Consumer responses to sport organizations’ corporate social responsibility initiatives: A focus on moral emotions

Abstract

Purpose Sport has become a popular platform for corporate social responsibility (CSR) campaigns. Growing numbers of athletes, teams, and organizations are engaging in CSR campaigns to promote awareness and behaviors to support CSR campaigns addressing pressing social issues (e.g., disease prevention, health promotion, etc.). However, much of the previous work has focused on whether such initiatives benefit the organization, but not the community. The present paper provides theoretical explanations on the psychological mechanism that can demonstrate how consumers respond to CSR campaigns initiated by a sport organization Method In particular, existing literatures in moral psychology and CSR have been reviewed to identify an explanatory mechanism that promote prosocial behavior among sport consumers Results The present paper posits that moral emotion is a central processing mechanism explaining the link between CSR and socially responsible behaviors in consumers. The paper also provides a theoretical account to explain how moral emotions are evoked in the CSR context and how they can prompt prosocial behaviors Conclusion This paper adds to the literature by answering the call for the need to understand underlying mechanisms linking CSR with positive social outcomes (cf. Aguinis & Glavas, 2012).