Personality traits and credibility of CSR measures as factors of social reputation of food retailers

Mayerhofer et al. (2008) analyzed the impact of CSR policies on the attitudes towards companies and brands using the example of purchasing instant coffee. Results revealed a sensitivity of consumers towards CSR activities of companies. Organic food is classed as credence goods – thus a company's reputation may be even more important, because it "radiates" on the company’s own brands (cf. Möhlenbruch / Wolf, 2008, pp. 42-50). Acc. to Yoon et al. (2006), the CSR measures implemented by a company are questioned critically and partly attributed to business-related marketing.

The aim of this study is to evaluate the influence of personality characteristics (values; locus of control; ambiguity tolerance), attitudes towards CSR/company, importance of product attributes and sustainable orientation on the attitude towards organic private labels. For this purpose, a standardized online survey (n = 709) was conducted among Austrian consumers interested in sustainability.

It turned out that the higher the self-transcendence of a female consumer (PVQ universalism, benevolence), the more positive the attitude is towards CSR (or Cause-related marketing) of food retailers. The higher the self-transcendence of a male consumer (PVQ universalism) is pronounced, the more positive the attitude towards CSR (or CrM). Consumers who have assigned the property "sincere green projects" to the trading company showed higher a social reputation of the food retailing company than those who did not cite this characteristic. The sincerity of the ecological projects thus acts as moderating variable for the positive effect of CSR measures on the reputation of the company.