Positive ripple effects of corporate leaders’ CSR donations amid COVID-19 on corporate and country reputations: Multi-level reputational benefits of CSR focusing on Bill Gates and Jack Ma

Abstract

Through cross-national surveys in the United States and China, this study investigates the positive ripple effects of corporate leaders’ CSR donations amid COVID-19 on multi-level reputations of corporate leaders, companies, and countries. The study finds that public knowledge of celebrity corporate leaders’ CSR donations can enhance the reputation of the origin country. The enhancement occurs through the improvement of their own personal reputations and affiliated corporate reputations across the two countries. In this ripple-effect mechanism, the role of perceived CSR motives can be changed by the level of publics’ CSR knowledge. As people know more about corporate leaders’ donation activities, the positive impact of altruistic motives increases and the negative impact of self-serving motives decreases. The study also finds that consumer willingness to accept self-serving CSR motives differs by the institutional development of the countries. American participants are more willing than their Chinese counterparts to accept self-serving motives.