Cause-Related Marketing(CRM), one of the corporate social responsibilities, should fundamentally be based on guarantee of corporate products and service qualities and attach great importance to seek out causes of following both economical value corpor...
Cause-Related Marketing(CRM), one of the corporate social responsibilities, should fundamentally be based on guarantee of corporate products and service qualities and attach great importance to seek out causes of following both economical value corporations pursue and public value society pursues. As recently distinction between product prices and qualities among corporations diminishes more and more, corporations have begun not to take technical advantages of products or service but to build up brand image. In such situation CRM of corporations is recognized as one of the powerful means for accumulating brand assets, fulfilling social responsibilities for seeking mental and ethical brand values.
According to the study on CRM until now, the effect and influence factors of CRM in view of corporation evaluation are considered as improving corporate image and increasing consumers' purchase intention. However, as society has become mature, consumers have not been satisfied with emotional and symbolic values but searched for a new type of brand value, so corporations practice various marketings to cope with needs change of such consumers. Corporations implement CRM especially to maximize brand asset and profit margin, and influence factors of CRM are corporate products and brands, cause fit, authenticity of corporations, and legitimacy consumers have recognized.
Unlike other studies, this study focuses on the relationship between corporate legitimacy and purchase intention on the basis of cause fit and authenticity of CRM. For this study, the theories of perceived corporate legitimacy are ordered with various existing studies carried out in the fields of political science, economics, business administration, and sociology, and on the basis of this, structural relationships among purchase intentions are established on legitimacy and authenticity of CRM, and control role of ethical consumption intention among these relationships is researched.
To check these, I made 8 stimulants for every legitimacy and authenticity and gave them to about 480 respondents. The data are collected from about 480 respondents and the 443 valid questionnaires were analyzed with spss 20.0 and AMOS 20.0. Also, to test the hypothesis, the structural equation model was used on the study model and model fit, path coefficient, and t-value were checked. To confirm mediation effects and moderating effects, I compared the model fit of alternative and constraint model with that of free and constraint model.
The result of this study is shown as follows.
First, the hypothesis that legitimacy and authenticity could have a positive effect on each perceived corporate legitimacy and the hypothesis that perceived corporations could have a positive effect on purchase intention are supported.
Second, to confirm the mediating effect of cause fit and legitimacy on the relationship between perceived corporate legitimacy and purchase intention, I analyze 3 alternative models: alternative model 1, adding to a direct path between legitimacy and purchase intention, alternative model 2, adding to a direct path between authenticity and purchase intention, and alternative model 3, adding to both of these direct paths. According to the result of 3 alternative models analyses, alternative model 1 is significant, and alternative 2 is not significant. Alos, alternative model 3 is not significant on authenticity and purchase but is significant on intention legitimacy and purchase intention. Based on these results, the effect legitimacy has on purchase intension is not mediated by cause fit but the effect the authenticity has on purchase intention is completely mediated by cause fit.
Finally, the test result of hypothesis that ethical consumption propensity has positive mediating effects on cause fit and legitimacy, authenticity and legitimacy, and authenticity and purchase intention shows that moderating effect of ethical cause fit and authenticity consumption propensity does not exist. It also shows that the effect authenticity has on legitimacy is greater in the group which has higher ethical consumption propensity than in the group which has lower ethical consumption propensity and this result matches with my expectation.
In the conclusion of this study, study summary, the difference between existing research and mine, the limitation of this study, and suggestions for future research are presented.