Abstract
This paper investigates under what conditions a good corporate social responsibility (CSR) can compensate for a relatively poor corporate ability (CA) (quality), and vice versa. The authors conducted an experiment among business administration students, in which information about a financial services company’s CA and CSR was provided. Participants indicated their preferences for the company’s products, stocks, and jobs. The results show that for stock and job preferences, a poor CA can be compensated by a good CSR. For product preferences, a poor CA could not be compensated by a good CSR, at least when people thought that CA is personally relevant to them. Furthermore, a poor CSR could be compensated by a good CA for product, stocks, and job preferences.
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Guido Berens is Assistant Professor of Corporate Communication at Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University Rotterdam, the Netherlands. His research interests include corporate branding, corporate social responsibility, and reputation management. His research has been published in the Journal of Marketing and the Corporate Reputation Review, as well as in several international books.
Cees B. M. van Riel is Professor of Corporate Communication at the Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University Rotterdam, the Netherlands. His research interests include organizational identity, reputation management, and corporate branding. He is the author of several books, and his research has appeared in the Academy of Management Journal, Journal of Management Studies, and Journal of Marketing, among others. He is Editor-in-Chief of the Corporate Reputation Review, and has been working as a consultant for many large international companies in the last 15 years.
Johan van Rekom is Assistant Professor at the Rotterdam School of Management at the Erasmus University, Rotterdam, the Netherlands, where he also received his PhD. His research interests include organizational identity, the effects of organizational identity on the motivation of organization members, cognitive structures at the individual and at the organizational level, and the essence of brands. His research has appeared in the Journal of Management Studies and the European Journal of Marketing, among others.
Appendices
Appendix A: Experimental materials
Appendix A-1: General information
Appendix A-2: “Consumer Reports” tables (Good Corporate Ability)
Who gives the best advice on loans?
To the six most important banks in Québec, we posed the following question: “I wish to buy a car; how much can I borrow?” We used both the desks at the banks’ offices and the telephone lines especially designated for loans. We noted the amount of time we had to wait and whether we received adequate information about the different types of loans (personal loans, continuous credit), whether adequate inquiries were made into relevant information (like age, family situation, income and expenses), and whether the amount that was eventually recommended, was not too high or too low, given the “customer’s” situation. Based on all this information, we eventually arrived at an overall judgment regarding the quality of loan advice.
Large differences between car insurances
We compared the car insurance premiums of the most important companies. We also conducted a survey among 2750 car-owning members of Protégez-Vous. We asked them how quickly, on average, their company pays out, and how satisfied they are with their insurance company. Based on both the height of the premiums and the results of the survey, we arrived at an overall judgment of the quality of each company’s car insurances.
Appendix A-3: Newspaper article
Poor corporate social responsibility
Good corporate social responsibility
Appendix B: Measures
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Open Access This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Noncommercial License ( https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.0 ), which permits any noncommercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author(s) and source are credited.
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Berens, G., van Riel, C.B.M. & van Rekom, J. The CSR-Quality Trade-Off: When can Corporate Social Responsibility and Corporate Ability Compensate Each Other?. J Bus Ethics 74, 233–252 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-006-9232-0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-006-9232-0