The Influence of CSR and Fair Trade Communications on Attitude, Customer Behavior, and Retailer Perception

When assessing the influence of corporate social responsibility (CSR) upon the attitudes of consumers and the perception of CSR and fair trade, it is necessary to account for a number of circumstances associated with the buyers and the retailers. Consumers generally agree in their expectations that enterprises should be socially responsible and inform their stakeholders about this (Pomering and Dolnicar 2009, p. 286). They claim that, presented with the choice of a product from a “responsible manufacturer” (or a “responsible retailer”), they will prefer it over another one, lacking any information indicating social responsibility. Polls conducted among British consumers have indicated that 74 percent of them do care about whether a given company is responsible and acts accordingly, while 86 percent believe that companies ought to actively inform consumers about their CSR-related actions (Pomering and Dolnicar, 2009, p. 286). At the same time, should the respondents be aware that the manufacturing of a given brand involved child labor, 57 percent of them would stop purchasing it, while 21 percent would actively support actions against the unethical company (Carrigan and Attalla 2001, p. 564). J. A. Roberts states that 18 percent of consumers in the United States claim to purchase or use products that are ecological or have a social value (while 49% never or only sporadically make such purchases) (Roberts 1996, p. 82).