Corporate Social Responsibility(CSR) Corporate / Consumer-CSR Activities and Brand Attitude: A case study of South Korean Companies in Chinese Market

It has been reported that factors which affect corporate image are corporate advertising, sponsors, quality of service, social responsibility activity, etc. Corporate social responsibility among these means voluntary business activities of enterprises performed for the purpose of improvement of social welfare and donations of internal resources that are performed as financial, human and material (Kotler & Lee, 2007). In addition to the lack of the quantitative empirical study related to the fit of CSR activity, the research to elucidate the structural relationship between CSR activities, fit (corporate-CSR activities, consumer-CSR activities), corporate trust, corporate reputation, and consumer attitude (cognitive, emotional, behavioral attitude). The present study has pointed out that the internalization of Korean firms has become active and their CSR activities are important in overseas countries, yet there are not in-depth studies on this. It has thus analyzed a relationship among the CSR activities, fit, corporate reputation, corporate trust and consumer attitudes of firms, such as S-company, Hyundai Motor, and LG Electronics, based on Chinese areas where there has recently been a rapid environmental change due to the advance of Korean firms. This study adopts the combined research methods of field sampling and network sampling, and stratified sampling and quota sampling. Field sampling is mainly conducted in the Gyeongsang regions of South Korea and Chinese cities such as Changsha and Shenyang. Network questionnaires are distributed in Beijing, Hong Kong, Dalian, Changchun, Changsha and Wuhan. Filed survey mainly adopts one-to-one (or more) and is completed under the supervision of the investigator to ensure the quality of questionnaires recovery. The questionnaires used in this study consists of four parts ： (1) Case of CSR activities. (2) General questions of CSR. (3) Scale measurement (4) Demographic problems. A total of 386 completed questionnaires were included in the data analysis. The sample consisted of 231 male(59.8) and 155 female (69.7%) customers. More than 50% were between the ages of 20-29, 29% were 30-39 years of age. The following hypotheses were set. H1. CSR activity has a positive effect on fit. H2.Fit has a positive effect on corporate trust. H3.Fit has a positive effect on corporate reputation. H4.Corporate trust will have a significant effect on attitude. H5.Corporate reputation will have a significant effect on attitude. H6. The relationships among CSR activities, fit, corporate trust, reputation, and brand attitude are different between S-company and other South Korea companies who have entered the Chinese market.