Consumer evaluation of corporate social irresponsibility (CSIR): The roles of CSIR type, brand awareness, and domain congruence

While prior research has predominantly emphasized corporate social responsibility (CSR), comparatively less attention has been given to corporate social irresponsibility (CSIR). Consumers’ evaluations of CSIR can be understood as a reaction shaped by their ethical expectations of the brand. Drawing on expectancy disconfirmation theory, the more CSIR information deviates from these ethical expectations, the more negatively consumers evaluate the brand. Study 1 (N = 201) employed an experimental design to examine how CSIR type interacts with brand awareness in shaping consumer evaluations. Study 2 (N = 491) utilized a similar experimental approach to explore the potential moderating role of prior CSR–CSIR domain congruence. Results from ANCOVA and simple slope analyses reveal that consumers exhibit lower ethical evaluations for low-awareness brands involved in employee-related CSIR compared to environment-related CSIR. Additionally, consumers respond more negatively to low-awareness brands with a history of employee-related CSR followed by employee-related CSIR, than to those with a history of environment-related CSR and CSIR. For high-awareness brands, consumers demonstrate greater negativity when environment-related CSR is followed by employee-related CSIR. These findings suggest that new brands should prioritize preventing employee-related CSIR, particularly when they have previously adopted employee-related CSR strategies, whereas well-known brands should focus on avoiding employee-related CSIR when their prior CSR efforts have centered on environmental initiatives.