Communicating corporate social responsibility (CSR) has become increasingly important for the success of organizations (Coombs and Holladay, 2012; McWilliams and Siegel, 2001). Several studies have focused on consumer responses to CSR and found that positive evaluations of CSR initiatives led to greater loyalty to both companies and their brands and to more positive behaviors toward companies (Dhanesh, 2015; Glavas and Godwin, 2013; Sen and Bhattacharya, 2001). Therefore, the effective communication of these CSR initiatives appears to be important (Eberle, et al., 2013; Lee et al., 2013). However, research on how consumers perceive a company’s communication of specific CSR motives in relation to its corporate reputation is scarce (De Vries et al., 2013). The current study aimed to investigate the role that communicating CSR motives plays in someone’s perception of a company. To investigate the role of intrinsic and extrinsic motives in explaining consumer-company identification, scepticism and reputation, we conducted two online consumer survey studies. In Study 1 (N=178), we used a well-known personal care product (PCP). In Study 2 (N=220), in the context of a large worldwide furniture retailer, we tried to replicate the findings of Study 1. In contrast to Study 1, we now added situational scepticism. The results of the current study show that the positive relationship between intrinsic CSR motives and company evaluations were replicated from previous studies. In this relationship consumer-company identification and scepticism play a mediating role. However this role seems to be different for positive versus negative attributions. The negative relationship between extrinsic CSR motives and company evaluations seems to be more ambiguous. Suggestions are made for a more meta-analytical approach to distinct consumers’ perceptions on a company’s CSR motives.

• Jos Bartels(Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, the Netherlands)
• Anne-Marie van Prooijen(Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, the Netherlands)