John Peloza

• Professor at University of Kentucky

In public settings such as retail, an embarrassed consumer may be witnessed by others. Thus, vicarious embarrassment may be even more ubiquitous than embarrassment itself. However, the impact of observers' individual characteristics on reactions to embarrassing service disruptions is not clear. To close this gap, the current research examines how o...

Many consumer decisions—from trying a new brand to trying a new recipe—involve risk. However, although consumers' appetite for risk has received over 50 years of investigation, the impact of situational variables (e.g., atmospherics) on consumer decision‐making involving risk remains relatively unexplored. To address this gap, the current work exam...

Extant literature suggests that a consumer who purchases a sensitive product will experience embarrassment if others, real or imagined, witness the purchase. However, the parallel embarrassment experienced by observers is largely absent in retailing and service literature. Across four studies, we validate the presence of vicarious embarrassment, as...

Rescue-based food (RBF) – food products often made from ingredients that are not able to be sold due to aesthetic imperfections – represent an opportunity to reduce food waste. However, despite consumers’ desire to act pro-socially, preference for such products is negatively impacted by the perception that the imperfect ingredients reduce the quali...

Across three experiments, we examined the impact of both corporate social responsibility (CSR) and corporate social irresponsibility (CSIR) on consumer taste evaluations. The current research demonstrates that CSIR information consistently negatively impacts perceptions of taste across both hedonic and utilitarian food products. Specifically, it tr...

In an effort to combat food waste, many firms have introduced rescue-based foods (RBF) which are made from ingredients that are safe to eat but would otherwise be wasted, often due to aesthetic deviations or oversupply. Although the benefits to RBF are varied, some firms adopt strategies that highlight waste reduction properties, such as reduced la...

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) positively impacts relationships between firms and customers. Previous research construes this as an outcome of customers’ warm glow that results from supporting firms’ benevolence. The current research demonstrates that beyond warm glow, CSR positively impacts firms’ sales through mitigating their customers’ p...

Using customer service scenarios in an online retail context, the current study examines how cognitive and affective trust develop over time and how service failure negatively impacts trust, along with the trust restoration opportunities provided by recovery. Study 1 findings reveal that the relationship between Web site social perception and affec...

Purpose Although research demonstrates the importance of ethical product attributes for consumers, a prior study has not examined the role of consumption target (i.e. self-purchases vs gift-giving) on consumers’ preference for products with ethical attributes. Notably, consumers’ preference for quality can differ between self-purchases and gifts, a...

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine how and when a reputation for corporate social responsibility (CSR) can deter dysfunctional consumer behaviors (DCBs) such as shoplifting or negative word-of-mouth (WOM) in response to firm failures. The authors predict that congruency of the CSR activities and the basis for the firm failure (e.g. env...

Few would argue that the success of any firm is tied to its ability to create value. Yet the concepts of value and value creation remain poorly understood. Debates regarding the nature of value have been raging on many fronts – in philosophy, economics, and marketing. However, like the quest for “The Theory of Everything” in the physical sciences,...

Although the actions of others can influence a consumer’s behavior, these actions are often at odds with performance norms. For example, charities can experience relatively low rates of support (resulting in a negative deviation from a performance norm) or relatively high rates of support (resulting in a positive deviation from a performance norm)....

Purpose The current research contributes to the marketing literature by examining, and more importantly, better understanding a presentation format (PACE) in which caloric information is complemented with physical activity time required to offset consumption. The paper systematically evaluates the impact of this approach in both actual and simulat...

The current research demonstrates that retailer size moderates the positive effect of corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives on consumer outcomes such as increased purchase intentions and perceptions of CSR. Retailer size is introduced as a factor that leads consumers to respond more positively to small retailers' CSR activities, relativ...

Although research has widely investigated labels across a range of product domains, one understudied area is the use of absolute versus relative rating approaches to information provision. For example, under an absolute rating approach to vehicle ecolabels, the consumer is informed of the actual amount of fuel consumed during use of a vehicle compa...

Firms' relationships with key stakeholders are increasingly threatened by privacy concerns. Given the role of firm corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives in strengthening and enhancing these relationships, this article examines the intersection between privacy issues and CSR activities, and creates a framework for assessing privacy-relat...

Marx (1999) reported that 96% of firms rate a favorable company image as either an important or extremely important outcome of their philanthropic investments. The fact that corporate philanthropy offers marketing opportunities has not been lost on firms, which explains why the responsibility for philanthropic initiatives most often resides within...

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) has become a key component of a firm's reputation (Argenti and Dmckenmiller, 2004; Fombrun, 2005). Further, a strong reputation can afford the firm many advantages, and is generally associated with higher levels of financial performance (e.g., Orlitzky, Schmidt, and Rynes, 2003). The pressures for CSR (and rela...

Research examining consumer support for corporate social responsibility (CSR) has grown significantly over the past decade, demonstrating a generally positive level of support. However, our understanding of how consumers value CSR is limited by the context of relatively stable economic growth over the past decade. During times of economic uncertain...

On March 23, 2010, section of 4205 of the U.S. Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act was enacted, requiring chain restaurants and vending machines throughout the U.S. to provide nutrient content information for standard menu items. As a result, consumers will be provided with nutrient content information (e.g., calorie and fat content) at the...

Many firms market products that encourage environmentally friendly consumption. These firms can use of one two forms of advertising appeals to promote this consumption. They can highlight the benefits to the consumer (i.e., self-benefit appeals), such as providing cost savings, or they can highlight benefits to society (i.e., other-benefit appeals)...

Consumers often intend to create a socially responsible identity by consuming ethically. Observers, however, do not limit their inferences to the specific identity consumers intend to project. To illustrate, we examine how observers make inferences about consumers on the basis of their ethical consumption. Across four studies we find that, in addit...

There is a natural incongruence between a company’s traditional profit maximizing objectives and the social and environmental goals of corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives. When companies engage in CSR, they create an expectancy violation and stakeholders are driven to react to this by considering and evaluating the company’s intention...

Research has demonstrated that consumers frequently engage in inference making when evaluating food products. These inferences can be highly inaccurate, leading to unintended, unhealthy consumer choices. Previous research has examined the role of inference making in consumption settings from either an inter- or intra-attribute perspective. The curr...

Research examining consumer responses to the provision of nutritional information as part of restaurant menus has produced mixed results. In light of pending legislation requiring the provision of nutritional information, the authors examine the how corporate social responsibility (CSR) impacts consumer service evaluation of restaurants. Findings f...

There are two forms of advertising appeals for environmentally friendly products and policies: those that provide consumer benefit (e.g., cost savings) and those that provide societal benefit (e.g., lower emissions). This research examines the role of decision-making and consumption contexts on the efficacy of each appeal. The results of three stud...

Prior research offers competing predictions regarding whether an initial token display of support for a cause (such as wearing a ribbon, signing a petition, or joining a Facebook group) subsequently leads to increased and otherwise more meaningful contributions to the cause. The present research proposes a conceptual framework elucidating two prima...

Previous research demonstrates that consumers support firms’ CSR activities, and increasingly demand socially responsible products and services. However, an implicit assumption in the extant literature is that the purchaser and the consumer of the product are the same person. The current research focuses on a unique form of socially responsible con...

Consumers are generally supportive of firms that engage in corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities. However, consumers are also largely unaware of CSR activities of firms and often use available information to infer CSR. The current study utilises in-depth consumer interviews to explore the influence of firm size on consumer perceptions of...

The market share of brands positioned using ethical attributes typically lags behind brands that promote attributes related to product performance. Across four studies, the authors show that situational factors that heighten consumers' self-accountability (i.e., activation of their desire to live up to their self-standards) lead to increased prefer...

A strong reputation is widely acknowledged to be the most valuable asset of a firm, and sustainability has become an important component of corporate reputation. Many stakeholders, from customers to investors to employees to purchasing managers, report that sustainability is an important factor in their decision-making processes. However, sustainab...

Corporate sustainability can be broadly defined as the pursuit of a business growth strategy by allocating financial or in-kind resources of the corporation to a social or environmental initiative. Today, more than ever, corporate sustainability has risen to the status of strategic business matter and demands supervision from the top. However, desp...

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities have the potential to create several distinct forms of value for customers. It is the customer perception of this value that mediates the relationship between CSR activities and subsequent financial performance. By categorizing major CSR activities and the different types of value each can create, th...

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities have the potential to create stronger relationships between firms and stakeholders. Although marketing researchers have studied the impacts of CSR activities on stakeholder responses, the CSR activities and outcomes measured have been varied and inconsistent. In this article we (a) review the extant...

Purpose Research examining corporate social responsibility (CSR) demonstrates a relatively consistent level of positive support by consumers. However, CSR is poorly defined and little is known about the mechanisms by which this response occurs. This paper seeks to understand how consumers define CSR and how it can enhance the overall value proposit...

There is a small, but positive, relationship between corporate social performance and company financial performance. However, research in this area has provided little guidance to managers on how they should measure the financial impacts of their CSP strategies. Commonly used market measures, such as share price, or accounting measures, such as ret...

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) has become a key component of a firm's reputation. The reputational vulnerabilities and pressure for CSR are perhaps greatest among international firms with business activities across many countries and cultures. Although the strategies of firms entering new markets have been well researched, the CSR component...

Despite the growing need, nonprofit organization marketers have not yet fully delineated the most effective ways to position charitable appeals. Across five experiments, the authors test the prediction that other-benefit (self-benefit) appeals generate more favorable donation support than self-benefit (other-benefit) appeals in situations that heig...

The current article extends the concept of brand community to the charity sector. While the charity sector has begun to embrace the relationship marketing paradigm, brand communities represent a unique form of relationship marketing that can have a significant impact on nonprofits. A conceptual model of brand community development in the charity se...

In this paper, we present a framework for examining the relationship between corporate social responsibility (CSR) and firm financial performance. Ambiguity in empirical studies examining this relationship can be expected given both the ability and motivation of managers to focus their social responsibility initiatives on stakeholders with power, u...

Employee volunteerism can be an effective strategy for increasing the effectiveness of corporate philanthropy. However, in order to be effective, volunteer initiatives should be directed by the firm to ensure a strategic fit and focus on the core competencies of the firm. Therefore, internal marketing strategies are needed to ensure managers receiv...

This article uses transaction cost analysis (TCA) to explore different approaches to corporate philanthropic governance, and the firm and market factors that favor one form of governance over another. Specifically, it examines the conditions under which a firm might choose to enter into an arm's length relationship with an existing charitable organ...

This paper presents the findings of a qualita- tive field study undertaken with senior manag- ers responsible for their firm ' s corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities to explore the interaction between a firm ' s reputation for CSR and the actions of its industry peers; the actions of its industry; and the actions of other firms in its l...

The ethics of advertising to children has been identified as one of the most important topics worthy of academic research in the marketing field. A fast growing advertising technique is product placement, and its use in children’s films is becoming more and more common. The limited evidence existing suggests that product placements are especially p...

Institutional investors are increasingly focusing on firms that prioritise Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). In the absence of any objective measure of a firm's CSR Performance (CSP), their investment choices are largely guided by independent rating indices that rank firms according to their social performance metrics. As a result, firms looki...

Globally, charities are under increasing pressure to find alternative sources of funding. Although charitable gaming has long been considered a viable source of revenue for charities, opponents of gaming have raised concerns about the potential negative consequences associated with gambling. The current paper examines a unique form of charity gamin...

Charities and researchers have begun to adopt a much broader view of support; one that transcends traditional forms of consumer charitable support behavior (CSB) such as donations and volunteerism to include cause-related marketing (CRM), charity events and charity gaming. The current article builds upon this expanding view of charity support by in...

This article provides a framework for simultaneously assessing the affirmative and defensive functions of Corporate Social Responsibility. It is based on integrating two traditionally distinct approaches to CSR: one views it as compatible with economic objectives, while the other regards it as incompatible with them. By bringing these two approache...

Despite the millions of hours donated to charity each year by employees on behalf of their employers there has been relatively little research into the motives for such pro-social behavior. The current paper extends Peterson’s (2004, Journal of Business Ethics 49, 371) study by exploring a unique form of employee volunteerism identified as intra-or...

Tax deductibility has been recognized as a motive for charitable donations. This article considers charitable donations as purchases that consumers make, and it examines the effects of changes in the tax deductibility (i.e., the price of donating) on charitable donations. The meta-analysis includes approximately four decades of estimates of the pri...