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Does Being Good Pay Off? An Investigation of Consumers’ Price Response to Social Product Information

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Pricing Perspectives

Abstract

In recent years corporate social responsibility (CSR) has been increasingly discussed in practice as well as in scientific discussions (see, for example, Baron and Diermeier, 2007). While some use the alleged Friedman quote to argue that the business of business is business rather than social issues, others claim that companies have a responsibility that goes beyond the business arena (Hansen and Schrader, 2005). An intermediate position assumes that CSR is a business case as many socially responsible activities pay off — at least in the long run. On the one hand, social activities may have an effect on the cost side of the balance sheet by saving resources such as energy, and by saving marketing expenditure through increased customer loyalty (Maignan et al., 1999), or by reducing the risk of crises such as corporate scandals or product harm (Klein and Dawar, 2004). On the other hand, socially responsible corporate behavior might lead consumers to buy more of a company’s products or pay more for social product features (Elliott and Freeman, 2001). This latter aspect will be investigated in this contribution. Therefore, consumers’ price response to social product features will be analysed with regard to the following questions:

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Authors
  1. Dirk C. Moosmayer
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Strategic Management, Marketing and Tourism, School of Management, Innsbruck University, Austria

    Sandra Rothenberger (Assistant Professor of Strategic Management and Habilitation Candidate, Adjunct Professor) (Assistant Professor of Strategic Management and Habilitation Candidate, Adjunct Professor)

  2. Fordham University, NY, USA

    Sandra Rothenberger (Assistant Professor of Strategic Management and Habilitation Candidate, Adjunct Professor) (Assistant Professor of Strategic Management and Habilitation Candidate, Adjunct Professor)

  3. Economics and Business Administration, University of Regensburg, Germany

    Florian Siems

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© 2008 Dirk C. Moosmayer

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Moosmayer, D.C. (2008). Does Being Good Pay Off? An Investigation of Consumers’ Price Response to Social Product Information. In: Rothenberger, S., Siems, F. (eds) Pricing Perspectives. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230594890_3

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