Corporate Responsibility as an Effective Marketing Practice for Improving Consumers` Brand Evaluations - Critical Overview, New Insights, and Future Directions

Current societal changes are putting more pressure on companies than ever to act in a responsible manner toward their various stakeholders. In this chapter we discuss the increasing importance of corporate responsibility (CR) and its strategic role in impacting consumer reactions towards companies and their brands. We further explore whether and how the effectiveness of responsible business practices may vary among brands and CR domains. Previous studies investigating the impact of CR on brands have focused either on CR domains separately or one brand characteristic at a time, neglecting their potential interplay. This chapter highlights the importance of juxtaposing the domains of corporate engagement (i.e., environmental and social) and considering these domains in the context of multiple brand characteristics (i.e., the level of relational and performance aspects of the brand).