기업의 사회적 책임활동이 소비자의 구매 후 제품태도에 미치는 영향: 브랜드 명성을 중심으로

The importance of corporate social responsibility (CSR) has already been emphasized in academia and practices, and relevant studies have also been steadily done in many ways. However, most studies have dealt mainly with the reaction to the timing of purchases or perception of CSR. This research examined changes in existing attitudes toward purchased products when consumers learned about the corporate social responsibility. For achieving this research goal, this study considered brand reputation and explored the psychological mechanism through conducting two experiments. According to Experiment 1, when consumers learned about CSR, their attitude toward the product was more favorable than when they did not know the CSR. This research also observed interaction effects between CSR recognition and brand reputation. Specifically, consumers' attitude toward a weak brand was more favorable when they learned CSR compared to when they did not know. By contrast, consumers' attitude toward a strong brand product was the same between when they learned CSR and when they did not know. These effects were attributable to perceived risk of products. Experiment 2 was conducted to complement the external validity of Experiment 1. Experiment 2 showed the same result as Experiment 1. Given that consumers know about CSR from the company after recalling the actual purchase of the real brand, it was concluded that the weaker the brand reputation of the product, the larger the attitude difference was before and after learning about CSR. This study focused on self-perception theory and extended the realm of previous CSR researches by conducting experiments.