Influences of CSR associations on consumer behaviour within the fashion retail industry.

Academic literature has shown two main research streams when it comes to corporate social responsibility (CSR). The first one, the management perspective, is simply described as the question if and how companies should engage in CSR activities and is not the main focus of this thesis. The consumer-based focus, on the other hand, examines how consumers perceive the CSR activities of companies on an individual level. This second stream of course leaves a lot of room for different behavioural aspects of consumers that can be analysed and interpreted. The main focus of this thesis however is set on how CSR associations influence consumers’ willingness to pay, electronic word-of-mouth behaviour, customer-company identification and perceived quality of products. Therefore, a quantitative approach is taken, which provides answers to the central research question: “What effects do consumers’ CSR associations have on consumer behaviour?”
This research field in which this consumer-based CSR study is based is the fashion retail industry in Austria, which hallmarks itself through its undeniably huge impact on consumers day-to-day lives and the economy, faced-paced nature, as well as its significant negative effects on the environment and society.
Results show that consumer’s CSR associations do indeed have an influence on their behaviour, as a statistically significant influence of CSR associations on willingness to pay for fashion brands, eWOM behaviour and consumer-company identification could be found. However, an effect on the perceived quality of fashion brands’ products could not be found within this study.