Reexamining Consumers’ Cognition and Evaluation of Corporate Social Responsibility via a DANP and IPA Method

Companies nowadays strive to gain public recognition through corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities. However, what are consumers’ cognition and evaluations of these CSR efforts, and can they be explained by the concentric circle model, the pyramid model, the intersecting circles model, or by a combination of all three? The novelty of this study is to reexamine the traditional theoretical models in order to find an empirical answer and offer it as a reference to companies. First, we specified the causal relationships of the principles using the modified decision-making trial and evaluation laboratory (DEMATEL)-based analytic network process (ANP) (DANP); then we identified and examined consumers’ cognition and evaluation of these CSR efforts by importance-performance analysis (IPA). The research result demonstrates that, in a Taiwanese community, consumers’ cognition and evaluation of companies’ CSR rarely follows one single model. On basic economic and legal levels, consumers indicate characteristics of the intersecting circles model. On higher ethical and philanthropic levels, they exhibit characteristics of the pyramid/concentric circles models. Notably, consumers’ demands and expectations of companies have reached an ethical level but have not yet placed great value on a philanthropic level. Moreover, the actual phenomenon may be interpreted by a combination of the above-mentioned models. Low- and high-level CSRs reveal different characteristics; therefore, companies should cultivate various communication strategies to improve effectiveness.