ABSTRACT
The corporate world is facing an erosion of trust from consumers and other stakeholders. Corporate scandals and ethical lapses have made consumers sceptical and suspicious of companies. Trust, however, is a fundamental asset in every business relationship and is usually associated with long-term and profitable relationships with customers. Hence, there is an increased interest in corporate social responsibility (CSR), an important issue among stakeholders and within the corporate world. The importance of CSR is also reflected in the marketing literature (e.g. Kotler and Lee, 2005; Maignan et al., 2005; Sen and Bhattacharya, 2001) and in the corporate marketing literature (e.g. Balmer et al., 2007; David et al., 2005; Podnar and Golob, 2007). The studies focus on a myriad of issues, such as consumer reactions and responses to CSR (Sen and Bhattacharya, 2001), and relations between CSR practices, corporate identity and purchase intention (David et al., 2005). Hence, the role of CSR in the relationship between companies and their consumers with its effects on customer brand attitudes, loyalty and trust is well documented in the literature (e.g. Brown and Dacin, 1997; Maignan and Ferrell, 2004; Sen and Bhattacharya, 2001). For example it has been demonstrated that consumers develop relationships with organizational norms, leading to consumer–company (C–C) identification (Brown and Dacin, 1997). In addition, a mediating role of consumer perceptions of congruence between consumers’ characters and that of the company has been acknowledged in a relation between corporate CSR initiatives and consumer responses (Sen and Bhattacharya, 2001). Researchers have also attempted to link CSR perceptions and trust (e.g. Pivato et al., 2008; Vlachos et al., 2008). Nonetheless, Vlachos et al. (2008) argue that research on consumer trust as a CSR performance variable still lacking and there has been no attempt to find how CSR perceptions affect C–C identification and how C–C identification in turn contributes to customer trust.
