“When” Does It Pay to Be Good? Attributions Mediate the Way CSR Elements Impact on Consumer Responses, and Are Controllable

Responding to the appeal for more research on the contingencies that shape the relationship between CSR and corporate performance, this paper incorporates environmental CSR, sets up an experimental survey and employs multiple mediation analysis with the aim to test the mediating role of consumer attributions on the CSR elements–consumer responses relationship; and further to examine the degree to which attributions are controllable, i.e., specific CSR elements activate specific type of attributions. Results support that attributions have a strong predicting power on consumer outcomes. The right time of appearance and the appropriate amount of resources committed to a CSR campaign, through the dual type of attributions they activate (more positive, i.e., values-driven and less negative, i.e., egoistic), impact positively on consumer reactions. In this respect, the study adds to past research showing that attributions are controllable, i.e., specific CSR initiative characteristics of a impact on the dimensionality of attributions and, through that, on specific target-types of consumer responses. This study thus shows that the activation of a dual-level attributions’ system is ambivalent, dependent on the character of the CSR campaign. The fact that specific CSR elements (i.e., CSR Timing) activate dual-level CSR motives that act complementarily indicates that managers should be clear about the capabilities of the elements of their CSR initiatives and how much impact they expect those elements to have on consumer response.