DOING GOOD MAY BACKFIRE: IS A LUXURY BRAND’S FULFILLMENT OF CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY A PANACEA OR A POISON?
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Corporate social responsibility (CSR) has become an important pillar in business practice. Luxury brands are no exception to this trend and have invested deeply in different types of CSR, and this is evident with companies such as Prada and LVMH. However, empirical research has demonstrated the paradox between CSR and luxury and has identified certain undesirable effects. The reason for this inconsistency in the results to date, is the lack of a comprehensive CSR categorization system. To be more specific, we integrated two dimensions - visibility and relevance - and have proposed a novel CSR type in four types, which is external-embedded, external-peripheral, internal-embedded and internal-peripheral. We can easily classify the CSR initiatives into this category, which means the source of undesirable effects can be clearly shown for luxury brands.