The Effect of Corporate Social Responsibility Activities on Consumer Responses: The Mediating Role of Perceived Value and Trust

In this study, the number of dimensions of corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities of companies was expanded to four (i.e., economic responsibility activities, legal responsibility activities, ethical responsibility activities, and philanthropic responsibility activities). In addition, customer satisfaction, corporate evaluation, and the path effect on corporate image were verified by mediating perceived value and trust in CSR activities. Perceived value was divided into four sub-dimensions (i.e., functional value, emotional value, ethical value, and social value), confirming the differential path effect between CSR activity dimension and perceived value dimension of a company. Based on the analysis of this path relationship, the following conclusions could be drawn. The final analysis of the hypothesis path showed that corporate economic responsibility activities exert a significant positive effect on functional and emotional values. Legal and ethical responsibility activities exert a positive effect on ethical values. Philanthropic responsibility was found to exert a positive effect on social values. In addition, functional values, ethical values, and emotional values were found to exert a significant effect on corporate trust, and trust was found to exert a positive effect on customer satisfaction, corporate evaluation, and corporate image. This study expands CSR activities and perceived value from a single dimension to four dimensions, and verifies the differential path relationship between them. It also verifies the whole process of consumer psychology from stimulus to cognition to belief to reaction.