Serving the Purpose?

Firms tend to approach corporate social responsibility (CSR) from a business case perspective. This study examines whether communicating CSR through self-serving direct motives (increasing profit) or self-serving indirect motives (enhancing corporate image), can lead to more credibility and whether corporate reputation, firms' prior CSR beliefs, and perceived honesty of the message influence this relationship. The research focuses on the financial industry, using an existing mainstream bank (ING) as example. Data was collected using a survey. From the results, a rather nuanced picture emerges about the relationship between perceived CSR motive and the credibility of corporate CSR claims. Partly in contrast to extent literature, communicating self-serving motives may increase perceived credibility. Moreover, this effect is stronger for the indirect self-serving motive than for the direct self-serving motive and results vary based on whether or not respondents are customer of the bank. For customers, image and mixed motives appear to be relevant, whereas non-customers also consider economic benefits when attributing a CSR motive. Further, prior CSR beliefs only function as moderator when participants had to form an opinion of a bank that was not their own. Lastly, corporate reputation is not found as a moderator but appears to mediate the relationship between self-serving motives and perceived credibility. An implication of this study is that marketers should be aware of the motives for engaging in CSR as perceived by the public (both customers and non-customers) and realize that the business case for non-customers is a broader concept than for customers.