Demystifying Corporate Social Behaviors: Understanding Corporate Social Irresponsibility through the Lens of Corporate Social Responsibility

Much marketing and consumption focuses on issues relating to Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). Contemporary marketers identify the potential business (e.g., sales, revenue) benefits of adopting CSR as a part of marketing... [ view full abstract ]

Much marketing and consumption focuses on issues relating to Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). Contemporary marketers identify the potential business (e.g., sales, revenue) benefits of adopting CSR as a part of marketing strategy, while highlighting the drawbacks of Corporate Social Irresponsibility (CSI). Some consumer segments make purchase decisions with CSR or CSI related criteria taken into consideration. The purpose of this paper is to investigate issues that contribute to CSI. This study compares differences between CSR and CSI from the perspectives of their definition, levels, and outcomes. Drawing on existing CSR literature, this paper contributes a definition of CSI and develops a CSI pyramid. The pyramid includes four levels: the un-philanthropic, unethical, illegal, and economically irresponsible levels. Following that, this paper discusses effects of CSR and CSI considering macro and micro performance consequences. In addition, the study explores three possible drivers of CSI – managers, stakeholders, and organizational characteristics – from the perspectives of managers’ morality and managers’ perceived stakeholder salience, stakeholder conflict, stakeholder irresponsibility, and the potentially influential factors of firm ownership, firm size, organizational life-cycle stage, and firm-age. This investigation contributes eight propositions as hypotheses for testing in future CSI research and presents a framework for future CSI research.