CSR for Happiness: Corporate determinants of societal happiness as social responsibility

Over the past decade, societal happiness has increasingly been considered important to public policy initiatives globally, supported by interdisciplinary scholarly efforts spanning the social sciences, economics, and public health. Curiously, despite for‐profit corporations being core social institutions of modern societies, scant attention has been given to the social role and responsibilities of corporations in relation to societal happiness. In this article, we review and integrate research from positive psychology and related disciplines to examine happiness as a social outcome of corporate activity. We propose that corporations have a social responsibility to respect, preserve, and advance people's right to, and experience of, happiness—which we term CSR for Happiness. Within the existing literature, stakeholder happiness has generally been narrowly conceptualized in hedonic terms and has failed to consider the broader impacts of corporate activities on societal happiness. Drawing on advances in psychological theory and research, we provide a holistic conceptualization of happiness, which includes objective, subjective, hedonic, and eudaimonic dimensions of happiness. We offer an integrative conceptual framework, which includes the macro‐to‐micro and micro‐to‐macro pathways through which corporations directly and indirectly impact upon societal happiness. Finally, we consider implications of happiness research for the intersections of business and society.     

Trust,authentic pride,and moral reasoning: a unified framework of relational governance and emotional self‐regulation

This conceptual article introduces behavioral perspectives into the governance arena and undertakes a psychological assessment of managerial decision making in organizations by elaborating on the treatment of trust and (authentic and hubristic) pride in the extant literature. While trust is conceived by governance scholars as a device for monitoring relationships with others, we argue that authentic pride, contrary to hubris, could operate as an attribute of emotional self‐regulation allowing corporate leaders to govern the social behavior of their own self. Contrasting the features of trust and authentic pride, we advance several propositions to capture their relevance and simultaneous importance as viable governance mechanisms in light of a manager's level of cognitive moral reasoning. Our study builds a unified theoretical framework of governance which integrates human agency, psychological states, and moral judgment to foster a deeper understanding of complex self‐regulatory processes that are activated by decision makers in the execution of their roles.     

Consequences of concern: ethics,social responsibility,and well‐being

Prior research has studied the antecedents of beliefs regarding ethics and social responsibility (ESR). However, few studies have examined how individual well‐being may be related to such beliefs. In this exploratory study, we assessed the relationship between perceived importance of ESR – both individually and of one's company – and indicators of physical and psychological well‐being. Results demonstrated that perceived importance of ESR was associated with three aspects of well‐being: exuberance for life, sleep problems, and job stress. The results are discussed in terms of future directions for research, and the need for a conceptual framework connecting individual and organizational perceptions of ESR and outcomes of well‐being.     

An Ethical Framework for the Marketing of Corporate Social Responsibility

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to develop an ethical framework for the marketing of corporate social responsibility. Methods The approach is a conceptual one based on virtue ethics and on the corporate identity literature. Furthermore, empirical research results are used to describe the opportunities and pitfalls of using marketing communication tools in the strategy of building a virtuous corporate brand. Results/conclusions An ethical framework that addresses the paradoxical relation between the consequentialist perspective many proponents of the marketing of CSR adopt, and ethical perspectives which criticize an exclusive profit-oriented approach to CSR. Furthermore, three CSR strategies in relation to the marketing of CSR are discussed. For each CSR strategy it is explored how a corporation could avoid falling into the promise/performance gap.     

Export Motives,Psychological Distance,and the EPRG Framework

The EPRG framework is usually discussed on a conceptual level. Relatively few empirical examinations of the framework have been reported in the literature to date. This paper takes the required first step by placing the framework in a nomological network. This network includes export motives, psychological distance between home and host markets, and transference versus adaptation of international marketing strategies and activities. The findings lend support to the proposed nomological network.     

Applications of evolutionary psychology in marketing

Evolutionary psychology is an emerging paradigm in psychological science. The current article introduces this framework to marketing scholars and presents evidence for its increasing acceptance within the social science community. As a result, a case is made for the application of evolutionary psychology to marketing, and especially consumer behavior. Application of the evolutionary framework in studying gender‐related consumption behavior is illustrated by comparing the evolutionary predictions with results obtained from previous studies, by supporting these predictions with market‐level consumption data, and by proposing new hypotheses based on this framework. Also discussed are the potential applications of evolutionary psychology to other consumption‐related phenomena like evaluation of endorser attractiveness in advertising, biologically driven consumption choices among women, consumer‐experienced emotions in service encounters, and consumption choices as inclusive fitness maximization rather than utility maximization. © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

The influence of entrepreneurial marketing processes and entrepreneurial self-efficacy on community vulnerability,risk, and resilience

This paper uses the 2010/2011 Christchurch earthquake and re-development efforts as an exemplar to explore how entrepreneurial marketing processes combined with entrepreneurial self-efficacy can be leveraged to help a community reduce its vulnerability to natural disasters and enhance its resilience. Manyena's (Manyena, S. B. (2006). The concept of resilience revisited. Disasters, 30, 433–450; Manyena, S. B. (2012). Disaster and development paradigms: Too close for comfort? Development Policy Review, 30, 327–345) vulnerability–resilience theory is used as the conceptual framework to delineate the prophylactic benefits of building a community's entrepreneurial marketing process capabilities and the notion of entrepreneurial self-efficacy as defensive mechanisms to mitigate the effect of disasters. This work has resulted in an augmented disaster risk equation that considers: (1) the risk that a natural disaster poses on a community (as a function of the vulnerability of the community's tangible assets); (2) the hazard potential of the disaster; and (3) the resilience of its social and economic systems. This paper develops a measure of the symbiotic interrelationship of a community's entrepreneurial marketing process capabilities and community-level entrepreneurial self-efficacy to illustrate how leveraging the entrepreneurial, marketing, social, and engineering educational resources of a community can create a less vulnerable and more resilient community. In doing so, the paper develops a set of research propositions to guide future research and policy.     

A dual‐sequence framework for B2C relationship formation: Moderating effects of employee communication style in online group chat

Past research on B2C relationships has typically focused on unidimensional constructs of satisfaction, trust, and commitment, ignoring underlying psychological dimensions. Although some studies have examined cognitive and affective dimensions of these relational constructs, dual sequential effects in relationship formation have not been investigated. This study proposes and finds (in the context of online group chat) that parallel cognitive and affective sequences of relationship formation take place, thus expanding scholarly understanding of underlying psychological processes and offering marketing practitioners two different ways to build relationships with consumers. The proposed dual‐sequence relational framework further advances theory by shedding light on counterintuitive findings in past research. The study also supports the proposed moderating effects of employee communication style, such that sequential effects of cognitive (affective) relational constructs are stronger with a task‐oriented (socially oriented) employee, thus offering insights to practitioners in hiring and training employees to match specific organizational goals for building relationships with consumers. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Unfolding executive coaches' identity work through the social constructivist lens: Coach–coachee–organisation

This study responds to a recent call on coaches' professional identity work through a socially contextualised lens. Coaches, as the freelancer, encounter complex working relationships with clients due to multiple contracting entities; yet coaches' identity work has been neglected in the extant training and development courses. A total of 36 semi-structured interviews with coaches and relational others (e.g., coachees and organisational stakeholders) were conducted to understand how coaches develop professional identity as part of their career development in responding to interactions with relational others. The research findings identify that learning facilitator is the core identity of coaches regardless of varied stages of the coaching process. Three layers of sub-identity are distinguished for them to handle a multi-level working relationship with clients. Coaches often ‘travel’ in-and-out between layers of these sub-identities to incorporate micro-personal career interests, meso coaching dyadic working relationships and the macro-level organisational scope into their identity development and negotiation. Accordingly, coaches' learning agility is required to remain identity flexibility for coping with varied coaching scenarios. This study outlines a conceptual framework which illustrates coaches' identity work as a conscious cognitive learning process embedded social and psychological exchanges. This framework offers coaching professional development courses a groundwork to facilitate coaches' identity development.     

The Effects of Idealized Advertising Imagery on Social Comparisons,Psychological and Emotional Outcomes,and Consumer Vulnerability: A Conceptual Model

This article integrates marketing and social psychology theories and findings into a conceptual model that describes the conditions for which idealized advertising images induce positive (or negative) consumer outcomes. Extending Bessenoff's moderated mediation model, the authors propose that: (1) effect of social comparison on the relationship between exposure to idealized advertising images and psychological/emotional outcomes will be moderated by internalization of ideals and self-discrepancy; (2) effect of psychological/emotional outcomes on the relationship between social comparison and consumer vulnerability will be moderated by attainability of ideals; and (3) product claims should moderate the relationship between psychological and emotional outcomes and consumer vulnerability.     

Television’s Glocal Advertising in Veridical Product Narrative: A SE Asian Reception Study of Consumer Alignment/Alienation

Drawing on post‐Marxist screen reception studies in Malaysia, our article establishes a theoretical framework enabling analysis of consumer identification with/cultural distancing from television advertising and its aesthetics. We develop a hermeneutic model of audience response to audio‐visual text as ludic or play‐like in cognitively pursuing a meaning for veridical (mediated yet transparently accessible) marketing narrative sketches of everyday life transcended. Illustrating and illuminating this thesis, we report on a small SE Asian university research project whose participants articulate written reactions to two televised advertisements displaying transcultural product morphing (or glocal goods). Customer identification with consumers shown in television marketing is argued to be fundamentally hermeneutic. Brought into focus through analysis, that is, customer/consumer alignment is conceptual, conscious, and cultural where both project (expect and establish) a screen narrative shared epistemologically (as interpretative knowledge) and ontologically (as involving their activity). The reader’s propositional identification with a text’s perceived normative statement is enabled. On the other hand, discourses of consumer alienation emerge in response to advertisements inappropriately addressing audience horizons of expectation.     

Building the Charity Brand Community

The current article extends the concept of brand community to the charity sector. While the charity sector has begun to embrace the relationship marketing paradigm, brand communities represent a unique form of relationship marketing that can have a significant impact on nonprofits. A conceptual model of brand community development in the charity sector is proposed, and two unique mechanisms by which charity brand communities might develop — the cognitive and experiential‐learning mechanisms — are proposed. Not only do these mechanisms offer unique insights into how brand communities might develop, but they also explain how “sense of community” becomes a dominant influence on supporter loyalty. Research propositions concerning the influence of specific markers of brand community upon charity support behavior, are also presented.     

Engagement,telepresence and interactivity in online consumer experience: Reconciling scholastic and managerial perspectives

We propose a conceptual framework that reconciles the practitioners' view of engagement as central to online best practice and the scholarly view that tends to use other constructs to assess consumer experience. Building on research in e-learning as well as online marketing, we characterize the consumer experiential response to website and environmental stimuli as a dynamic, tiered perceptual spectrum which includes interactivity, telepresence and engagement. We construe engagement as a cognitive and affective commitment to an active relationship with the brand as personified by the website, and we propose dimensions of this construct. We discuss how the constructs of interactivity, flow and involvement are related to but distinct from the constructs within our conceptual framework. We offer suggestions for future empirical research into developing a scale for engagement and assessing its importance and utility.     

Effects of au naturel packaging colors on willingness to pay for healthy food

This study introduces and defines a novel color family—au naturel colors—and proposes that featuring these hues on product packaging enhances consumer willingness to pay (WTP) for healthy food products, but not for unhealthy food products. This effect occurs irrespective of the fit between the colors of the product and of the packaging, and of the color lightness or saturation. Perceptions of product authenticity mediate the relationship between au naturel colors packaging and consumer WTP for the product. The results of seven studies provide support for the proposed conceptual framework, contributing to the literature on consumer responses to colors and packaging features, and allowing to draw implications for the marketing of healthy food products.     

Project failure from corporate entrepreneurship: Managing the grief process

In this paper, we complement social cognitive theory with psychological theories on grief in our discussion of two approaches to grief management – grief regulation and grief normalization – that hold promise for enabling corporate entrepreneurs to cope with negative emotions induced by project failure. We propose that to the extent that organizational members have high self-efficacy for recovering from grief over project failure, or this coping self-efficacy can be built through the social support offered by the organizational environment, regulating rather than eliminating, grief via normalization processes will explain superior learning and motivational outcomes.     

Rags to riches? Entrepreneurs' social classes,resourceful time allocation,and venture performance

Social classes shape entrepreneurial pursuits in that entrepreneurs from lower social class groups face more resource deficiencies compared to those from higher social class groups. In this study, we theorize that being resourceful with a particular resource—time—helps ventures run by lower-class entrepreneurs achieve better performance. However, we further argue that the extent to which entrepreneurs use time resourcefully is affected by the cognitive schemas stamped on them by their social class backgrounds. Our empirical analysis of 8663 Chinese private entrepreneurs between 2006 and 2010 lends robust support to these arguments. By revealing both material and cognitive constraints stemming from entrepreneurs' social classes, our study contributes to research on social classes and entrepreneurial resourcefulness and has important implications for understanding the persistence of inequality in entrepreneurship.     

Information Sensitivity Typology: Mapping the Degree and Type of Risk Consumers Perceive in Personal Data Sharing

Surveys show significant public concern regarding information privacy. To better understand how consumer concerns vary by type of personal data, the authors created a typology of information types based on perceived associated risks. In a national consumer survey, 52 information types were analyzed along four perceived risk categories (physical, psychological, monetary, and social), consumers' overall sensitivity regarding the information, and their willingness to provide it. This resulted in six highly distinctive clusters—Basic Demographics, Personal Preferences, Contact Information, Community Interaction, Financial Information, and Secure Identifiers—organized around similarities in perceived risk profile. Additionally, consumer segmentation analysis shows rank order of cluster risk perceptions to be stable, even when perceived magnitude and overall risk propensities change by segment. This research advances the conversation from an outdated PII/non‐PII framework to a more meaningful, consumer‐based understanding of the perceived risks associated with different types of personal information.     

Consumers as legitimating agents: How consumer‐citizens challenge marketer legitimacy on social media

Previous research has shown that consumers increasingly challenge the legitimacy of marketers and unsolicited marketing communication in online contexts. Based on a qualitative study, this article examines how and for what reasons consumers challenge marketer legitimacy—the perceived appropriateness of marketers and their activities—in the empirical context of Reddit, a popular social news and community website. The study suggests that consumers challenge or accept marketer legitimacy in online communities based on particular, community and situation specific, legitimacy criteria that reflect and reproduce the values and norms of the community. In doing so, it is argued, consumers play a role as legitimating agents—consumer‐citizens that have the power to confer or deny legitimacy in the context of business‐society relations. Overall, the study advances knowledge in the field of consumer studies in two ways. First, it builds a symbolic interactionist perspective on consumer‐citizens as legitimating agents who enact their active citizenship role in the marketplace by assessing and constructing marketer legitimacy in online communities. Second, it offers an empirically grounded account of how and for what reasons consumer‐citizens challenge or accept the legitimacy of marketers and unsolicited marketing communication in online communities.     

Celebrity influences on consumer decision making: new insights and research directions

ABSTRACT

Throughout human history, people have expressed admiration for heroes who possessed extraordinary abilities and achieved superhuman goals. For many, modern-day celebrities fulfil this role and are prominent in various marketing communications activities. This paper addresses the literature review gaps and provides an in-depth review of the psychological and social psychological perspectives which are relevant to the celebrity endorsement literature. The contributions of this paper consist of a detailed analysis of important types of consumer-celebrity relationships, key emotional drivers (e.g. envy and admiration) of celebrity influence and the development of an original conceptual model. The conceptual model pulls together the past research and identifies new research gaps, which synthesises different research perspectives and provides a sound theoretical basis guiding future researchers and marketing managers.