Organizations with True Heart: The Role of Organizational Identity in Shaping Consumer Attributions of Corporate Responsibility to Race (CRR) Motives

ABSTRACT

Guided by literature in the theory of corporate responsibility to race, organizational identity theory, and attribution theory, this study investigates the role of preexisting organizational identity in shaping consumer attributions of its CRR motives. The findings from a survey of 610 participants suggested that consumers believe that an organization has public-serving motives to join the fight against racial injustice when they observe the organization’s commitment to social justice, especially if the organization behaved morally before instituting CRR practices.

KEYWORDS:

• Attribution theory
• corporate responsibility to race
• corporate social advocacy
• motive attributions
• organizational identity
• racial justice

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

The work was supported by the University of Miami .