The Mediating Role of Moral Elevation in Cause-Related Marketing: A Moral Psychological Perspective

With the high frequency and intensity of worldwide disasters, cause-related marketing campaigns with sudden disasters are becoming increasingly popular. However, little is known about whether and how cause acuteness may influence consumer attitudes. This research aims to extend this research area th...

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Bibliographic Details
Authors: Zheng, Ling (Author) ; Zhu, Yunxia (Author) ; Jiang, Ruochen (Author)
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
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Published: Springer Science + Business Media B. V 2019
In: Journal of business ethics
Year: 2019, Volume: 156, Issue: 2, Pages: 439-454
Further subjects:B Information transparency
B Moral elevation
B Product-cause fit
B Cause-related marketing
B Consumer attitudes
B Cause acuteness
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Description
Summary:With the high frequency and intensity of worldwide disasters, cause-related marketing campaigns with sudden disasters are becoming increasingly popular. However, little is known about whether and how cause acuteness may influence consumer attitudes. This research aims to extend this research area through investigating the relationship between cause acuteness and consumer attitudes toward the product, as well as its underlying mechanism and boundary conditions. Based on a moral psychology perspective, we propose a theoretical model focusing on the mediating role of moral elevation in influencing consumer attitudes. This model also incorporates product-cause fit and information transparency as moderators underpinning necessary conditions that are likely to lead to positive consumer attitudes. Four empirical studies were conducted to test our model. Our research results reveal that consumers have more positive attitudes toward the product associated with a sudden disaster than with an ongoing tragedy. Furthermore, the positive effect of cause acuteness on consumer attitudes is mediated by enhanced moral elevation, which occurs under the conditions of high product-cause fit and high information transparency.
ISSN:1573-0697
Contains:Enthalten in: Journal of business ethics
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.1007/s10551-017-3614-3