The Mediating Role of Social And Environmental Responsibility in The Relationship Between Material Values, Consumer Cynicism and Product/Service Quality

Öz

This paper aims to analyze the mediating role of corporates’ social and environmental responsibility in the relationship between material values, consumer cynicism, and product/ service quality. In the present study, data related to 16 popular clothing brands were gathered by means of a questionnaire filled out by 805 young consumers. Findings revealed that material values encourage positive evaluations of perceived product/ service quality with the mediating role of corporates’ social and environmental responsibility, whereas cynicism leads to negative appraisals of product/ service quality without the mediating role of social and environmental responsibility. This study provides important contributions to the marketing literature because this model has sustained the elaborative understanding of consumer reactions at the product level and at the corporate and industry levels.

Anahtar Kelimeler

• Material values
• cynicism
• social and environmental responsibility
• product/ service quality
• clothing

Kaynakça

1. Ambler, T. (2003). Marketing and the Bottom Line: Creating the Measures of Success. London: Financial Times/ Prentice Hall.
2. Andreasen, A. R. (1996). Profits for nonprofits: Find a corporate partner. Harvard Business Review, 74(6), 47-50.
3. Aqueveque, C. and Encina, C. (2010). Corporate behavior, social cynicism, and their effect on individuals’ perceptions of the company. Journal of Business Ethics, 91(2): 311-324.
4. Archimi, C. S., Reynaud, E., Yasin, H. M., & Bhatti, Z. A. (2018). How perceived corporate social responsibility affects employee cynicism: The mediating role of organizational trust. Journal of Business Ethics, 151(4), 907-921.
5. Ashforth, B. E., Harrison, S. H., & Corley, K. G. (2008). Identification in organizations: An examination of four fundamental questions. Journal of Management, 34(3), 325-374.
6. Ashforth, B. E., & Gibbs, B. W. (1990). The double-edge of organizational legitimation. Organization science, 1(2), 177-194.
7. Bagozzi, R. P., & Yi, Y. (1988). On the evaluation of structural equation models. Journal of The Academy of Marketing Science, 16(1), 74-94.
8. Balliet, D., Wu, J., & De Dreu, C. K. (2014). Ingroup favoritism in cooperation: a meta-analysis. Psychological Bulletin, 140(6), 1556.

9. Banerjee, B., & McKeage, K. (1994). How green is my value: exploring the relationship between environmentalism and materialism. ACR North American Advances.
10. Bansal, P., & Roth, K. (2000). Why companies go green: A model of ecological responsiveness. Academy of Management Journal, 43(4), 717-736.
11. Bearden, W. O., Netemeyer, R. G., & Teel, J. E. (1989). Measurement of consumer susceptibility to interpersonal influence. Journal of Consumer Research, 15(4), 473-481.
12. Belk, R. W. (1985). Materialism: Trait aspects of living in the material world. Journal of Consumer Research, 12(3), 265-280.
13. Berens, G., Riel, C. B. V., & Bruggen, G. H. V. (2005). Corporate associations and consumer product responses: The moderating role of corporate brand dominance. Journal of Marketing, 69(3), 35-48.
14. Bhattacharya, C. B., & Sen, S. (2003). Consumer–company identification: a framework for understanding consumers’ relationships with companies. Journal of Marketing, 67(2), 76−88.
15. Bozoklu, C. P. (2018). The Effects of Social Responsibility Activities on Stakeholders’ Purchase Intention. Business and Economics Research Journal, 9(4), 889-900.
16. Bozoklu, Ç. P., & Ermeç, A. (2020). Tüketici Sinisizmi Ölçeği’nin Türkçe’ye Uyarlanması: Güvenilirlik ve Geçerlilik Araştırması. Ankara Hacı Bayram Veli Üniversitesi İktisadi ve İdari Bilimler Fakültesi Dergisi, 22(2), 440-459.
17. Brown, T. J., and Dacin, P. A. (1997), “The company and the product: Corporate associations and consumer product responses”, Journal of Marketing, 61(1), 68-84.
18. Calveras, A., & Ganuza, J. J. (2018). Corporate social responsibility and product quality. Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, 27(4), 804-829.
19. Capron, L. and Hulland, J. (1999). Redeployment of brands, sales forces, and general marketing expertise following horizontal acquisitions: a resource-based view. Journal of Marketing, 63(2), 41-54.
20. Carrasco, I. (2007). Corporate social responsibility, values, and cooperation. International Advances in Economic Research, 13(4), 454-460.
21. Carroll, A. B. (1979). A Three-dimensional conceptual model of corporate performance?. Academy of Management Review, 4(4), 497-505.
22. Choi, S.H. (2011). Anti-consumption becomes a trend. SERI Quarterly, 4(3), 117.
23. Cowe, R. (2004). Risk returns and responsibility. London: Association of British Insurers.
24. Csikszentmihalyi, M., & Rochberg-Halton, E. (1978). Reflections on materialism. University of Chicago Magazine, 70(3), 6-15.
25. Davis, S.M. (2000) Brand Asset Management. CA: Jossey Bass.
26. Dawar, N., & Parker, P. (1994). Marketing universals: Consumers’ use of brand name, price, physical appearance, and retailer reputation as signals of product quality. Journal of Marketing, 58(2), 81-95.
27. Dodds, W.B. (1995). Market cues affect on consumers’ product evaluations”. Journal of Marketing Theory and Practice, 3(2): 50-63.
28. Doğan, D. (2018). SmartPLS ile Veri Analizi. Charleston SC: CreateSpace.
29. Edelman Trust Barometer (2020). 2020 Edelman Trust Barometer. January 19, 2020. Accessed date: 13 May 2020. https://www.edelman.com/trustbarometer.
30. Fan, Y. (2005). Ethical branding and corporate reputation. Corporate communications: An international Journal, 10(4), 341-350.
31. Folkes, V. S., & Kamins, M. A. (1999). Effects of information about firms’ ethical and unethical actions on consumers’ attitudes. Journal of Consumer Psychology, 8(3), 243-259.
32. Foreh, M. R., & Grier, S. (2003). When is honesty the best policy? The effect of stated company intent on consumer skepticism. Journal of Consumer Psychology, 13(3), 349-356.
33. Fornell, C., & Larcker, D. F. (1981). Evaluating structural equation models with unobservable variables and measurement error. Journal of Marketing Research, 18(1), 39-50.
34. Freling, T. H., Crosno, J. L., & Henard, D. H. (2011). Brand personality appeal: conceptualization and empirical validation. Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, 39(3), 392-406.
35. Fitzmaurice, J. (2008). Splurge purchases and materialism. Journal of Consumer Marketing, 26(6), 332-338.
36. Fitzmaurice, J., & Comegys, C. (2006). Materialism and social consumption. Journal of Marketing Theory and Practice, 14(4), 287-299.
37. Ganesan, S. (1994). Determinants of long-term orientation in buyer–seller relationships. Journal of Marketing, 58, 1–19.
38. Good, J. (2007). Shop’til we drop? Television, materialism and attitudes about the natural environment. Mass Communication & Society, 10(3), 365-383.
39. Grohmann, B., & Bodur, H. O. (2015). Brand social responsibility: Conceptualization, measurement, and outcomes. Journal of Business Ethics, 131(2), 375-399.
40. Gürhan-Canli, Z., & Batra, R. (2004). When corporate image affects product evaluations: The moderating role of perceived risk. Journal of Marketing Research, 41(2), 197-205.
41. Hair, J. F., Black, W. C., Babin, B. J., Anderson, R. E., & Tatham, R. L. (2006). Multivariate data analysis. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Prentice Hall.
42. Hair, J. F., Ringle, C. M., & Sarstedt, M. (2011). PLS-SEM: Indeed a silver bullet. Journal of Marketing Theory and Practice, 19(2), 139-152.
43. Hair, F. Jr, J., Sarstedt, M., Hopkins, L., & G. Kuppelwieser, V. (2014). Partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) an emerging tool in business research. European Business Review, 26(2), 106-121.
44. He, H., & Li, Y. (2011). CSR and service brand: The mediating effect of brand identification and moderating effect of service quality. Journal of Business Ethics, 100(4), 673-688.
45. Heaney, J. G., Goldsmith, R. E., & Jusoh, W. J. W. (2005). Status consumption among Malaysian consumers: Exploring its relationships with materialism and attention-to-social-comparison-information. Journal of International Consumer Marketing, 17(4), 83-98.
46. Helm, A. (2004). Cynics and Skeptics: Consumer Dispositional Trust. In (Eds.) Barbara E. Kahn and Mary Frances Luce, Valdosta, NA - Advances in Consumer Research Volume 31 (pp. 345-351).
47. Helm, A.E. (2006). Cynical consumers: dangerous enemies, loyal friends. (Doctoral dissertation). University of Missouri, Columbia.
48. Helm, A.E., Moulard, J.G. & Richins, M. (2015). Consumer cynicism: developing a scale to measure underlying attitudes influencing marketplace shaping and withdrawal behaviours. International Journal of Consumer Studies, 39(5), 515-524.
49. Henseler, J., Ringle, C. M., & Sinkovics, R. R. (2009). The use of partial least squares path modeling in international marketing. In New challenges to international marketing, Emerald Group Publishing Limited. (pp. 277-319).
50. Hsu, K. T. (2012). The advertising effects of corporate social responsibility on corporate reputation and brand equity: Evidence from the life insurance industry in Taiwan. Journal of Business Ethics, 109(2), 189-201.
51. Huang, C. C., Yen, S. W., Liu, C. Y., & Huang, P. C. (2014). The relationship among corporate social responsibility, service quality, corporate image and purchase intention. International Journal of Organizational Innovation, 6(3), 68-84.
52. Hunt, S.D. & Morgan, R.M. (1995). The comparative advantage theory of competition. Journal of Marketing, 59, 2, 1-15.
53. Inglehart, R. (1981). Post-materialism in an environment of insecurity. The American Political Science Review, 880-900.
54. Inglehart, R., & Welzel, C. (2005). Exploring the unknown: Predicting the responses of publics not yet surveyed. International Review of Sociology, 15(1), 173–204.
55. Jin, B. E., Kim, N. L., Yang, H., & Jung, M. (2019). Effect of country image and materialism on the quality evaluation of Korean products. Asia Pacific Journal of Marketing and Logistics, 32(2), 386-405.
56. Jones, A. (1987). The violence of materialism in advanced industrial society: an eco‐sociological approach. The Sociological Review, 35(1), 19-47.
57. Kamineni, R. (2005). Influence of materialism, gender and nationality on consumer brand perceptions. Journal of Targeting, Measurement and Analysis for Marketing, 14(1), 25-32.
58. Kasser, T., Koestner, R., & Lekes, N. (2002). Early family experiences and adult values: A 26-year, prospective longitudinal study. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 28(6), 826-835.
59. Kilbourne, W., & Pickett, G. (2008). How materialism affects environmental beliefs, concern, and environmentally responsible behavior. Journal of Business Research, 61(9), 885-893.
60. Klein, J., & Dawar, N. (2004). Corporate social responsibility and consumers’ attributions and brand evaluations in a product–harm crisis. International Journal of Research in Marketing, 21(3), 203-217.
61. Kolodinsky, R. W., Madden, T. M., Zisk, D. S., & Henkel, E. T. (2010). Attitudes about corporate social responsibility: business student predictors. Journal of Business Ethics, 91(2), 167-181.
62. Kozar, J. M., & Marcketti, S. B. (2011). Examining ethics and materialism with purchase of counterfeits. Social Responsibility Journal, 7(3), 393-404.
63. Kretz, G. (2010). Pixelize me!: A semiotic approach of self-digitalization in fashion blogs. ACR North American Advances.
64. Kwong, K. & Wong, K. (2013). Partial least squares structural equation modeling (pls-sem) techniques using SmartPLS. Marketing Bulletin, 24(1), 1-32.
65. Lai, C. S., Chiu, C. J., Yang, C. F., & Pai, D. C. (2010). The effects of corporate social responsibility on brand performance: The mediating effect of industrial brand equity and corporate reputation. Journal of Business Ethics, 95(3), 457-469.
66. Landman, A., Ling, P. M., & Glantz, S. A. (2002). Tobacco industry youth smoking prevention programs: protecting the industry and hurting tobacco control. American Journal of Public Health, 92(6), 917-930.
67. Laursen, J. C. (2009). Cynicism Then and Now. European Journal of Philosophy & Public Debate, 1(2).
68. Lee, M.S., Motion, J. & Conroy, D. (2009). Anti-consumption and brand avoidance. Journal of Business Research, 62(2), 169-180.
69. Lichtenstein, D. R., Drumwright, M. E., & Braig, B. M. (2004). The effect of corporate social responsibility on customer donations to corporate-supported nonprofits. Journal of Marketing, 68(4), 16-32.
70. Madden, T. J., Roth, M. S., & Dillon, W. R. (2012). Global product quality and corporate social responsibility perceptions: A cross-national study of halo effects. Journal of International Marketing, 20(1), 42-57.
71. Marin, L., Ruiz, S., & Rubio, A. (2009). The role of identity salience in the effects of corporate social responsibility on consumer behavior. Journal of Business Ethics, 84(1), 65-78.
72. McKibben, Bill. 1989. The End of Nature. New York: Random Hou.
73. Mohr, LA, Eroglu, D., & Ellen, PS (1998). The development and testing of a measure of skepticism toward environmental claims in marketers’ communications. Journal of Consumer Affairs, 32(1), 30-55.
74. Muncy, J. A., & Eastman, J. K. (1998). Materialism and consumer ethics: An exploratory study. Journal of Business Ethics, 17(2), 137-145.
75. Nga, J. K., Yong, L. H., & Sellappan, R. (2011). The influence of image consciousness, materialism and compulsive spending on credit card usage intentions among youth. Young Consumers, 12(3), 243-253.
76. Nunnally, J. C., & Bernstein, I. H. (1994). Psychological theory. NY: MacGraw-Hill.
77. Odou, P. & Pechpeyrou, P. (2011). Consumer cynicism: From resistance to anti-consumption in a disenchanted world?. European Journal of Marketing, 45(11/12), 1799-1808.
78. Onfray, M. (1992). Cynismes, Livre de Poche, Paris. (originally published in 1990).
79. O’Shaughnessy, J. (1987). Why people buy. NewYork: Oxford University Press.
80. Park, H. H., & Oh, S. D. (2005). The influence of materialism and environment consciousness on recycling attitude and behavior of clothing. Journal of the Korean Home Economics Association, 43(10), 167-177.
81. Pirog, S. F., & Roberts, J. A. (2007). Personality and credit card misuse among college students: The mediating role of impulsiveness. Journal of Marketing Theory and Practice, 15(1), 65-77.
82. Podoshen, J. S., & Andrzejewski, S. A. (2012). An examination of the relationships between materialism, conspicuous consumption, impulse buying, and brand loyalty. Journal of Marketing Theory and Practice, 20(3), 319-334.
83. Porter, M. & Kramer M. (2011). Creating Shared Value. Harvard Business Review 89(1/2), 62–77.
84. Pratt, M. G. (1998). To be or not to be: central questions in organizational identification. In David A. Whetten, & Paul C. Godfrey (Eds.), Identity in organizations: building theory through conversations. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.
85. Purohit, D., & Srivastava, J. (2001). Effect of manufacturer reputation, retailer reputation, and product warranty on consumer judgments of product quality: A cue diagnosticity framework. Journal of Consumer Psychology, 10(3), 123-134.
86. Richins, M. L., & Dawson, S. (1992). A consumer values orientation for materialism and its measurement: Scale development and validation. Journal of Consumer Research, 19(3), 303-316.
87. Richins, M. L. (1994). Special possessions and the expression of material values. Journal of Consumer Research, 21(3), 522-533.
88. Richins, M. L. (2004). The material values scale: Measurement properties and development of a short form. Journal of Consumer Research, 31(1), 209-219.
89. Rindfleisch, A., Burroughs, J. E., & Wong, N. (2008). The safety of objects: Materialism, existential insecurity, and brand connection. Journal of Consumer Research, 36(1), 1-16.
90. Ross, J. K., Stutts, M. A., & Patterson, L. (1991). Tactical considerations for the effective use of cause-related marketing. Journal of Applied Business Research, 7(2), 58-65.
91. Roux, D. (2007). Consumer resistance: proposal for an integrative framework. Recherche et Applications en Marketing (English edition), 22(4), 59-79.
92. Sen, S., & Bhattacharya, C. B. (2001). Does doing good always lead to doing better? Consumer reactions to corporate social responsibility. Journal of Marketing Research, 38(2), 225-243.
93. Šeinauskienė, B., Maščinskienė, J., & Jucaitytė, I. (2015). The relationship of happiness, impulse buying and brand loyalty. Procedia-Social and Behavioral Sciences, 213, 687-693.
94. Silverstein, M. J., Fiske, N., Butman, J. (2008). Trading Up: why consumers want new luxury goods and how companies create them. Penguin Random House.
95. Skarmeas, D., & Leonidou, C. N. (2013). When consumers doubt, watch out! The role of CSR skepticism. Journal of Business Research, 66(10), 1831-1838.
96. Skard, S., & Thorbjørnsen, H. (2014). Is publicity always better than advertising? The role of brand reputation in communicating corporate social responsibility. Journal of Business Ethics, 124(1), 149-160.
97. Simmons, C. J., & Lynch, J. G., Jr. (1991). Inference effects without inference making? Effects of missing information on discounting and use of presented information. Journal of Consumer Research, 17(March), 477–491.
98. Simpson, B., & Willer, R. (2008). Altruism and indirect reciprocity: The interaction of person and situation in prosocial behavior. Social Psychology Quarterly, 71(1), 37-52.
99. Sprott, D., Czellar, S., & Spangenberg, E. (2009). The importance of a general measure of brand engagement on market behavior: Development and validation of a scale. Journal of Marketing Research, 46(1), 92-104.
100. Stanaland, A. J., Lwin, M. O., & Murphy, P. E. (2011). Consumer perceptions of the antecedents and consequences of corporate social responsibility. Journal of Business Ethics, 102(1), 47-55.
101. Strahilevitz, M. (2003). The effects of prior impressions of a firm’s ethics on the success of a cause-related marketing campaign: Do the good look better while the bad look worse?. Journal of Nonprofit & Public Sector Marketing, 11(1), 77-92.
102. Tilikidou, I., & Delistavrou, A. (2004). The influence of the materialistic values on consumers’ pro-environmental post-purchase behavior. In Marketing Theory and Applications, Proceedings of the 2004 American Marketing Association Winter Educators’ Conference (Vol. 15, pp. 42-49). Chicago, IL: AMA.
103. Tingchi Liu, M., Anthony Wong, I., Shi, G., Chu, R., & L. Brock, J. (2014). The impact of corporate social responsibility (CSR) performance and perceived brand quality on customer-based brand preference. Journal of Services Marketing, 28(3), 181-194.
104. Turban, D. B., & Greening, D. W. (1997). Corporate social performance and organizational attractiveness to prospective employees. Academy of Management Journal, 40(3), 658-672.
105. Urien, B., & Kilbourne, W. (2011). Generativity and self‐enhancement values in eco‐friendly behavioral intentions and environmentally responsible consumption behavior. Psychology & Marketing, 28(1), 69-90.
106. Varadarajan, P. R., & Menon, A. (1988). Cause-related marketing: A coalignment of marketing strategy and corporate philanthropy. Journal of Marketing, 52(3), 58-74.
107. Vigneron, F. and Johnson, L. W. (1999). A review and a conceptual framework of prestige-seeking consumer behavior. Academy of Marketing Science Review, 1: 1-15.
108. Vigneron, F. and Johnson, L. W. (2004). Measuring perceptions of brand luxury. Journal of Brand Management, 11(6): 484-506.
109. Vreeman, A. L., & Morganosky, M. A. (1986). Consumer Involvement Related to Apparel Purchase Behavior. ACR North American Advances.
110. Walsh G. & Betty, S. (2007). Customer-based corporate reputation of a service firm: scale development and validation. Journal of Marketing Science (35): 127-145.
111. Wartick, S. L., & Cochran, P. L. (1985). The evolution of the corporate social performance model. Academy of Management Review, 10(4), 758-769.
112. Wachtel, Paul L. (1983), The Poverty of Affluence: A Psychological Portrait of the American Way of Life, New York: Free Press.
113. Webb, D. J., & Mohr, L. A. (1998). A typology of consumer responses to cause-related marketing: From skeptics to socially concerned. Journal of Public Policy & Marketing, 17(2), 226-238.
114. Wood, D. J. (1991). Corporate social performance revisited. Academy of Management Review, 16(4), 691-718.
115. Yoon, Y., Gürhan‐Canli, Z., & Schwarz, N. (2006). The effect of corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities on companies with bad reputations. Journal of Consumer Psychology, 16(4), 377-390.
116. Urien, B., & Kilbourne, W. (2011). Generativity and self‐enhancement values in eco‐friendly behavioral intentions and environmentally responsible consumption behavior. Psychology and Marketing, 28(1), 69-90.
117. Zavestoski, S. (2002) The social-psychological bases of anti-consumption attitudes. Psychology & Marketing, 19, 149–165.
118. Zhao, X., Lynch Jr, J. G., & Chen, Q. (2010). Reconsidering Baron and Kenny: Myths and truths about mediation analysis. Journal of Consumer Psychology, 37(2), 197-206.