Sector-Scale Proliferation of CSR Quality Label Programs via Mimicry: The Rotkäppchen Effect

Abstract

Proliferation of CSR quality certification programs can be analysed within theories of mimicry. Some firms use third-party quality certificates to signal their CSR practices to consumers accurately. These firms and consumers benefit from few, simple, recognized, reliable labels. Other firms use competing or own-brand labels to signal deceptively, gaining competitive advantage without compliance costs. Unreliable labels act as mimics to dupe consumers. If consumers cannot determine which labels are misleading, they ignore them all. Within ecological theories of mimicry, this is known as aggressive reverse Brouwerian automimicry. CSR-label research has a different naming tradition, and this sector-scale effect could be called a rotkäppchen effect, analogous to program-scale groucho and firm-scale goldilocks effects. It is testable by analysing mimicry mechanisms or predicted patterns.