Company social irresponsibility and customer boycott intention in times of crisis

Abstract

This paper aims to reveal the impact of the company's social irresponsibility in times of crisis (e.g., earthquake period) on customers' boycott intention. Additionally, it examines whether customers' altruistic values and impression management tactics used by companies on social media mitigate or/and accentuate the company's irresponsibility on customer boycott intention. Furthermore, this study explores the moderating role of customer income, residency in company social irresponsibility, and customer boycott links. An online survey with 308 adult social media subjects was conducted. PROCESS Models (Models 0 and 1) were used to test the main and moderating effects. Further, to provide readers with more insight into the examined moderating effects, Pick-a-Point and the Johnson-Neyman techniques were used to probe the interaction terms. The study results show that customers are willing to boycott socially irresponsible companies in times of crisis, such as after a devastating earthquake. Interestingly, customers' boycott intention against corporate social irresponsibility is accentuated by companies' impression management tactics, customer income, and residency. Further, the results indicate that the positive impact of company social irresponsibility on customer boycott intention is significant only for customers high on altruistic values. The results allow us to suggest several theoretical and managerial implications.