*Thinavan Periyayya, Dr. G. V. Nair, Raduan Shariff, Zachary Roland & Dr. Thanaseelan
Abstract:
Environment and people considerations have become a major focus of business organizations in Malaysia and around the world. Both considerations fall under the new corporate social responsibility (CSR) catchphrase – People, Planet and Profits. CSR is concerned with business responsibilities beyond profit-maximisation (Dodd & Supa, 2011). The main purpose of this study is to evaluate the relationship between young adult Malaysian consumers’ purchase intention and an organization’s involvement in CSR programs. The study predicts that a positive association exists between an organization’s involvement in CSR programs and consumer purchase intention (Dodd & Supa, 2011) and that consumers are more likely to purchase an organization’s product if that organization is involved in socially responsible practices (Sen & Bhattacharya, 2001). Mohr, Webb and Harris’s (2001) research indicated a significant relationship between CSR and consumer response. According to Pomering and Dolnicar (2008) consumers expect corporations to provide information on their CSR initiatives so as to enable them to support such organizations. As society becomes more affluent, consumers tend to focus on socially responsible activities undertaken by organizations and this has a definite influence on their purchase behaviour. Findings revealed that young Malaysian consumers were CSR centric and had a positive attitude towards organizations practising CSR. All three independent variables of attitude, subjective norm and behavioural control were positively correlated to consumer intentions to purchase CSR supported grocery brand. The findings also revealed that CSR knowledge among young, adult consumers was poor, and this moderated their socially responsible purchase behaviour. This implied that frequent CSR corporate communications can foster CSR centricity among young adult Malaysian consumers which benefits both the corporations and consumers.
Keywords: CSR centricity, attitude, corporate communications, subjective norm, perceived behavioural control