Social responsibility and its differential effects on the retailers’ portfolio of private label brands

Abstract

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explore how social responsibility initiatives can be integrated into different tiers of retailers’ private label brands (PLB) and introduces a conceptual model and opposing predictions building on research in social responsibility and evolutionary psychology. The empirical evidence from two studies suggests that retailers should consider the type of PLB (i.e. quality tier) in the introduction of social responsibility initiatives. Design/methodology/approach – To investigate opposing predictions, the authors conducted two experiments with presence of social responsibility initiative and PLB quality tier as the factors. The authors present the results from 168 Canadian consumers focussing on two product categories. Findings – The findings of two experiments are more consistent with an explanation based on resource synergy beliefs rather than costly signaling theory. Social responsibility initiatives enhanced consumer evaluations of high-quality PLBs, but hurt consum...