the short-run effect. In the short term, inviting customers to vote (vs. information only) increases the average size of customers’ shopping baskets. However, in the long-run the effects are reversed; merely providing information (rather than inviting customers to vote) has a more positive long-term impact on customer purchasing. The long-run effects are much larger than the short-run effects, such that focusing solely on the short-run outcome would result in decisions that lower overall profits. These results have important managerial implications for firms seeking to engage customers in their charitable giving initiatives.

Keywords: Cause related marketing; Corporate social responsibility; Prosocial behavior; Field experiments; Long-run effects; JEL codes, D6, D7, D8, I3, L3, M3 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D6 D7 D8 I3 L3 M3 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:jeborg:v:192:y:2021:i:c:p:616-637

DOI: 10.1016/j.jebo.2021.10.035

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