The impact of self-centered factors on skepticism towards CSR claims during large-scale external crises

Abstract

External crises create opportunities to strengthen companies’ commitment to society through CSR claims; however, consumers often perceive them as opportunistic. This study leverages the unique setting of COVID-19 to determine the power of consumer self-centered factors (i.e., concern about the crisis, personal impact, and political ideology) to predict situational skepticism towards CSR communication during a large-scale external crisis. An online survey of 1,000 consumers, analyzed using structural equation modeling, revealed that self-centered variables are key determinants to predict skepticism during external events. This effect is mediated by the inferential process of attributing motives. Their predictive power is consistent across the four CSR domains (i.e., customer, environment, employees, philanthropy). This study moves forward on the egocentric pattern projection and the attribution theories by addressing reactive CSR to external crises, a type of crisis that has been overlooked, and supports managerial decisions to mitigate CSR skepticism for potential external crises to come.