企业会为名所累吗?——基于转基因产品伤害危机中消费者报复行为的研究

Can Corporate Social Responsibility Reputation Backfire? The Research on Consumer’s Retaliation Behavior in Genetically Modified Product-Harm Crisis

基因工程技术的发展催生了与转基因产品相关的新型产品伤害危机(PHC)。在转基因PHC中,消费者面临比一般PHC中更高的恐惧风险和未知风险,可能导致通过构建积极企业社会责任(CSR)声誉防御风险的传统策略失效。对此运用认知失调理论从微观层面解析了策略失效的心理动因,并借鉴犯罪心理学识别出了CSR声誉策略有效或失效的关键情境与机制。实验结果表明,在转基因PHC中,感知到的企业贪婪程度决定了CSR声誉对消费者报复行为的影响。若感知的企业贪婪较低,CSR声誉可以起到风险缓冲作用,帮助缓解消费者义愤情绪进而减轻其报复行为;若感知的企业贪婪较高,CSR声誉则反而会通过激发消费者义愤情绪加剧其报复行为。研究揭示了结合PHC类型和情境制定危机预防策略的重要意义。并警示在转基因PHC中,拥有积极CSR声誉的企业更应谨小慎微,以防为名所累。

The widespread development of genetic engineering technology has given birth to a new type of Product-Harm Crisis(PHC) related to genetically modified products. In the new type of PHC, consumers are generally confronted with an increased dread risk and unknown risk compared to conventional PHC. It makes the traditional risk prevention strategy of building good corporate social responsibility(CSR) reputation fail. Given that, we explain the relevant psychological motivation of the failure according to cognitive dissonance theory. Then on this basis we identify the critical situation and mechanism that CSR reputation strategy work or fail referring to criminal psychology. Several conclusions are achieved: in the new type of PHC, how CSR reputation affects consumer’s retaliation behavior depends on the level of the corporation’s greed that consumer perceived. When the perceived greed is low, good CSR reputation plays a similar role with that in conventional PHC. That is to say it still acts as a buffer on retaliation behavior through reducing righteous anger. On the contrary, when the perceived greed is high, good CSR reputation will act as an assistor on retaliation behavior through stimulating righteous anger. The results illuminate the importance of developing crisis prevention strategy on consideration of types and situations of PHC. Simultaneously, when a corporation has good CSR reputation, it should be more meticulous in case of its backfire effect.