Is reactive corporate social responsibility such a bad idea? It depends on your positioning

Purpose Following a crisis, stakeholders tend to appreciate costly organizational responses that attempt to reverse the harm caused by the organization. The deployment of reactive corporate social responsibility (CSR), defined as a CSR initiative explicitly promoted to make amends for a negative event, can thus be an effective crisis response strategy. However, existing studies suggest that this strategy could backfire, as it increases stakeholders’ skepticism regarding an organization’s motives to engage in CSR when this is only done under external pressure. Applying attribution theory, the purpose of this paper is to demonstrate that the effectiveness of reactive CSR as a crisis response strategy depends on the positioning of the brand promoting it. Design/methodology/approach The authors use three between-subject experiments to test our hypotheses. In Studies 1 and 3, they consider a fictitious crisis scenario with a fictitious brand, and in Study 2, they test their hypotheses using existing brands involved in a fictitious crisis. Findings Compared to a purely verbal response (an apology), reactive CSR improves consumers’ responses when implemented by a brand positioned to focus on CSR rather than on performance. This effect is mediated by perceived brand benevolence: a brand focused on CSR is seen as more benevolent when proposing reactive CSR initiatives than a brand with a performance positioning. The effect holds even when the CSR positioning is not aligned with the reactive CSR domain. For a brand with a performance positioning, a costlier reactive CSR strategy is no more effective than an apology. Originality/value The study extends their understanding of how information on brand positioning influences reactive CSR in response to a crisis. Their analysis clarifies the circumstances under which reactive CSR can be an effective crisis response.