Willingness-to-punish the corporate brand for corporate social irresponsibility

Abstract

This research addresses consumers' willingness-to-punish the corporate brand for corporate social irresponsibility (CSI). It is supported by the extant literature on consumer stakeholders, corporate brands, brand personality, regulatory fit, and psychological contract, as well as by punishment in psychology and philosophy, which are new to the marketing literature. Using an experimental design with a control group, this research examines consumers' willingness-to-reward and its converse willingness-to-punish a corporate brand under three treatment conditions of socially responsible, socially irresponsible, and environmentally friendly. Data were collected on four outcome variables of willingness-to-punish, willingness-to-reward, brand attitude, and purchase intention for each treatment group. MANOVA results indicated that there were systematic differences in the levels of outcomes among the four groups. Discriminant function analysis found the socially irresponsible group was statistically significantly different from the other three experimental groups for all four outcome variables. Consumers dealing with socially irresponsible corporate brands were more likely to punish and less likely to reward than consumers in the other three treatment conditions. This study illustrates the latent negative impact from CSI activities on four important dimensions of consumer response. The findings indicate there is a pragmatic need for corporate brand strategists to recognize consumers' willingness-to-punish the corporate brand and the subsequent necessity to avoid activities that consumers may perceive to be socially irresponsible.

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Willingness-to-punish the corporate brand for corporate social irresponsibility
Vernon H. Sweetin
a,
⁎, Lynette L. Knowles
b,1
, John H. Summey
b,2
, Kand S. McQueen
c,3
a
Department of Marketing, Donald W. Scott College of Business, Indiana State University, Terre Haute, IN 47809, United States
b
Department of Marketing, College of Business, Southern Illinois University Carbondale, Carbondale, IL 62901, United States
c
Department of Communication Disorders and Counseling, School, and Educational Psychology, Bayh College of Education, Indiana State University, Terre Haute, IN 47809, United States
abstractarticle info
Article history:
Received 1 February 2012
Received in revised form 1 May 2012
Accepted 1 July 2012
Available online 5 March 2013
Keywords:
Consumer's willingness-to-punish
Brand personality dimension
Consumer's CSR association
Consumer stakeholder group
Corporate social responsibility
Corporate social irresponsibility
This research addresses consumers' willingness-to-punish the corporate brand for corporate social irrespon-
sibility (CSI). It is supported by the extant literature on consumer stakeholders, corporate brands, brand per-
sonality, regulatory fit, and psychological contract, as well as by punishment in psychology and philosophy,
which are new to the marketing literature. Using an experimental design with a control group, this research
examines consumers' willingness-to-reward and its converse willingness-to-punish a corporate brand under
three treatment conditions of socially responsible, socially irresponsible, and environmentally friendly. Data
were collected on four outcome variables of willingness-to-punish, willingness-to-reward, brand attitude,
and purchase intention for each treatment group. MANOVA results indicated that there were systematic dif-
ferences in the levels of outcomes among the four groups. Discriminant function analysis found the socially
irresponsible group was statistically significantly different from the other three experimental groups for all
four outcome variables. Consumers dealing with socially irresponsible corporate brands were more likely
to punish and less likely to reward than consumers in the other three treatment conditions. This study illus-
trates the latent negative impact from CSI activities on four important dimensions of consumer response. The
findings indicate there is a pragmatic need for corporate brand strategists to recognize consumers'
willingness-to-punish the corporate brand and the subsequent necessity to avoid activities that consumers
may perceive to be socially irresponsible.
© 2013 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
1. Introduction
Access to the Internet facilitates consumers' empowerment in their
relationships not only with individually branded products but also
with the corporate brand itself. As such, the Internet facilitates con-
sumers' increasing abilities to satisfy their willingness-to-punish corpo-
rate brands for actions or activities they perceive as negative. As a
primary stakeholder group, such empowered consumers may directly
impact the corporation because of how they perceive its corporate so-
cial responsibility (CSR) activities.
Consumers' confidences in their relationships with the corporate
brand are psychological contracts. If consumers do not perceive that
the relationships with the corporate brand allow them to reach person-
al goals, they may be willing to punish it through various actions.
Willingness-to-punish may manifest as consumer-generated brand
complaint actions that might dramatically damage the corporate
brand strategy, including marketer-generated positive brand meanings
and brand identity building efforts. As a result, consumers' actions may
decrease positive brand identity and dramatically change consumers'
purchase decisions (Kucuk, 2010). Such consumer actions can affect
brand equity and subsequent cash flows, and thus impact corporate
risk management (Rego, Billett, & Morgan, 2009). Consumer complaints
on web sites and social media have included Tyson Foods, Inc., when it
was disclosed that its “all natural”chickens raised without antibiotics
had been injected with antibiotics as eggs (Shin, 2008), as well as Ben
and Jerry's, when the firm named a product after an Asian American
athlete, which consumers regarded as perpetuating stereotypes (Daily
Mail Reporter, 2012).
The corporate brand explicitly and unambiguously represents the
corporation and individual products (Aaker, 2004). For example, a cor-
porate brand, such as Coca-Cola, may have individual products under in-
dividual brands, such as Coca-Cola soft drinks and Dasani waters, and
consumers of individual products may commonly identify the corporate
brand. Practitioners' longstanding concern about branding is evident on
web sites, which may include such practitioner quotes as “Customers
must recognize that you stand for something”(Howard Schultz,
Starbucks) and “A brand is a set of differentiating promises that link a
product to its customers”(StuartAgres,Young,andRubicam)(www.
Journal of Business Research 66 (2013) 1822–1830
⁎Corresponding author. Tel.: +1 812 237 2031.
E-mail addresses: vernon.sweetin@indstate.edu (V.H. Sweetin),
lknowles@business.siu.edu (L.L. Knowles), Summey390@aol.com (J.H. Summey),
kand.mcqueen@indstate.edu (K.S. McQueen).
1
Tel.: +1 618 453 7782.
2
Tel.: +1 618 453 7773.
3
Tel.: +1 812 237 4497.
0148-2963/$ –see front matter © 2013 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusres.2013.02.003
Contents lists available at SciVerse ScienceDirect
Journal of Business Research

Author's personal copy
allaboutbranding.com). Such quotes reveal wisdom that the corporation
must stand for something meaningful or act to uphold promises, relative
to the product or the corporation, or consumers may be willing to punish
the corporate brand.
Consumers' ideological reasons to discontinue purchasing a brand
may be reinforced by online social collectives for the corporation's cus-
tomers (Kucuk, 2008). Common social collectives are product evaluation
forums for product quality, complaint forums for public or private com-
ments about a transaction, or anti-brand web sites to create negative
brand identity to hurt consumption (Krishnamurthy & Kucuk, 2009).
Corporate risk may increase if social collectives' inherent self-interests
reflect a willingness-to-punish the corporate brand for perceived
irresponsible CSR activities, thus not aligning with the corporate brand's
best interests (Fournier & Avery, 2011).
Consumers' perceptions of the corporate brand relative to CSR may
affect their corporate associations, which reflect what they know about
the corporation. The corporate ability (CA) association reflects the
corporation's “expertise in producing and delivering its outputs,”while
the CSR association reflects the corporation's “status and activities with
respect to its perceived societal obligations”; CA associations are often
unrelated to CSR associations (Brown & Dacin, 1997, p. 68). In turn, the
corporate branding strategy affects the relationship of consumers' corpo-
rate associations to their product attitudes (Berens,vanRiel,&van
Bruggen, 2005).
Consumers' attributions to corporation's CSR motives affect their
CSR associations, which have a significant and complex effect on
their response to CSR activities (Ellen, Webb, & Mohr, 2006).
Consumers may respond by punishing the corporate brand for irre-
sponsible CSR activities, which this study refers to as corporate social
irresponsibility (CSI). Those activities may be found in the largest cat-
egories of CSR activities, which are environmentally friendly activities
(environmental protection and “green”products) and social respon-
sibility activities (philanthropy, ethical conduct, socially responsible/
ethical advertising, community involvement, human rights, and fair
trade) (Peloza & Shang, 2011).
Brand personality is a construct useful for examining consumers'
perceptions of and responses to corporate activities. This study builds
on Madrigal and Boush's (2008) study that finds social responsibility
(SR) is a unique brand personality dimension. Their work extends
Aaker's (1997) brand personality dimensions and finds support for
consumers' willingness-to-reward a corporation for SR as represent-
ed as the environmental friendliness of its corporate brand's actions
and products. The SR brand personality dimension for the corporate
brand is the means by which consumers legitimize the corporate
brand as a relationship partner for their own SR goals. Thus, the SR
brand personality dimension would affect consumers' perceptions of
CSR activities.
Madrigal and Boush (2008) suggest that future research should
examine whether the converse willingness-to-punish exists. This
study, in pursuing that research idea, presents results that further
the CSR research focus on the consumer stakeholder group and the
research on the consumer–brand relationship. Through an experi-
mental design study with a control group, this study statistically dem-
onstrates that consumers are, in fact, willing to punish a corporate
brand for CSI in both environmentally friendly activities and socially
responsible activities.
This paper proceeds as follows. The second section reviews the
supporting literature that covers consumer stakeholders, marketing,
and CSR; corporate brand strategy, consumer stakeholders, and CSR;
brand personality; regulatory fit and the psychological contract; and
the psychology and philosophy of punishment. It then states the
research question. The third section addresses the research design,
while the fourth section presents the research findings. The fifth sec-
tion presents the summary and the conclusions, followed by the
implications for theory and management. The last section addresses
limitations and offers suggestions for future research.
2. Literature review
This section provides the support for examining the consumer–corpo-
rate brand relationship and consumers' willingness-to-punish the corpo-
rate brand. Because this study adapts Madrigal and Boush's (2008, p. 541)
position that willingness-to-reward is “an approach technique that em-
powers consumers to affect movement toward their personal goals”
and extends it to willingness-to-punish, this section addresses consumer
stakeholders and power. To provide a managerial perspective, it then
addresses the relationship of corporate brand strategy to consumer stake-
holders and CSR. Brand personality relative to corporate brand strategy is
examined, as this study expands on Madrigal and Boush's (2008) work.
Because of the focus on consumers' personal goals, the regulatory fitthe-
ory is covered, followed by the psychological contract as extended to the
buyer–seller relationship. Lastly, the psychology and philosophy litera-
tures on punishment are addressed to support willingness-to-punish.
2.1. Consumer stakeholders, marketing, and CSR
Consumers' willingness-to-punish the corporate brand for CSI in-
volves the relationship of consumer stakeholders, marketing, and CSR.
The body of literature examining this relationship indicates that a pro-
active corporation should be concerned about the potential effects of
the relationship. Stakeholder orientations are critical for ethical decision
making in all marketing activities (Laczniak & Murphy, 2006) and for
marketing activities related to CSR initiatives (Raghubir, Roberts,
Lemon, & Winer, 2010). Consumers' perceptions of CSR can impact
the effectiveness of marketing activities. Positive CSR associations en-
hance product evaluations, but negative ones ultimately harm overall
product evaluations (Brown& Dacin, 1997). Personal consumer support
of CSR domains is a major determinant in consumer sensitivity to CSR
initiatives (Sen & Bhattacharya, 2001).
The broad examination of the stakeholder theory in marketing
(e.g., Ferrell, Gonzalez-Padron, Hult, & Maignan, 2010; Hult, Mena,
Ferrell, & Ferrell, 2010)reflects marketing's value to practitioners.
For example, Hult et al. (2010) recommends that the corporation
use a stakeholder marketing framework of three approaches (not mu-
tually exclusive): A normative approach to identify its moral guide-
lines for behavior related to purpose (e.g., relationship to society at
large); a descriptive/empirical approach to focus on its actual behav-
iors; and an instrumental approach to examine the results of its par-
ticular behaviors, which assumes stakeholder management is used to
maximize performance as the ultimate goal. This framework is
adapted later in this study's practitioner recommendations.
However, in order to understand consumer stakeholders relative
to marketing and CSR, practitioners must understand the concept of
power relative to consumers. As noted earlier, the concept of power
is implicit for both willingness-to-reward and willingness-to-punish.
A stakeholder group requires power, legitimacy, and urgency in its
social relationship with the corporation in order for management to
identify the group and determine its degree of importance to the cor-
poration (Mitchell, Agle, & Wood, 1997). Stakeholders hold power,
which is variable, to the extent that they have or can have access to
coercive, utilitarian, or normative means to impose their will in the
relationship, and those examining the relationship may implicitly
combine power with legitimacy (socially accepted and expected
behaviors). However, legitimate stakeholders are not always power-
ful, and vice versa. They argue that power and legitimacy may affect
how urgent (time-sensitive and critical) stakeholder claims are for
their importance to management. However, they do not address
how these requirements relate to the individual consumer or a collec-
tive subset in the consumer stakeholder group.
First, an individual consumer's empowerment is a psychological state
that motivates behavior. Given power's pervasiveness, a consumer's
general sense of power may result from simple cognitive priming or
physical embodiment (Rucker, Galinsky, & Dubois, 2011). Consumers
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often use empowerment for defense if their social status is lowered or
they are treated unfairly (Briley & Aaker, 2006; Keltner, Gruenfeld, &
Anderson, 2003), which they may believe is because of the effects that
result from CSR activities. Accountable consumers, that is, those who
act conscientiously in their personal capacities, may be empowered to
use ethical values in economic decisions, causing the corporation to
change its behavior to reflect consumers' social values (Valor, 2005),
that is, to change CSR activities.
Second, an individual consumer's empowerment within the stake-
holder group may result from their belief that the group is a fair, justi-
fiable, and legitimate external system, according to system justification
theory (Cutright, Wu, Banfield, Kay, & Fitzsimins, 2011). The theory
proposes that “group members actively legitimize and bolster status
systems”(social identity theory stipulates that they “passively reflect
stable and legitimate status systems”)(Rubin & Hewstone, 2004, p.
834). Cutright et al. (2011) argue that consumers who choose a rela-
tionship with brands that are highly representative of their own status
systems may feel they support their systems while not clearly stating
their beliefs about them.
Third, how an individual consumer is empowered may be affected
by how they relate to other consumers in the group and how the
group relates to other stakeholder groups. Stakeholder relationships
are realistically complex networks of corporation-to-stakeholder and
stakeholder-to-stakeholder interactions, and a stakeholder group may
interact directly with the corporation and may reciprocate indirectly
with it through other groups (Fry & Polonsky, 2004). A smaller group
of activist consumers may cause an imbalance in the stakeholder
group. A greater, imbalanced influence of more powerful members
could sub-optimize the overall group benefit and increase corporate
risk because consumer stakeholder groups are generally unorganized
and do not speak in union about corporate activities (Ferrell, 2004).
Fourth, relative to CSR activities, an individual consumer's empower-
ment may be affected by concerns consumers may have about CSR activ-
ities, that is, CSR issues, which may be complicated by the breadth of
differences of those activities. Issues may be of direct or indirect concern
to a stakeholder (Maignan & Ferrell, 2004), perhaps risking a halo effect
on judgments about issue categories (Smith, Read, & López-Rodríguez,
2010). The breadth of CSR activities suggests that stakeholders do not
view the activities equally positively or positively at all (Peloza &
Shang, 2011), which may affect consumers' CSR issues. Further, con-
sumers' CSR issues may be affected by the corporation's communications
of CSR initiatives to consumers, which may not be straightforward
(Peloza & Shang, 2011).
However, an individual consumer's powerlessness may also have an
effect. Bunker and Ball (2009) suggest that most corporations will expe-
rience long-term negative effects if they have frustrated, powerless con-
sumers who engage in grudge-holding, predictive avoidance, or have
retaliation desires. They note that, if a significant part of the customer
base is adversely affected, it may damage the corporate public image
from negative word-of-mouth, management's unawareness of the
problem until the effect is large, or customer retaliation resulting from
management's unawareness of the problem. This study proposes that
frustrated, powerless consumers taking action on a CSR issue of concern
may be willing to punish the corporation.
2.2. Corporate brand strategy, consumer stakeholders, and CSR
The corporate brand relates more strongly to the relationship of
consumer stakeholders and CSR than the individual product brand.
Given consumers' attitudes toward the corporate brand and their in-
tention to purchase it versus the individual brand, they may be more
willing to reward and willing to punish the corporate brand than the
individual brand.
The corporate brand has a greater reach than the individual prod-
uct brand in terms of the temporal dimension, the number of stake-
holder groups, and the breadth of the corporation (Hatch & Schultz,
2003). The temporal dimension refers to the broader temporal base
of the corporate brand relative to the individual product brand,
which means the corporate brand lives in the past and the future re-
garding corporate associations while the individual product brand
lives in the present and short-term (Hatch & Schultz, 2003). At the
heart of the corporate branding is the corporate association, which
has two central concepts, CA and CSR (Dacin & Brown, 2002), intro-
duced earlier. Corporate brand management relies on understanding
how the past and future corporate associations are inextricably linked
to the corporate identity. Consumers' CSR associations can affect their
perceptions about the corporate brand (Brown & Dacin, 1997), and
the relationship of consumers' CSR associations and consumers' prod-
uct attitudes can be affected by the corporate branding strategy
(Berens et al., 2005).
A focus on a strong corporate brand relative to a lesser individual
product brand is increasingly due to cost reduction benefits from mar-
keting and advertising economies of scale, customer community devel-
opment through the corporate association, and a common ground for
stakeholders that allows for interpretations that appeal to them
(Hatch & Schultz, 2003). The corporate brand may provide strategic
benefits as a currency (brand value) and language (brand meaning),
as well as a navigational tool (to aid individuals, groups, and managers
in moving between and among brands—Balmer, 2010)tobeusedfor
many reasons, including employment, investment, and most impor-
tantly, consumers' buying behaviors (Balmer & Gray, 2003).
A corporation with an established corporate brand can differentiate
itself in its stakeholders'minds (Balmer & Gray, 2003) and concurrently
find its corporate branding can be highly meaningful to stakeholders
because “the corporate brand can help individuals define who they
are”(Balmer, 2010, p. 180). In its meaningfulness to stakeholders, a cor-
porate brand may be regarded as a contract in that the corporation
“needs to articulate its accord with its key stakeholders by demonstrat-
ing, unceasingly and over time, that it has kept true to its corporate
branding pledge”(Balmer & Gray, 2003, p. 982). Key stakeholders are
attracted to corporations by the values and/or sources of desire
expressed by corporate branding and thus are encouraged to feel relat-
ed to corporations (Hatch & Schultz, 2001). Trusting the corporate
brand means trusting the corporation behind it and the corporation's
values and priorities (Aaker, 2004).
2.3. Brand personality
Brand personality may tie strongly to corporate brand strategy and
the meaningfulness of the corporate brand to consumer stakeholders,
thus potentially affecting a corporation's performance. Brand personality
is the set of human characteristics as personality traits that consumers
associate with a brand as an attitude object to provide them with
self-expressive or symbolic benefits (Aaker, 1997, 1999). It is perceived
by consumers as legitimizing the brand as a relationship partner
(Fournier, 1998). Brand personality provides the corporation with oppor-
tunities to build strong consumer–brand relationships (Swaminathan,
Stilley, & Ahluwalia, 2009) and is an essential part of customer-based
brand equity—a marketing program's success is evident in the creation
of favorable brand associations (Keller, 1993).
Brand personality is also a brand association essential to brand
image (Keller, 1993), which combines with brand awareness to form
brand knowledge. Brand associations are stored in a memory-based
brand network and may be accessed during decision-making (Freling,
Croson, & Henard, 2011). Brand personality is created from consumers'
inferences about personality traits based on their repeated observations
of behaviors enacted by the brand at the hand of its manager (Fournier,
1998).
Consumers directly associate personality traits with a brand through
people associated with it, for example, the typical user of the brand
(brand's user imagery), the corporation's employees or CEO, and the
brand's product endorsers. They indirectly associate personality traits
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with it through product-related attributes, product category associations,
brand name, symbol or logo, advertising style, price, and distribution
channel (Aaker, 1997). To create inferences, consumers must directly or
indirectly experience the brand (Sung & Kim, 2010); continued experi-
ence is necessary to refresh memory structures. However, if and how a
brand association is relevant or of value to purchase decisions remains
unclear; how a brand association relates to those decisions within partic-
ular contexts remains unclear; and how congruence of other brand asso-
ciations in consumers' memories affects a brand association remains
unclear (Keller, 1993).
Consumers' inferences about personality traits may be fixed or
malleable, that is, stretch on personality dimensions (Aaker, 1999;
Yorkston, Nunes, & Matta, 2010). With malleability there is flexibility
or stretch on personality dimensions, and brand extensions are more ac-
ceptable to consumers (Yorkston et al., 2010). The strength of the con-
sumer–brand relationship may be affected, as brand personality plays a
determinant role in establishing long-term relationship bonds with con-
sumers (Aaker, Fournier, & Brasel, 2004). Consumers' views of self and
views of others, which is their social setting, may be important. Brand
personality may signal important attributes in social settings and thus
allow consumers, through the consumer–brand relationship, to use a
brand to facilitate social interactions and build interpersonal relation-
ships (Swaminathan et al., 2009).
Brand personality and brand experiences are conceptually and
empirically distinct (Brakus, Schmitt, & Zarantonello, 2009). Inferences
are consumers' projections of personality traits onto the brand; experi-
ences involve consumers' actual sensations, feelings, cognitions, and be-
havioral responses (Brakus et al., 2009). Thus, consumers' SR brand
personality, as a brand association, for the corporate brand depends
on consumers' experiences with that corporate brand, the continuity
of which affects their memory structure for the brand.
In building on Madrigal and Boush's (2008) research that finds
social responsibility (SR) is a unique brand personality dimension,
this study proposes that the SR brand personality dimension would
affect consumers' perceptions of the CSR activities. In turn, con-
sumers' perceptions of the CSR activities may affect their goal orienta-
tion relative to CSR issues.
2.4. Consumers' regulatory fit and the psychological contract
Willingness-to-reward and willingness-to-punish consumers, as
approach techniques, to affect movement toward their personal
goals, that is goal pursuit. Consumers' means of goal pursuit affects
their goal orientation. The relationship of consumers' empowerment
to their goal orientations is addressed through coverage of regulatory
fit and the psychological contract.
Regulatory fit is part of regulatory orientation, which is based on
specific interests that guide behavior; can emerge from such things
as physiological needs, moods, epistemic needs, and social roles;
and affects decision outcomes through regulatory relevance and reg-
ulatory fit(Avnet & Higgins, 2006). Regulatory fit addresses whether
current goal orientation is sustained (fit) or disrupted (nonfit) by
means of goal pursuit. It is the increased motivational intensity that
results when goal orientation and the means of goal pursuit corre-
spond (Aaker & Lee, 2006). Goal orientation is contextual, given con-
sumers' specific decision situations, and is influenced by their
enduring dispositional leanings and temporary situational forces
(Briley & Aaker, 2006). When means of goal pursuit sustains the cur-
rent goal orientation, consumers have confidence in their means of
goal pursuit as an activity, which strengthens their engagement in
the activity (Higgins, Spiegel, Cesario, Hagiwara, & Pittman, 2010).
Regulatory fit changes the significance of consumers' confidences
in their reactions; it is not expected to transfer directly to their goal
or decision outcome (Avnet & Higgins, 2006). According to Aaker
and Lee (2006, p. 15),“[e]xtant findings in the literature…show that
when people experience regulatory fit, their attitude toward a product
becomes more positive (or negative), confidence in their judgment
strengthens, and their assessment of the product's value increases (or
decreases).”Thus, consumers' willingness-to-punish the corporate
brand for CSI is based on their goal orientation context and may result
in repeated and/or strengthened activities to punish it.
Lack of sustained regulatory fit may result from consumers' per-
ceptions that the corporate brand has violated their psychological
contract, which indicates each party's obligations to perform certain
behaviors and is inherently perceptual, unwritten, and involves im-
plicit details and perceived obligations (Pavlou & Gefen, 2005). It is
subjective in beliefs that the exchange agreement with the other
party exists and reciprocal in beliefs that both parties are mutually
obligated (Sels, Janssens, & van den Brande, 2004). According to
Aaker et al. (2004), a violation is an act of transgression, which the lit-
erature most commonly regards as inherently damaging as it precip-
itates negative inferences that threaten the relationship core. A
transgression reveals disconfirming evidence about the other party's
intentions regarding contract obligations, which reveals vulnerabilities,
doubts, and uncertainties that change and erode perceptions of the
other party's qualities. Once perceptual erosion begins, relationship de-
cline may be difficult to slow, regardless of apparently successful
short-term recovery efforts. However, a transgression provides oppor-
tunities for learning about other party's qualities, which may help to
guide future decisions.
However, consumers who are empowered through willingness-
to-punish in their goal pursuits, which, in turn, affect their goal orien-
tations, may not understand their own motives to punish or their
desired degree of punishment. A proactive corporation attempting
to manage the relationship of its corporate brand strategy and its
CSR activities and to minimize the risk of consumers' actions to pun-
ish the corporate brand for CSI may not appropriately design its tac-
tics to achieve its objectives if it does not address both consumers'
motivations to punish and their desired degrees of punishment.
2.5. The psychology and philosophy of punishment
This study covers the psychology and philosophy of punishment to
address willingness-to-punish relative to motives to punish and desired
degrees of punishment and to support it as a motivational state.
Punishment as a concept is not covered in the marketing literature.
The two main arguments for punishment's use—behavior control
and justice—are widely agreed to by philosophers, sociologists, and psy-
chologists (Wenzel & Thielmann, 2006). In social psychology, most
studies of punishment for rule-breaking focus on the difference
between behavior control and justice as motives to punish (Wenzel &
Thielmann, 2006). The behavioral control motive is addressed in deter-
rence, based on the deterrence theory (the offender's punishment is
sufficient to prevent future instances of the offense) and the incapacita-
tion theory (the offender is restrained in order to prevent them from
committing future offenses), while the justice motive is addressed in
the “just desserts”motivation (the just desserts theory—offender's
punishment is proportionate to the harm; the punisher need not be
concerned with future outcomes) (Carlsmith, Darley, & Robinson,
2002). However, although the psychology literature greatly focuses on
how punishment affects behavior, it focuses little on the punisher's
motives (Carlsmith et al., 2002). Further, people are aware of the
willingness-to-punish, but are unaware of the factors that mobilize it
in terms of motivations. While they do not punish for random reasons,
they are unable to articulate true motivations (Carlsmith, 2008).
The marketing literature is increasingly focusing on consumer re-
venge or retaliation (e.g., Zourrig, Chebat, & Toffoli, 2009). Grégoire,
Laufer, and Tripp's (2010) review of the customer revenge literature
shows revenge and retaliation are related concepts. Although punish-
ment and revenge are predominantly regarded in the philosophy of
law literature as vastly different concepts, Zaibert (2006, p. 82) argues
that, in reality, the two concepts are difficult to distinguish and that,
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“[i]n most cases, ‘punishment’and ‘revenge’are terms used to conve-
niently describe one single phenomenon.”This study adopts this
viewpoint and regards consumers who seek revenge as being willing
to punish intensely, that is, on the far end of a willingness-to-punish
continuum.
Thus, a proactive corporation attempting to manage the relation-
ship of its corporate brand strategy and its CSR activities and to min-
imize the risk of consumers' actions to punish the corporate brand for
CSI faces even greater complexities regarding the concept of punish-
ment. They should recognize that, should the individual consumers
in the consumer stakeholder group be willing to punish, consumers
themselves may not actually understand their own motivations to
punish or their desired degrees of punishment.
2.6. The research question
The literature review provides support that consumers focus more
on the corporate brand, not on an individual product brand, and
would believe that the consumer–corporate brand relationship exists
if they intend to purchase the corporate branded product. Thus, this
study examines brand attitudes and purchase intentions at the corpo-
rate brand level.
Building on the foundation of Madrigal and Boush's (2008) work,
this study extends their research on consumers' responses to corpo-
rate brands by examining both willingness-to-reward brands and its
converse willingness-to-punish under three treatment conditions of
socially responsible actions, socially irresponsible actions, and envi-
ronmentally friendly actions, along with a control group (for which
none of the treatments were presented).
A literature review supports this study's definitions of willingness-
to-reward and willingness-to-punish. Madrigal and Boush (2008, p.
541) do not define willingness-to-reward. For this study, consumers'
willingness-to-reward is, “The consumer's motivational state to act posi-
tively and compensate another entity that is caused by the consumer's
perception that the entity's actions support the consumer's empower-
ment to affect movement toward his or her personal goals.”The converse,
consumers' willingness-to-punish, is: “The consumer's motivational state
to act negatively and penalize another entity that is caused by the
consumer's perception that the entity's actions do not support the
consumer's empowerment to affect movement toward his or her person-
al goals.”
Thus, this study addresses the following research question: Do the
socially responsible, socially irresponsible, environmentally friendly,
and control groups differ in terms of their willingness-to-reward,
willingness-to-punish, brand attitude, and purchase intention?
3. Research design
3.1. Scale development and measures
This study's corporate brand was Brown and Dacin's (1997) ficti-
tious corporate brand, Zenet. Given the focus is only the corporate
brand, this study did not use the individual products provided in
that study. Most of the narrative for the Zenet corporate brand was
used, except for the experimental manipulation developed for this
study.
The narratives for each experimental condition group (social irre-
sponsibility, social responsibility, environmentally friendly, and the
control group) are found in Table 1. Each set of italicized words in
the condition's narrative forms an experimentally manipulated term
for that respective condition.
To ensure the population would understand the terms to be used in
the measurement instrument for the study, a qualitative study was first
conducted with 25 students as a representative small population sam-
ple. Qualitative information was gathered from them regarding their
own viewpoints about their strong and weak behavioral methods to
reward or punish a brand, as well as about their own definitions for so-
cial responsibility as they observe a brand's behavior in the market-
place, and their definitions for ethical and unethical brand behavior
relative to social responsibility. The qualitative information from this
small population sample was determined to reflect the population's
understanding of the constructs and was then used to clarify and mod-
ify the study's established scales.
This study adapted Madrigal and Boush's (2008) concept willingness-
to-reward to a scale, which then was adapted to form the willingness-
to-punish scale. The brand attitude scale was adapted and modified
from a scale on attitude toward product/brand used by Shamdasani,
Stanaland, and Tan (2001). The purchase intention scale was adapted
and modified from a scale by Burman and Biswas (2004).Table 2 pre-
sents the scales.
Ten-point intervals were used for each scale in the study. The study
controlled for problems potentially caused by scale coarseness (Aguinis,
2004) by using an improved procedure, made available by Qualtrics
research services, which measures in precise increments along a scale,
thus recording data to one decimal point along the 10 point scales
used for the study. This measurement precision provided a stronger
basis for statistical support for any assessment of the study's findings.
3.2. Sample
The population for this experimental design study is undergradu-
ate college students, which was also the population of focus in the
Madrigal and Boush (2008) study. The subjects were juniors and
Table 1
The narratives for the experimental condition groups.
(Each set of italicized words an experimentally manipulated term for that respective
condition.)
Social irresponsibility
“The Zenet Corporation is considered by most observers to be an industry
leader in technological innovativeness, having earned over 100 patents in
recent years (the industry average was about 50 patents over the same time).
Most of the company's manufacturing plants are modernized, using
state–of–the–art production equipment and processes. Each year the company
contributes less than 1% of net profits to needy local and national
organizations through a company-sponsored nonprofit organization. This
percentage is relatively small by industry standards. A few Zenet Corporation
employees are involved in their local communities. Participation in such activities
is often difficult, however, since it is not easy to get time off from the company to
attend meetings related to community work.”
Social responsibility
“The Zenet Corporation is considered by most observers to be an industry leader in
technological innovativeness, having earned over 100 patents in recent years (the
industry average was about 50 patents over the same time). Most of the company's
manufacturing plants are modernized, using state-of-the-art production equipment
and processes. Each year the company contributes more than 10% of net profits to
needy local and national organizations through a company-sponsored nonprofit
organization. This percentage is relatively large by industry standards. Several Zenet
Corporation employees are involved in their local communities. Participation in
such activities is often not difficult, however, since the company actively encourages
employees to take time off to attend meetings related to community work.”
Environmentally friendly
“The Zenet Corporation is considered by most observers to be an industry leader
in technological innovativeness, having earned over 100 patents in recent years
(the industry average was about 50 patents over the same time). Most of the
company's manufacturing plants are modernized, using state-of-the-art
production equipment and processes. They produce apparel that is made from
100% natural materials grown using safe, environmentally friendly farming methods.
10% of all after-tax profits will be donated to environmental causes.”
Control group (in which social responsibility was not mentioned)
“The Zenet Corporation is considered by most observers to be an industry leader
in technological innovativeness, having earned over 100 patents in recent years
(the industry average was about 50 patents over the same time). Most of the
company's manufacturing plants are modernized, using state-of-the-art
production equipment and processes. Each year the company has maintained
steady net profit growth. This percentage is consistent with industry standards.”
Adapted from Sweetin (2010, pp. 33-34).
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seniors at universities, located in four states, in more rural areas of
communities with populations less than 50,000. In comparison, the
Madrigal and Boush study's subjects appeared to be from more
urban areas. The incentive for subject participation was extra credit
from the course professor providing access to their students.
3.3. Data collection
The instrument was accessed by the student subjects through a
Qualtrics Internet survey program, which randomly assigned student
subjects to each of the four groups as they logged in to take the survey.
It then showed each subject the respective descriptive story about the
Zenet corporate brand for their condition group (SR was not mentioned
in the story for the control group), and the subjects responded to the
scales for willingness-to-reward, willingness-to-punish, brand attitude,
and purchase intention.
4. Results
4.1. MANOVA
A total of 660 student subjects responded to the survey. Of those,
94 (14%) opted out of the survey without providing responses to any
items. A listwise deletion of missing data was conducted on the
remaining 566. A total of 43 (8%) did not provide full data and were
removed from the sample, resulting in a final n =523. Subjects in
the final sample were distributed among the four condition groups
as follows: 123 (22%) to the socially irresponsible group, 153 (27%)
to the socially responsible group, 137 (24%) to environmentally
friendly group, and 153 (27%) to the control group.
A 4 group (socially irresponsible/socially responsible/environmen-
tally friendly/control group) ×4 outcome (willingness-to-reward/
willingness-to-punish/brand attitude/purchase intention) MANOVA
was conducted in order to determine if the outcome measures differed
across the four experimental condition groups. Descriptives among the
outcome variables by experimental condition groups are found in
Table 3 and correlations among the outcome variables appear in Table 4.
In looking at the univariate distributions of the types of the out-
come variables, it was found that the assumption of multivariate nor-
mality had been violated. Examination of the distribution information
for each outcome variable appears in Table 5.
Willingness-to-punish was significantly kurtotic, t(522)=-3.35,
while both brand attitude, t(522) =−4.50, and purchase intention,
t(522)= −3.56 skew negatively (all were significant at p b.01, two-
tailed). Tabachnick and Fidel (2007) have suggested that MANOVA is rea-
sonably robust to violations of multivariate normality in large samples.
Box's Mindicates violation of the assumption of homogeneity of covari-
ance matrices, M=71.58, pb.001, two-tailed. However, Box's Mis ex-
tremely powerful in large groups and is sensitive to violations of
multivariate normality (Hair, Black, Anderson, & Tatham, 2009;
Tabachnick & Fidel, 2007). As a result, the log determinants were
examined as a further check of the assumption. The log determinants
were relatively similar, ranging from 14.14 to 14.93, indicating similarity
among the covariance matrices. The assumption was met.
The hypothesis tested by the MANOVA procedure was that the
socially responsible, socially irresponsible, environmentally friendly,
and control groups, as corporate brands, would differ on the combina-
tion of willingness-to-reward, willingness-to-punish, brand attitude,
and purchase intention. Alltests indicated the overall MANOVA was sig-
nificant, Λ=.77, F=12.11, pb.001, two-tailed, indicating systematic
differences in the levels of the outcome variables among the different
experimental condition groups. From a multivariate perspective, this
result indicates there was at least one linear combination of the differ-
ent experimental condition groups that significantly discriminated
among the groups. Wilks' Lambda indicated that 23% of the variance
in that linear combination was explained by group membership.
4.2. Discriminant function analysis
In order to examine the multivariate relationship between the en-
dogenous and exogenous variables, a discriminant function analysis
predicting membership in the experimental condition groups was
performed. In this case, thehypothesis being tested was that the combi-
nation of willingness-to-reward, willingness-to-punish, brand attitude,
Table 2
The scales.
Scale Items Scale
mean
Scale
standard
deviation
Reliability
(Cronbach's
alpha)
Willingness-to-reward 1. How important would it be for you to be a consumer of Zenet's products?
2. How relevant would it be for you to be a consumer of Zenet's products?
3. What would the consequence of a decision by you to be a consumer of its products?
4. What would be the significance of a decision by you to be a consumer of Zenet's products?
5.63 2.03 .86
Willingness-to-punish 1. How important would it be for you to punish Zenet by not being a consumer of its products?
2. How relevant would it be for you to punish Zenet by not being a consumer of its products?
3. What would be the consequence of a decision by you to punish Zenet by not being a consumer of its products?
4. What would be the significance of a decision by you to punish Zenet by not being a consumer of its products?
3.63 1.98 .87
Brand attitude 1. My overall impression of the Zenet Company is (bad–good)?
2. My overall impression of the Zenet Company is (unfavorable–favorable)?
3. My overall impression of the Zenet Company is (unsatisfactory–satisfactory)?
6.51 1.87 .90
Purchase intention 1. As a consumer of apparel my buying intention toward their products would be (unlikely–likely)?
2. As a consumer of apparel my buying intention toward their products would be (improbable–probable)?
3. As a consumer of apparel my buying intention toward their products would be (impossible–possible)?
5.96 1.82 .88
Table 3
Descriptives on the outcome variables by the experimental condition groups.
Willingness-to-reward
M(SD)
Willingness-to-punish
M(SD)
Brand attitude
M(SD)
Purchase intention
M(SD)
Social irresponsibility 17.03(8.01) 16.87(9.21) 15.60(6.33) 15.54(6.09)
Social responsibility 22.47(8.38) 15.27(9.79) 22.83(4.41) 20.05(5.39)
Environmentally friendly 19.70(8.57) 12.89(8.64) 21.90(5.94) 18.97(6.48)
Control group 19.98(8.53) 12.66(9.37) 20.44(5.33) 18.86(6.60)
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and purchase intention would discriminate among the socially respon-
sible, socially irresponsible, and environmentally friendly, and control
groups, as corporate brands.
Tests of dimensionality for the discriminant analysis indicated that
two of the three dimensions were significant: Functions 1 through 3,
Wilks' Λ=.77,pb.001, functions 2 through 3, Λ=.97,pb.001, and func-
tion 3, Λ=.99, p=.168 (all tests were two-tailed). Function 1 had a
canonical correlation of .46, function 2, r
c
=.16, and function 3, r
c
=.08.
Table 6 lists both the function and structure coefficients of the two sig-
nificant functions. The structure coefficients were examined to interpret
the meaning of each function (Huberty & Olejnik, 2006). The first discrim-
inant function was primarily representing willingness-to-reward (.968)
with a secondary contribution from willingness-to-punish (.524). The
second function was primarily about brand attitude (.947). Purchase in-
tention was represented more or less equally across the two functions
(function 1 at .413 and function 2 at .422).
Fig. 1 shows a plot of the individual subjects' scores on the two dis-
criminant functions and the location of the experimental condition
group centroids, which serves to illustrate how the two functions dis-
criminate among the four groups. Function 1 clearly separates the socially
irresponsible group from the other groups. Function 2 discriminates the
socially responsible group from the control group.
Fig. 2 illustrates the combined information from the structure coef-
ficients and the group centroids. Function 1 primarily represents
willingness-to-reward and, to a lesser extent, willingness-to-punish
and serves to separate the socially irresponsible group from the other
groups. The bar chart illustrates how, relativeto the other experimental
condition groups, the socially irresponsible group has considerably
lower scores on willingness-to-reward and somewhat higher scores
on willingness-to-punish. Function 2 is primarily about brand attitude
and discriminates the socially responsible group from the control
group. Fig. 2 illustrates how the socially responsible group has a more
positive brand attitude than the control group.
5. Discussion
5.1. Summary
This substantive analysis of CSR under the four experimental con-
ditions provides a consumer's viewpoint about their relative impor-
tance. Consumers in each experimental condition group viewed
only their specific experimental condition for CSR. Those dealing
with a socially irresponsible corporate brand were more likely to pun-
ish and less likely to reward than consumers of the other three types
of brands. Additionally, consumers tended to hold a more positive
attitude toward a socially responsible corporate brand than con-
sumers who know nothing about the corporate brand with which
they are dealing. Although purchase intention does not serve to sig-
nificantly discriminate among the experimental groups, purchase in-
tention is considerably lower in the socially irresponsible group (see
Fig. 2).
5.2. Conclusions
This study extends the literature on CSR by providing an original
contribution through the finding of consumers' willingness-to-punish
the corporate brand for CSI. It is the first research on CSR to use the SR
brand personality dimension from Madrigal and Boush's (2008) work,
thus also extending the research on brand personality dimensions.
This study makes a contribution to the stakeholder theory as it is used
in CSR research by extending discussion about the power, legitimacy,
and urgency required for a consumer stakeholder group to include
how these concepts are related to the concept of consumer empower-
ment. This original contribution is enhanced by addressing the basis for
consumer empowerment and the lack of it (powerlessness), as they
affect consumers' willingness-to-punish the corporate brand for CSI.
This study takes a management orientation in coverage of brand
personality, regulatory fit, and the psychological contract relative to
the corporate brand strategy. By doing so, this study provides for a
more effective means of addressing concerns that affect the manage-
ment of the relationship of the consumer stakeholder group, the cor-
porate brand, and CSR.
Theories about punishment found in the psychology and philosophy
literatures on punishment were used for the first time in a marketing
study to support the examination of consumers' willingness-to-punish.
Thus, this study adds support for future research on the stakeholder
Table 4
Intercorrelations among the outcome variables.
Willingness
to reward
Willingness
to punish
Brand attitude
Willingness-to-reward –
Willingness-to-punish .37** –
Brand attitude .41** −.10* –
Purchase intention .53** .07 .64**
Note.*pb.05; **pb.001. All tests were two-tailed.
Table 5
Distribution information for the outcome measures.
Min Max Mean Standard
deviation
Skew (SE) Kurtosis
(SE)
Willingness-to-reward 0 40 19.83 8.60 −.26(.11) 0.46(.21)
Willingness-to-punish 0 40 14.42 9.44 .26(.11) −.71(.21)*
Brand attitude 0 30 20.28 6.11 −.48(.11)* −.10(.21)
Purchase intention 0 30 18.44 6.34 −.38(.11)* 0.18(.21)
Note. SE = standard error of the statistic. *pb.01, two-tailed. t(skew) = skew/standard
error of skew; t(kurtosis) = kurtosis/standard error of kurtosis.
Table 6
Correlation of the predictor variables with discriminant functions (function structure
matrix) and standardized discriminant function coefficients for the two significant dis-
criminant functions.
Predictor variable Correlation with
discriminant function
Standardized
discriminant function
coefficients
Function 1 Function 2 Function 1 Function 2
Willingness-to-reward .968 .126 .238 .078
Willingness-to-punish .524 .014 −.232 .977
Brand attitude −.215 .947 .969 .376
Purchase intention .413 .422 −.164 −.356
Fig. 1. Group centroids plot from the discriminant function analysis. (This figure illus-
trates group discrimination across the two discriminant functions.)
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Author's personal copy
theory that addresses consumers and for future research on consumer
behavior that addresses consumers' willingness-to-punish.
5.3. Implications
5.3.1. Theoretical implications
The well-established use of the stakeholder theory in CSR research
may improve through the inclusion of the individual consumer's em-
powerment when addressing the power, legitimacy, and urgency re-
quired for a consumer stakeholder group. The use of the stakeholder
theory in CSR relative to the consumer stakeholder group may benefit
from the use of the philosophical justifications for punishment in the
psychology literature. The specific motive of just desserts, as addressed
in the just desserts theory, and the specific motive of deterrence, as
addressed in both the deterrence theory and the incapacitation theory,
may provide insights into consumer stakeholder behavior.
5.3.2. Managerial implications
Given the short-term and long-term temporal impact on the corpo-
ration, management's approach to examining consumers' willingness-
to-punish the corporate brand for CSI must be effectively addressed
within the corporate brand strategy. To do so, management must deal
with how consumers directly and indirectly experience the corporate
brand, the continuity of those experiences, and how consumers associ-
ate brand personality traits with the corporate brand, that is, directly
through people associatedwith it and indirectly through multiple mar-
keting aspects.
Thus, a stakeholder marketing framework (Hult et al., 2010)
adapted to the consumer stakeholder group and how it relates to
other primary stakeholder groups (e.g., employees and brand endorsers
who may be people associated with the brand) and to secondary ones
(e.g., media that may provide negative information about CSR activities
related to employees and brand endorsers) may provide a logical, inte-
grative structure to facilitate addressing issues within the normative,
descriptive/empirical, and instrumental approaches.
Managers should have concerns about their own possible lack of
awareness that consumers are willing to punish the corporate brand
for CSI. Managers may not share consumers' viewpoints that a transgres-
sion with the consumer–corporate brand relationship exists, but once
consumers' perceptions of the corporate brand qualities begin to erode,
managers may be unable to slow the decline in the relationship, regard-
less of short-term recovery efforts. Any attempts for short-term recovery
of the relationship may strongly rely on determination of the cause of the
violation. To estimate the cause of a violation, managers must have an
effective system in place to allow them to readily identify that a potential
violation with the consumer stakeholder group may exist and to do so
well before the conflict from the violation activates consumers'
punishing behaviors motivated by willingness-to-punish. Further, if a
transgression occurs, management should ensure that consumer stake-
holders understand that the corporation will use the instance as an
opportunity to learn more about consumers' expectations in the rela-
tionship in order to better guide the corporation's future activities.
Managers have concerns that, if consumer stakeholders are willing to
punish the corporate brand for CSI, the consumers themselves may be
unaware of the factors that mobilized that willingness in terms of their
motivations. Although consumers are willing to punish for CSI, they
may be unable to articulate their true motivations, that is, what they
want to have happen as the result of the punishment. Thus, managing
the firms' relationships with consumer stakeholders may be difficult
when consumers' true motivations are unknown.
6. Limitations and suggestions for future research
This study is limited in that it uses a contemporary Western cul-
tural setting in accessing a sample of a U.S. resident population in
four states. Brand personality dimensions may be different given al-
ternative cultural settings.
This study's support for the hypothesis and its findings provides pos-
sibilities for future research. First, research involving stakeholder theory
in CSR that addresses the power, legitimacy, and urgency required for a
consumer stakeholder group would benefit from the inclusion of the in-
dividual consumer's empowerment. Also, future research should address
consumers' motivations behind their willingness-to-punish, which are
antecedents, as well as examine whether consumers' self-reported moti-
vations are related to their actual punishment behaviors. Lastly, future
research should study whether consumers' willingness-to-punish is a
continuum with, for example, revenge at one end.
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