소비자인지도화령수상사회책임(消费者认知度和零售商社会责任): 종미국시각출발적도덕구매행위적탐색성연구(从美国视角出发的道德购买行为的探索性研究)

Consumer Awareness and Evaluation of Retailers' Social Responsibility: An Exploratory Approach into Ethical Purchase Behavior from a U.S Perspective

企业社会责任已经成为学者们进行研究的一个重要课题. 多数认为企业社会责任对企业去定义他们在社会中的责任是必要的, 并且为他们的商业活动提供社会和道德标准. 其结果是, 相当数量的零售商已经采用企业社会责任为一个战略工具来宣传他们的商业活动. 为此, 本研究企图探索美国消费者在他们对零售商主观的感知和评估的基础上在道德购买和消费中的态度和行为. 本文的目的包括: 1)测定参与者对零售商企业社会责任的认知度. 2)评定参与者如何评估零售商企业社会责任. 3)测定参与者对零售商企业社会责任的评估过程是否影响他们对零售商的态度. 4)评定参与者对零售商企业社会责任的态度是否影响他们的购买行为. 本文并没有关注实际的零售商企业社会责任表现. 因为消费者的决定过程是基于个体的评定而不是实际的事实. 本研究调查了美国大学生对零售商企业社会责任的认知和评估. 本研究的参与者是56名来自美国东南大学的大学生. 他们的年龄在18岁到26岁之间. 使用开放性译码和选择性译码进行内容分析. 我们收集和分析了超过100张单倍行距的答复. 使用两步骤的译码(即开放性译码和选择性译码. 译码结果和分析笔记用来理解参与者对企业社会责任的认知和从书写的回复中提炼出来包括直接引用的答案所支持的伦理购买行为. 为保护参与者隐私, 这里使用的都是化名. 参与者被要求写下有关零售商, 他们对企业社会责任问题的认识和评估一个零售商的企业社会责任表现. 大部分应答者(n=28)表明他们对企业社会责任有一定的认识但是不觉得需要按这个要求去做. 少数应答者(n=8)表明他们对企业社会责任有一定的认识但是基本不关心. 结果表明当大学生评估零售商的几页社会责任表现时, 他们使用企业社会责任的三个纬度: 员工支持, 社区支持和环境支持. 我们发现如何对待和支持员工是一个评估零售商的企业社会责任的重要准则. 应答者表明作为一个员工和零售商有好的经历会使他们对此零售商有积极的感知和态度. 和员工支持相关的有四个主题: 根据员工表现的奖励和惩罚, 工作环境, 员工教育和训练课程, 以及员工和员工家人折扣. 良好的赏罚机制被认为是一个重要的属性. 和工作环境相关的因素包括: 零售商如何良好的遵守与工作时间相关的规则, 午餐时间和休息同样被认为是重要的属性之一. 有关社区支持, 有三个方面: 对当地社区销售比率的贡献, 对慈善组织的财政贡献和对社区大型活动的支持. 在环境方面, 有两个主题: 循环利用和销售有机或绿色产品. 在回复中有提到, 零售商正在尝试去做对环境友好所能做的. 一位应答者提到这个公司正在创造有环保设计的店铺. 并且能在这家公司的网站上轻松的找到为帮助环境所做的事情的信息. 应答者还注意到这些店铺可提供有机和亲环境产品. 应答者在此类中还提到关于这个公司如何使用环保的杯子和他们如何帮助新奥尔良的居民重建家园. 应答者注意到零售商为购买产品的消费者提供可再使用的袋子. 一位应答者说一家零售商通过提供有机棉来使他们的产品帮助环境. 在分析应答者之后, 我们发现参与者对零售商的企业社会责任的评估影响他们对零售商的态度. 然而, 在态度和购买行为之间有显著的差异. 尽管参与者对零售商的企业社会责任有积极的态度, 但资金和时间的缺乏也影响他们的购买行为. 总体来看, 一半的应答者(n=28)提到在购物时企业社会责任表现影响他们的购买决定. 本研究的结果为零售商针对消费者提高他们的形象而考虑企业社会责任提供了支持. 本研究暗示出消费者根据员工, 社区和环境三方面的支持来评估零售商. 评估, 态度和购买行为似乎是密切相关的. 也就是说, 评估是基于消费者对零售商企业社会责任的认识. 这些认识可以影响他们对零售商的态度从而进一步影响他们的购买行为. 参与者同时表明企业社会责任会使他们对零售商印象良好但是并不会影响他们的购买行为. 在参与者中, 价格和便利似乎超越了企业社会责任的重要性. 本文还讨论了此研究的启示, 对未来研究的建议和研究的局限.

Corporate social responsibility has become a very important issue for researchers (Greenfield, 2004; Maignan & Ralston, 2002; McWilliams et al., 2006; Pearce & Doh 2005), and many consider it necessary for businesses to define their role in society and apply social and ethical standards to their businesses (Lichtenstein et al., 2004). As a result, a significant number of retailers have adopted CSR as a strategic tool to promote their businesses. To this end, this study sought to discover U.S. consumers' attitudes and behavior in ethical purchasing and consumption based on their subjective perception and evaluation of a retailer. The objectives of this study include: 1) determine the participants awareness of retailers corporate social responsibility; 2) assess how participants evaluate retailers corporate social responsibility; 3) examine whether participants evaluation process of retailers CSR influence their attitude toward the retailer; and 4) assess if participants attitude toward the retailers CSR influence their purchase behavior. This study does not focus on actual retailers' CSR performance because a consumer's decision making process is based on an individual assessment not an actual fact. This study examines US college students' awareness and evaluations of retailers' corporate social responsibility (CSR). Fifty six college students at a major Southeastern university participated in the study. The age of the participants ranged from 18 to 26 years old. Content analysis was conducted with open coding and focused coding. Over 100 single-spaced pages of written responses were collected and analyzed. Two steps of coding (i.e., open coding and focused coding) were conducted (Esterberg, 2002). Coding results and analytic memos were used to understand participants' awareness of CSR and their ethical purchasing behavior supported through the selection and inclusion of direct quotes that were extracted from the written responses. Names used here are pseudonyms to protect confidentiality of participants. Participants were asked to write about retailers, their aware-ness of CSR issues, and to evaluate a retailer's CSR performance. A majority (n = 28) of respondents indicated their awareness of CSR but have not felt the need to act on this issue. Few (n=8) indicated that they are aware of this issue but not greatly concerned. Findings suggest that when college students evaluate retailers' CSR performance, they use three dimensions of CSR: employee support, community support, and environmental support. Employee treatment and support were found as an important criterion in evaluation of retailers' CSR. Respondents indicated that their good experience with a retailer as an employee made them have a positive perception and attitude toward the retailer. Regarding employee support four themes emerged: employee rewards and incentives based on performance, working environment, employee education and training program, and employee and family discounts. Well organized rewards and incentives were mentioned as an important attribute. The factors related to the working environment included: how well retailers follow the rules related to working hours, lunch time and breaks was also one of the most mentioned attributes. Regarding community support, three themes emerged: contributing a percentage of sales to the local community, financial contribution to charity organizations, and events for community support. Regarding environments, two themes emerged: recycling and selling organic or green products. It was mentioned in the responses that retailers are trying to do what they can to be environmentally friendly. One respondent mentioned that the company is creating stores that have an environmentally friendly design. Information about what the company does to help the environment can easily be found on the company’s website as well. Respondents have also noticed that the stores are starting to offer products that are organic and environmentally friendly. A retailer was also mentioned by a respondent in this category in reference to how the company uses eco-friendly cups and how they are helping to rebuild homes in New Orleans. The respondents noticed that a retailer offers reusable bags for their consumers to purchase. One respondent stated that a retailer uses its products to help the environment, through offering organic cotton. After thorough analysis of responses, we found that a participant's evaluation of a retailers' CSR influenced their attitudes towards retailers. However, there was a significant gap between attitudes and purchasing behavior. Although the participants had positive attitudes toward retailers CSR, the lack of funds and time influenced their purchase behavior. Overall, half (n=28) of the respondents mentioned that CSR performance affects their purchasing decisions making when shopping. Findings from this study provide support for retailers to consider their corporate social responsibility when developing their image with the consumer. This study implied that consumers evaluate retailers based on employee, community and environmental support. The evaluation, attitude and purchase behavior of consumers seem to be intertwined. That is, evaluation is based on the knowledge the consumer has of the retailers CSR. That knowledge may influence their attitude toward the retailer and thus influence their purchase behavior. Participants also indicated that having CSR makes them think highly of the retailer, but it does not influence their purchase behavior. Price and convenience seem to surpass the importance of CSR among the participants. Implications, recommendations for future research, and limitations of the study are also discussed.