Digital Commons Network^™

Society Or The Environment? Understanding How Consumers Evaluate Brand Messages About Corporate Social Responsibility Activities, Sara Hanson, Lan Jiang, Jun Ye, Nagesh Murthy

Marketing Faculty Publications

This research examines how and why consumers evaluate brand messages about corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities differently. Insights from secondary data suggest that brands may prioritize environmental activities over social activities, and vice versa, depending on the type of company. Using a field experiment and surveys, we explore whether consumers’ attitudes toward these brand decisions follow company priorities. We find that consumers perceive brands that sell goods and communicate messages about environmental sustainability activities more positively than services companies, while consumers perceive brands that provides services and communicate messages about social sustainability activities more positively than goods companies. We show …

Gratitude In Relationship Marketing: Theoretical Development And Directions For Future Research, Randle D. Raggio, Anna M. Walz, Mousumi Bose Godbole, Judith Anne Garretson Folse

Marketing Faculty Publications

Purpose – For centuries, gratitude has represented an integral component of social relationships, yet it remains relatively overlooked by marketing scholars in the study of commercial relationships. The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate how gratitude helps to build, maintain and transform commercial relationships and to suggest noteworthy areas of investigation for those researchers seeking to help companies understand the role of gratitude in relationship marketing.

Design/methodology/approach – Gratitude's role in relational exchange is explored by a review of relevant literature and two qualitative studies. Questions developed from the literature and exploratory interviews are then investigated in a main …