Consumers' perceptions of luxury brands’ CSR initiatives

Consumers' perceptions of luxury brands’ CSR initiatives: An
investigation of the role of status and conspicuous consumption
Cesare Amatulli a, *, 1
, Matteo De Angelis b
, Daniel Korschun c , Simona Romani b
a Ionian Department of Mediterranean Legal and Economic Systems: Society, Environment, Culture, University of Bari Aldo Moro, Via Duomo, 259, 74123
Taranto, Italy
b Department of Business Management, LUISS University Viale Romania, 32, 00197 Rome, Italy
c LeBow College of Business, Drexel University, 3220 Market St, Philadelphia, PA 19104, USA
a r t i c l e i n f o
Article history:
Received 12 January 2018
Received in revised form
3 May 2018
Accepted 14 May 2018
Available online 17 May 2018
Keywords:
Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR)
Sustainability
Luxury marketing
Status consumption
Conspicuous consumption
a b s t r a c t
This research challenges the notion that luxury and CSR are incompatible by investigating whether and
under what conditions consumers react positively to different kinds of CSR initiatives among luxury
companies. Extending Carroll's four-dimension model of CSR, we argue that some CSR initiatives, namely
those in the economic and ethical dimensions, are less noticeable and visible to consumers than those in
the legal and philanthropic dimensions. We categorized the former as “internal” dimensions and the
latter as “external” dimensions as part of a novel classification of Carroll's four CSR dimensions. To test
our hypotheses, we conducted three experiments e one in a laboratory, one online and one in the field e
with a total of 461 respondents. Our results demonstrate that luxury companies' external (compared to
internal) CSR initiatives increase consumers' willingness to buy; this effect is accentuated for consumers
with higher status and conspicuous consumption orientation.
© 2018 Published by Elsevier Ltd.
1. Introduction
Companies are increasingly embracing sustainable develop-
ment and Corporate Social Responsibility (hereafter, CSR; Kotler,
2011; Romani et al., 2016), defined as the set of discretionary ac-
tivities “demonstrating the inclusion of social and environmental
concerns in business operations and in interactions with stake-
holders” (Van Marrewijk and Werre, 2003, p. 107). One survey of
over 500 experts from all 32 European countries suggests that the
importance of CSR in business will even increase in the next few
years (Kudłak et al., 2018). Notwithstanding the overall upward
trend, competing views about CSR initiatives in different sectors
still persist (e.g., Sweeney and Coughlan, 2008). For instance, Green
Public Procurement has been shown to be much more important in
the ICT and construction sectors than in the retail and clothing
sectors (Kudłak et al., 2018). Meanwhile, CSR initiatives in the
automotive and aerospace sectors are mainly focused on reducing
the purchases of chemicals from suppliers (Lindsey, 2011), and
those in the retail sector mostly involve the reduction of energy
consumption and the use of greener materials for the interiors of
the stores (e.g., Ramos and Leal, 2017).
There is variability in CSR initiatives across different sectors, and
the present research seeks to contribute to our understanding of
the sources of that variability. The present research suggests that
the extent to which CSR initiatives can be successful - or not - under
the perspective of consumers depends on the visibility of the CSR
initiatives undertaken.
More specifically, we examine the role of CSR initiatives in the
context of the luxury industry. Indeed, while the global luxury
market has been characterized by a steady growth in the last
decade (The Boston Consulting Group, 2017), it is also one that has
been particularly pressured to address social issues (Davies et al.,
2012; De Angelis et al., 2017; Janssen et al., 2014; Kapferer and
Michaut-Denizeau, 2014). Consequently, luxury market strategies
have begun to systematically include CSR as a key pillar (e.g.,
Cervellon and Shammas, 2013; Winston, 2016). In 2015, for
instance, Prada's CEO Carlo Mazzi announced the launch of a
website to document all of Prada's CSR initiatives and programs.
Meanwhile, the world's two largest luxury groups, LVMH and
* Corresponding author.
E-mail addresses: [e-mail], [e-mail]
(C. Amatulli), [e-mail] (M. De Angelis), [e-mail]
(D. Korschun), [e-mail] (S. Romani).
1 The first two authors are listed in alphabetical order and contributed equally to
the article.
Contents lists available at ScienceDirect
Journal of Cleaner Production
j o u r n a l h o m e p a g e : w w w . e l s e v i e r . c o m / l o c a t e / j c l e p r o
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2018.05.111
0959-6526/© 2018 Published by Elsevier Ltd.
Journal of Cleaner Production 194 (2018) 277e287

Kering, publish detailed annual reports about their CSR initiatives.
In short, most luxury brands are aware that they can no longer
ignore CSR issues (Cervellon and Shammas, 2013; D'Anolfo et al.,
2017; Winston, 2016).
It is perhaps surprising, then, that luxury brands' foray into the
CSR space contradicts some findings in the academic literature,
which has often suggested that those efforts could harm brands'
images (e.g., Torelli et al., 2012). Indeed, scholars have emphasized
that some consumers see luxury and CSR as conflicting concepts
(e.g., Achabou and Dekhili, 2013; Davies et al., 2012; Griskevicius
et al., 2010). The result of this contradiction between business re-
ality and some scientific findings about the role of CSR in luxury is
that today's luxury companies seem to lack an understanding of
how to develop and communicate CSR strategies that can appeal to
luxury consumers. Grounding on the belief that CSR can be lever-
aged to enhance consumers' perception of luxury brands, the pre-
sent article tries to answer the following research questions: What
types of CSR initiatives undertaken by luxury companies are more
likely to encounter consumer favor? Might different types of CSR
initiatives be more appealing for different luxury consumer seg-
ments? And if so, how?
We answer these questions by empirically investigating the
differential effectiveness of different types of CSR initiatives,
labelled internal and external based on the degree to which they are
visible to consumers (see Pino et al., 2016). Specifically, extending
the CSR framework proposed by Carroll (1979, 1991), internal CSR
initiatives refer to economic and ethical initiatives, while external
CSR initiatives refer to legal and philanthropic ones. The evidence
in support of our model comes from three experiments conducted
in three distinct settingsdin the laboratory, in the field, and online.
Overall, this research helps to advance current knowledge on the
luxury/sustainability relationship and, more specifically, on the
effectiveness of CSR actions for consumers of luxury goods in some
important ways. First, our study provides a counterpoint to the
great mass of research studies documenting the incompatibility
between luxury and sustainability issues. Indeed, we specifically
analyze CSR in the luxury context and empirically assess the con-
ditions under which CSR initiatives might improve consumers'
luxury brand perceptions. Second, we extend the literature on CSR
by showing that the type of CSR initiative may differentially affect
consumers’ brand perceptions and purchasing intentions. Third,
our research is, to the best of our knowledge, the first to connect
different CSR dimensions with perceptions about luxury goods.
Specifically, we test whether external CSR initiatives are more likely
to gain higher consumer favor than internal initiatives, or vice
versa.
The article is organized as follows. In the next section, we
describe the institutional setting and in section three we review the
main theoretical ideas, thereby providing the research hypotheses.
Section four describes the empirical design, while sections five, six
and seven contain the methodology and results of the three
empirical studies conducted. Finally, in section eight, we discuss
the theoretical and managerial implications of our work as well as
its limitations and directions for future studies.
2. Institutional background
While companies may be strongly committed to sustainable
development, the opportunity to develop and implement effective
CSR initiatives is often heavily affected by the specific “rules of the
game” (Thelen, 1999) at play in the different countries in which a
company operates (Halkos and Skouloudis, 2016). As stated by Xie
et al. (2017, p. 28), institutions refer to the “regulative, normative,
and cognitive structures that order and constrain human action,
providing stability to social behavior” (see also Xu and Yang, 2010).
More specifically, the institutional environment of a country refers
to the political and socio-economic environment, the bureaucracy,
the codified and non-codified norms of behavior, and the related
historical development of a country's institutions (see Fifka and
Pobizhan, 2014). Previous studies have shown that good institu-
tional environments strengthen the impact of CSR efforts on firms'
customer satisfaction (Xie et al., 2017). Interestingly, the institu-
tional environment of a country can be analyzed through the so-
called “national business systems approach” developed by
Whitley (1992) and used also to study national CSR characteristics
(e.g., Habisch et al., 2011). As highlighted by Fifka and Pobizhan
(2014, p. 193), the national business system of a country can be
mainly identified with “the political system, the cultural system,
the financial system, and the education and labor system.”
Consistent with this view of the institutional environment, past
research has demonstrated that the level of CSR penetration varies
across countries because of the discrepancies in the institutional
efficiency characterizing different countries (Marquis et al., 2007;
Welford, 2004). For instance, contexts characterized by the
Anglo-Saxon institutional model seem to stimulate ethical and
social initiatives developed by companies to a greater extent
compared to other contexts (Jackson and Apostolakou, 2010).
Institutional barriers, however, may also depend on the specific
sector in which the company operates. According to Jackson and
Apostolakou (2010, p. 388), “sector-level institutions may be very
important in explaining the diffusion of ‘minimum standards’ for
CSR, where firms respond to coercive and normative pressures of
sectoral-level regulatory standards or governance mechanisms
operating at the transnational scale”.
While the present research does not focus specifically on the
role of the institutional environments in driving companies' deci-
sion to engage in CSR initiatives, the framework we propose and the
results we show should be interpreted by taking into account the
differences among countries in terms of standards and legal sys-
tems at play. More specifically, when exploring the effectiveness of
CSR initiatives falling into the legal CSR dimension (Carroll, 1979,
1991), we acknowledge that the boundaries of companies’ legal
responsibility may be importantly shaped by the institutional
environment characterizing each country and often differentiating
that country from others.
3. Conceptual development
Past research in luxury has traditionally suggested that CSR is
not a prominent factor in luxury consumers' decision-making
(Davies et al., 2012; Griskevicius et al., 2010); one study even
found that CSR could undermine consumers' perceptions about the
quality of luxury goods (Achabou and Dekhili, 2013). Such findings
are grounded on the idea that luxury generally evokes hedonism,
excess, and ostentation (Cristini et al., 2017; De Barnier et al., 2012),
while CSR generally evokes sobriety, moderation and ethics
(Gladwin et al., 1995; Lochard and Murat, 2011). Despite the prior
findings, however, there is burgeoning evidence that luxury and
CSR might be compatible after all (e.g., Janssen et al., 2014). Indeed,
a perceived fit between luxury and CSR may lead consumers to hold
positive attitudes towards luxury products when said products
elicit scarcity and ephemerality (Janssen et al., 2014). Consistent
with this, Kapferer (2010) argued that luxury and sustainable
development can converge when “both focus on rarity” (p. 41).
Indeed, on the one hand, luxury is about high quality products that
are objectively rare because they employ rare materials and unique
craftsmanship skills. On the other hand, sustainable development is
about preserving natural resources by limiting the excessive use of
materials that can exceed the world's recycling capabilities
(Kapferer, 2010).
C. Amatulli et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 194 (2018) 277e287278

In other words, luxury brands typically manufacture limited
quantities of products in order to be exclusive, and the quality of
those goods often means that they have a long lifecycle. Conse-
quently, luxury brands waste significantly fewer resources
compared to mass market brands; therefore, one could say that
luxury goods are inherently sustainable (Amatulli et al., 2017).
Following this logic, it could be argued that the luxury world has, in
many respects, the potential to abide by the paradigm of cleaner
production, defined as “a systematically organized approach to
production activities, which has positive effects on the environ-
ment. These activities encompass resource use minimization,
improved eco-efficiency and source reduction, in order to improve
the environmental protection and to reduce risks to living organ-
isms” (Glavic and Lukman, 2007, p. 1879). A recent work of De
Angelis et al. (2017) empirically supported the idea that luxury
brands can be both “gold and green” (p. 1516) in a study of
sustainability-driven luxury fashion product design, in which they
demonstrated that consumers might sometime favorably view
luxury brands' new green products that are similar in design to
models produced by non-luxury companies specialized in green
production rather than similar in design to the luxury company's
previous non-green products.
Interestingly, while it is demonstrated that luxury companies
frequently engage in CSR activities that give a positive contribution
to the well-being of the environment and the society in which they
operate, how consumers react after knowing that a luxury brand
engages in CSR activities, and more specifically whether consumers
react differently to different types of CSR activities, is still unclear.
Importantly, by focusing on consumers' perceptions about com-
panies’ CSR efforts, this research connects to studies that have
demonstrated the positive effect of CSR on customer satisfaction in
non-luxury sectors (Louriero et al., 2012; Xie et al., 2017).
The starting point of our study of the role of CSR initiatives in
luxury is the well-established idea that CSR is a multidimensional
construct (D'Aprile and Mannarini, 2012; Pino et al., 2016). As very
recently noted by Arena et al. (2018), CSR is an “umbrella” concept
that includes a variety of practices aimed at fulfilling the expecta-
tion of different stakeholders. We use the multidimensional
approach of CSR proposed by Archie B. Carroll's (1979, 1991), which
is considered a seminal contribution in the CSR domain, as our
reference theoretical framework. According to Carroll, CSR en-
compasses four main dimensions e economic, legal, ethical, and
philanthropic e that correspond to four types of company re-
sponsibilities. Carroll portrayed such dimensions as a pyramid, with
the economic dimension, whereby companies should “make an
acceptable profit” (Carroll, 1991, p. 141), at the bottom and the
philanthropic dimension, whereby companies should behave as
good corporate citizens, at the top. In the middle are the legal
dimension, whereby companies should abide by laws and regula-
tions, and the ethical dimension, whereby companies should avoid
morally unacceptable behaviors and respect human rights.
In this research, we categorize such four types of CSR initiatives
following the classification proposed by Pino et al. (2016) in their
study of consumers' attitudes toward genetically modified foods.
Those scholars advanced the idea that economic, legal, ethical and
philanthropic initiatives can be further grouped in two categories,
labelled internal and external CSR activities, based on their visibility
and noticeability for consumers. Specifically, according to the au-
thors, initiatives falling into the economic and ethical CSR di-
mensions (i.e., reducing production costs and improving working
conditions) belong to the internal category because those initiatives
are, on the basis of their nature, less visible and less easy to be
noticed by consumers and public opinion than initiatives falling
into the legal and philanthropic CSR dimensions (i.e., including
required information on product packaging and financially
supporting the construction of a hospital in a needed territory),
which, consistently, belong to the external category (Creyer and
Ross, 1996; Singh et al., 2008). Of importance, while companies’
communication activities may certainly increase the visibility of
their internal CSR initiatives, those initiatives, compared to the
external CSR ones, are inherently less visible for the reason that
consumers typically have harder time to detect if a company has
undertaken actions aimed improving internal efficiency or working
conditions versus actions aimed at abiding by legal product stan-
dards or donating resources for social causes.
We believe the visibility-based distinction of CSR initiatives into
internal versus external, introduced by Pino et al. (2016) in a study
of CSR perceptions in mass-market goods, is even more suitable to
the study of CSR in luxury because of the nature of luxury goods.
Indeed, many consumers buy luxury goods mainly to signal status
and prestige in social contexts (Han et al., 2010; Nelissen and
Meijers, 2011; Wang and Griskevicius, 2014; Wang and
Wallendorf, 2006), if not to “impress others” e usually with re-
gard to their ability to pay particularly high prices for well-known
brands (Husic and Cicic, 2009; Wiedmann et al., 2009). In other
words, luxury consumption is mainly related to consumers’ expo-
sure to society (Kastanakis and Balabanis, 2012). Interestingly, as
suggested by Steinhart et al. (2013), consumers may respond
positively to environmental claims when those claims emphasize
status-related benefits for consumers. As a consequence, visibility
is not sufficient to define a brand as luxury one but it may be
essential to boost the prestige and the exclusivity of a luxury brand
(Fionda and Moore, 2009).
Building on this idea, we predict that luxury companies' external
CSR initiatives (i.e., those related to the legal and philanthropic
dimensions) will be more effective than their internal CSR initia-
tives (i.e., those related to the economic and ethical dimensions) in
boosting consumers' WTB luxury products. Such a prediction rests
on the argument that the higher public visibility of external CSR
initiatives (Creyer and Ross, 1996; Singh et al., 2008) will seem
more consistent with luxury products' status-signaling orientation.
In other words, because luxury consumption implies a desire to
communicate something to others, consumers will be particularly
attracted by brand elements that are especially noticeable and
recognizable in the market at large. In essence, we argue that,
because external CSR aligns with the status-signaling positioning
(Du et al., 2007) of the luxury brand, these initiatives (i.e., those in
the legal and philanthropic domains) will be likely to increase
consumers' perceptions of the brand's luxuriousness and, by
extension, their WTB. To clarify, we are not predicting that visibility
always and necessarily increases perceived luxuriousness, as we
acknowledge that there are many cases where this does not
happen; rather, we predict that, compared to internal CSR activities,
external CSR activities will be more likely to increase perceived
luxuriousness. Formally:
H1. Compared to internal CSR initiatives, external CSR initiatives
undertaken by a brand are more likely to increase consumers'
perceptions of that brand's luxuriousness, leading to a higher
consumer willingness to buy products from that brand.
While it is true that luxury goods typically serve a status-
signaling function, it is also true that consumers' dispositions and
inner motivations toward luxury purchasing can vary. Indeed, the
literature suggests that people's motives for luxury consumption
can be external or internal (Eastman and Eastman, 2015). Some
customers may buy luxury goods mainly to demonstrate their
status and prestige, which qualifies as an externalized approach.
Other customers purchase luxury products to satisfy their personal
taste and style, which qualifies as an internalized approach
(Amatulli et al., 2015; Han et al., 2010).
C. Amatulli et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 194 (2018) 277e287 279

As emphasized by Eastman and Eastman (2015), externally-
motivated luxury consumption may lead to more public con-
sumption of status products and more conspicuous-style con-
sumption. In other words, consumers who mainly have an
externalized luxury approach place greater importance on the
“visibility” of luxury goods than those who mainly have an inter-
nalized luxury approach (Nueno and Quelch, 1998). This visibility
can be captured by the idea of conspicuous consumption (e.g.,
Jaikumar and Sarin, 2015; Wang and Griskevicius, 2014), which
refers to the tendency to buy symbolic and visible products with
the aim of communicating a distinctive self-image to others
(Chaudhuri et al., 2011; Fuchs et al., 2013).
Based on this reasoning, we expect that the effectiveness of
external versus internal CSR initiatives in driving consumers’ WTB
luxury products will depend on the perceived personal benefits
that the consumer derives from those initiatives (Bhattacharya
et al., 2009). More specifically, we predict that actions related to
external CSR dimensions, such as those in the legal and philan-
thropic domains (Eastman et al., 1999), will be more appealing to
such customers who adopt an externalized approach to luxury
consumption (Chaudhuri et al., 2011). In contrast, consumers with a
more internalized approach to luxury will value those dimensions
to a lesser degree.
Moreover, while status and conspicuous consumption have
conceptual overlap and could be perceived as identical (e.g.,
Bernhaim, 1994; Marcoux et al., 1997), we also acknowledge the
argument that they are not exactly the same, and, consequently,
should be measured in different ways (O'Cass and Frost, 2002;
O'Cass and McEwen, 2004). Indeed, O'Cass and McEwen (2004)
demonstrated that status and conspicuous consumption are
distinct constructs that reflect a different set of consumer behaviors
and consumption motives: Status consumption can be defined as
“the behavioural tendency to value status and acquire and consume
products that provide status to the individual”, while conspicuous
consumption as “the tendency for individuals to enhance their
image, through overt consumption of possessions, which commu-
nicates status to others” (O'Cass and McEwen, 2004, p. 34). In other
words, the driving difference between the two is that status con-
sumption is affected by consumers' self-monitoring (whereby
consumers aim to enhance their overall image in social contexts),
whereas conspicuous consumption is affected by interpersonal
influences (whereby consumers aim to gain approval from their
reference group by overtly displaying visible products) (O'Cass and
Frost, 2002). Indeed, according to O'Cass and McEwen (2004),
“status consumption is more a matter of consumers' desires to gain
prestige from the acquisition of status-laden products and brands;
however, conspicuous consumption focuses on the visual display or
overt usage of products in the presence of others” (p. 27).
Based on the above, we predict that the positive effect of
communicating luxury brands' legal and philanthropic (vs. economic
and ethical) CSR initiatives on consumers' WTB said brands’ products
will be magnified for consumers with a high tendency toward status
consumption and conspicuous consumption. Formally:
H2. The effect of external CSR initiatives on consumers' willing-
ness to buy luxury goods over internal CSR initiatives will be
magnified for consumers with a higher rather than a lower status
consumption orientation.
H3. The effect of external CSR initiatives on consumers' willing-
ness to buy luxury goods over internal CSR initiatives will be
magnified for consumers with a higher rather than a lower con-
spicuous consumption orientation.
It is important to note that hypothesizing that the general effect
in H1 being moderated by consumer-related factors (as per H2 and
H3) is in line with recent work in luxury and sustainability. De
Angelis et al. (2017), for example, have shown that such a con-
sumers' characteristics as their prior knowledge about a luxury
brand moderates the effect of introducing a new green luxury
product that resembles a non-luxury, green company's previous
model versus one that resembles a luxury company's previous
model on luxury brand evaluation. In particular, their results show
that consumers with higher luxury brand knowledge, and thus
those who are more concerned about the luxury brand's status-
signaling function, are more likely than those with a lower luxury
brand knowledge to prefer a new green luxury product that is
similar in design to a luxury brand's previous models rather than
similar in design to a model produced by a non-luxury brand
specialized in green product.
In the following, we describe three experiments designed to
empirically test our hypotheses. Taken together, they provide evi-
dence for our theoretical approach. We begin with a study on the
effect of external CSR on WTB, as well as the mediating role of
brand luxuriousness.
4. Overview of studies
Study 1 was an in-lab experiment conducted to test H1; Study 2
was a field experiment designed to test H2 (status consumption);
and Study 3 was an online experiment designed to test H3. Across
all the studies, we assessed our focal constructs using appropriate
measures by following a question order that reflected the hy-
pothesized causal chain. In Study 1, for instance, we measured the
perceived luxuriousness related to the brand, which played the role
of mediator, before the dependent variable. In Studies 2 and 3, we
respectively measured the participants' status consumption and
conspicuous consumption, which played the role of moderators,
before the independent variable. We considered that a different
question order would have been potentially distorting, given the
nature of the dependent variable we employed across the three
studies, that is the WTB. Indeed, given that both our moderators
and dependent variable were related to luxury consumption, we
wanted to reduce the risk of having participants’ answers about the
former being influenced by those about the latter. Moreover, we
adopted the same measurement for the dependent variable in all
studies in order to confer robustness to the results.
5. Study 1: the mediating role of consumers’ luxury brand
perception
Study 1 sought to test H1 by exploring the mediational role of
consumers' perceptions about a brand's luxuriousness on the effect
of external versus internal CSR initiatives on consumers' WTB.
More specifically, we expected external CSR initiatives (i.e., in the
legal and philanthropic dimensions) to enhance perceived brand
luxuriousness more than internal CSR initiatives (i.e., in the eco-
nomic and ethical dimensions), thereby increasing consumers'
WTB products for that brand. In short, this study investigated the
effect of CSR initiatives on consumers' behavioural intentions, as
well as the mechanism driving such an effect.
5.1. Design and procedure
One hundred and nineteen participants (70 females, 49 males;
MAge ¼ 32.95, SDAge ¼ 10.65), who encompassed both workers and
university students living in a large European city, were randomly
assigned to a two-cell (CSR dimensions: external vs. internal)
between-subjects experiment. Participants completed their ques-
tionnaire in a laboratory setting. No monetary incentives were used
for motivating respondents to participate to the experiment. The
C. Amatulli et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 194 (2018) 277e287280