The Effect of Corporate Social Responsibility on Corporate Image: The Role of Spillover Effect and Negativity Effect based on CSR dimensions

기업의 사회적 책임이 기업 이미지에 미치는 영향 - 차원별 파급효과와 메시지 유형을 중심으로 -

Previous researches have proven that corporate social responsibility(adhere CSR) is positively related to corporate performance. But Most of CSR related researches have several limitations. One of limitations is that those researches treated CSR as unidimensional construct. Almost researchers in the area of CSR concepts insisted that CSR is consist of multi dimensions. Carroll's four dimensions of CSR have been utilized by numerous academicians. Carroll asserted that CSR is composed of four dimensions: economic, legal, ethical, and philanthropic responsibility. But Carroll's dimensions were revised as three dimensions by Schwartz and Carroll, because ethical and philanthropic responsibility are not mutually exclusive. If CSR construct is composed of multiple dimensions, a message related to one of dimensions changes beliefs or evaluations about other dimensions that are not mentioned in the message. This phenomenon is called as "spillover effect". According to Ahluwalia, Unnava, and Burnkrant, negative information spills over to attributes that are associated with the target attributes but not mentioned in the message. Like this, this preponderant effect of negative information over positive information has been termed the "negativity effect". In this paper, authors try to prove the spillover effect and negativity effect among Schwartz and Carroll's three dimensions(economic, legal, and ethical responsibility) of CSR. The results of this study show that messages related to legal and ethical responsibility cause spillover effect and influence consumers' evaluation to other dimensions. Moreover, when negativity effect is added on spillover effect, spillover effect is more increased. It means that negative messages related to legal and ethical responsibility is more harmful to corporate image than negative message related to economic responsibility. The results of this study will help companies to manage corporate image using CSR messages as marketing communication tools. Companies should manage messages related to legal and ethical responsibility for more efficiently managing corporate image. Specially, because negative messages related to legal and ethical responsibility are more harmful to corporate image, companies must take care not to spread out negative message related to legal and ethical responsibility. Finally, we discuss the implications of the findings and limitations.

기존의 많은 연구들은 기업의 사회적 책임(CSR)이 기업 성과와 높은 관련성이 있음을 보여 왔다. 하지만 대부분의 연구들이 기업의 사회적 책임을 단일 차원으로 보거나 구체적인 활동 중심으로 보고 있다는 한계점을 가지고 있다. 본 연구는 이를 극복하기 위해 Schwartz and Carroll(2003)이 제시한 CSR의 세 가지 차원을 바탕으로, 각 차원별 메시지가 소비자들의 기업 이미지에 미치는 영향을 확인해 보고자 하였다. 연구 결과, 세 가지 기업의 사회적 책임 차원 중 법적 책임과 윤리적 책임에 대한 메시지는 파급효과가 일어나 다른 차원들에 대한 평가 결과에도 영향을 미치는 것으로 나타났다. 또한, 긍정적 메시지일 때보다 부정적 메시지일 경우, 부정성 효과로 인한 파급효과가 더 커져, 법적 책임과 윤리적 책임에 대한 부정적인 메시지는 경제적 책임에 대한 메시지보다 기업 이미지를 더 크게 훼손시키는 것으로 나타났다.