Social responsibility and its differential effects on the retailers’ portfolio of private label brands

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to explore how social responsibility initiatives can be integrated into different tiers of retailers’ private label brands (PLB) and introduces a conceptual model and opposing predictions building on research in social responsibility and evolutionary psychology. The empirical evidence from two studies suggests that retailers should consider the type of PLB (i.e. quality tier) in the introduction of social responsibility initiatives.

Design/methodology/approach

To investigate opposing predictions, the authors conducted two experiments with presence of social responsibility initiative and PLB quality tier as the factors. The authors present the results from 168 Canadian consumers focussing on two product categories.

Findings

The findings of two experiments are more consistent with an explanation based on resource synergy beliefs rather than costly signaling theory. Social responsibility initiatives enhanced consumer evaluations of high-quality PLBs, but hurt consumer evaluations of low-tier PLBs.

Practical implications

Retailers should differentiate the way they accommodate social responsibility initiatives based on the type of their PLBs. Specifically, the beneficial effect of social responsibility initiative only exist for high-tier PLBs. Introducing social responsibility initiatives may hurt preference for low-tier PLBs.

Originality/value

This paper is the first to propose two theoretical models that address how social responsibility initiatives can affect consumer evaluations of PLBs. The initial empirical evidence is more coherent with resource synergy beliefs explanation rather than costly signaling explanation. These results suggest that social responsibility initiatives have asymmetric effects for different tiers of retailers’ PLBs.

Citation

Tofighi, M. and Bodur, H.O. (2015), "Social responsibility and its differential effects on the retailers’ portfolio of private label brands", International Journal of Retail & Distribution Management, Vol. 43 No. 4/5, pp. 301-313. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJRDM-04-2014-0040