The interactions of CSR, self-congruity and purchase intention among Chinese consumers

Abstract

This research aimed to identify the influence of Chinese consumers' beliefs about dimensions of corporate social responsibility (CSR) on self-congruity and their purchase intentions in the fashion industry. We examined the relationship between four dimensions of CSR (i.e., economic, legal, ethical, philanthropic) and purchase intention and hypothesised that basic responsibilities such as economic and legal responsibility affected purchase intention directly, while high-level responsibilities such as ethical and philanthropic responsibility affected purchase intention through the mediation of self-congruity. The results of our online survey supported our hypotheses. This finding implies that consumers' self-concept is closely related to the higher-level CSR dimensions and less related to the basic duties of companies such as their economic and legal responsibility. We confirmed that fashion companies' ethical responsibility and philanthropic responsibility could be more influential when it was self-congruous. We found that ethical responsibility is a relatively weak dimension in influencing purchase intention compared with other CSR dimensions. Based on this result, we suggest several implications for companies interested in the Chinese market.