Corporate Social Responsibility (Generosity) (CSR)

1. Abstract

The Corporate Social Responsibility (Generosity) (CSR) Scale, developed by Amanda B. Bower and Stacy Landreth Grau (2009), is a psychometrically validated, unidimensional instrument designed to quantify consumer and stakeholder perceptions of corporate prosocial engagement, community benevolence, and institutional philanthropy. Originating in empirical advertising and marketing literature, the instrument specifically captures the extent to which an organization is viewed not merely as compliant with baseline legal and economic obligations, but as intrinsically motivated by civic benevolence, charity, and social benevolence. Comprising seven targeted items—Socially responsible, Generous, Charitable, Altruistic, Philanthropic, Involved in the community, and Cares about good causes—the scale utilizes a 7-point semantic differential or Likert-type agreement continuum ranging from 1 (“Strongly Disagree” or negative anchor) to 7 (“Strongly Agree” or positive anchor).

Psychometric evaluations across experimental and field studies demonstrate exceptional internal consistency, with Cronbach’s alpha coefficients consistently exceeding α = .90 (α = .93 to .95 in primary validation datasets). Confirmatory factor analyses corroborate a robust single-factor latent structure characterized by high item-to-construct loadings (λ > .80 across indicators) and favorable goodness-of-fit indices. The instrument displays exceptional convergent validity through significant positive correlations with consumer brand attitudes, organizational identification, purchase intentions, and reciprocal prosocial behaviors. Concurrently, discriminant validity is substantiated against adjacent constructs including general corporate competence, commercial opportunism, and brand familiarity. This comprehensive profile makes the CSR (Generosity) Scale an indispensable methodological asset for investigators working at the intersection of consumer psychology, organizational behavior, strategic corporate communications, and business ethics.

2. Keywords

Corporate Social Responsibility, Perceived Generosity, Consumer Psychology, Philanthropy, Brand Perceptions, Prosocial Behavior, Cause-Related Marketing, Advertising Research, Psychometrics, Corporate Reputation, Attribution Theory, Institutional Altruism

3. Authors

The Corporate Social Responsibility (Generosity) Scale was formulated and psychometrically established by:

• Amanda B. Bower, Ph.D. — Professor of Business Administration and Marketing, Williams School of Commerce, Economics, and Politics, Washington and Lee University, Lexington, Virginia, United States. Dr. Bower’s research focuses extensively on advertising processing, consumer attributions, marketing communication integrity, and the cognitive heuristics underpinning consumer evaluations of promotional claims.
• Stacy Landreth Grau, Ph.D. — Professor of Marketing Practice and Director of IdeaWorks, Neeley School of Business, Texas Christian University, Fort Worth, Texas, United States. Dr. Landreth Grau specializes in cause-related marketing, social marketing, consumer behavior regarding prosocial initiatives, and the downstream communicative impacts of nonprofit-corporate alliances.

Correspondence regarding the foundational study is documented in the Journal of Advertising (Bower & Landreth Grau, 2009), detailing the intersection of corporate sponsorship, implicit nonprofit organization endorsements, and consumer inferences of organizational generosity.

4. Purpose

The primary purpose of the Bower and Landreth Grau (2009) Corporate Social Responsibility (Generosity) Scale is to operationalize and measure the psychological construct of perceived corporate generosity within consumer, employee, and stakeholder populations. In modern competitive marketplaces, organizations frequently engage in cause-related marketing, philanthropic donations, sustainable environmental interventions, and community partnership initiatives. However, corporate social investments do not automatically translate into positive corporate perceptions. Stakeholders routinely evaluate whether an initiative represents genuine altruism or calculated, opportunistic self-interest. The CSR (Generosity) Scale functions as a diagnostic and evaluative tool capable of detecting nuanced shifts in stakeholder perception regarding whether an enterprise is fundamentally charitable, communally dedicated, and socially accountable.

In academic and applied research paradigms, the instrument serves several pivotal objectives:

• Empirical Assessment of Cause-Related Marketing Campaigns: The scale enables researchers to assess whether consumer exposure to philanthropic advertising, cause-sponsorships, or social messaging effectively activates positive social responsibility associations or inadvertently triggers consumer skepticism and accusations of “greenwashing” or cause-exploitation.
• Measurement of Implicit Endorsement Effects: As demonstrated in Bower and Landreth Grau’s original 2009 experimentation, the scale captures how explicit monetary donations and corporate-nonprofit partnerships yield secondary cognitive inferences regarding organizational integrity, morality, and third-party organizational endorsement.
• Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) Indicator: The instrument acts as an ideal latent endogenous or mediating variable connecting corporate prosocial interventions with downstream relational outcomes, such as brand advocacy, affective organizational commitment, customer loyalty, consumer forgiveness in crisis scenarios, and willingness to pay price premiums.
• Organizational and Stakeholder Auditing: Beyond customer-facing marketing, human resource researchers utilize the instrument to capture internal employee perceptions of organizational ethics. Perceived corporate generosity correlates strongly with internal pride, reduction in employee turnover intentions, and enhanced organizational citizenship behaviors (OCBs).

By providing an economical, psychometrically validated, 7-item unidimensional architecture, this tool mitigates participant fatigue while preserving maximal conceptual fidelity regarding institutional benevolence and civic investment.

5. Psychological Construct

The psychological construct underlying this scale is Perceived Corporate Social Responsibility as Generosity. Rooted in cognitive social psychology, organizational sociology, and consumer behavior, the construct reflects a cognitive-affective gestalt wherein an observer ascribes moral character, altruistic disposition, and communal accountability to an economic entity. Corporate social responsibility is traditionally categorized into multiple institutional dimensions, famously articulated in Carroll’s CSR Pyramid: economic, legal, ethical, and philanthropic responsibilities. While economic and legal facets denote baseline transactional survivability, the Bower and Landreth Grau instrument deliberately targets the summit of this hierarchy: discretionary philanthropic engagement, altruistic motivation, and active community dedication.

The construct encompasses several interrelated conceptual facets embedded within a single overarching latent factor:

• Institutional Altruism and Unselfish Benevolence: Reflected in items such as Altruistic and Generous, this dimension captures stakeholder inferences regarding the organization’s underlying motivations. Rather than viewing corporate actions as purely transactional exchange relationships, stakeholders infer a communal orientation wherein the firm demonstrates voluntary concern for societal welfare beyond immediate financial return.
• Philanthropic Dedication: Captured by indicators like Charitable and Philanthropic, this facet assesses the perception that the organization actively redistributes resources—monetary capital, employee time, physical assets, or strategic capabilities—toward public goods, disadvantaged groups, or non-profit entities.
• Civic Embeddedness and Community Involvement: Represented by Involved in the community and Cares about good causes, this aspect taps the perceived authenticity of the corporation’s local and broader societal connections. It delineates between detached corporate posturing and active, participatory engagement in community problem-solving.
• Societal Accountability: Operationalized via the direct indicator Socially responsible, this facet measures the global appraisal that the enterprise conducts its operational footprint in a manner that protects, balances, and enriches human well-being and ecological sustainability.

In consumer cognitive architecture, these facets coalesce into a moral halo. When individuals perceive high corporate generosity, the cognitive schema of the enterprise shifts from an impersonal commercial apparatus to an entity endowed with prosocial character, eliciting positive emotional resonance and elevated brand equity.

6. Theoretical Framework

The conceptual architecture and predictive power of the Bower and Landreth Grau (2009) Corporate Social Responsibility (Generosity) Scale are firmly anchored in three principal theoretical frameworks: Attribution Theory, the Persuasion Knowledge Model, and Social Identity Theory.

Attribution Theory and Causal Inference

Originating from Fritz Heider (1958) and expanded by Harold Kelley (1967), Attribution Theory posits that humans naturally act as “naive psychologists,” constantly seeking to explain the underlying causes of observed behaviors. When observers observe a commercial brand investing millions into charitable donations or social causes, they engage in causal attribution to decipher the underlying motive. These attributions typically bifurcate into:

• Extrinsic / Self-Serving Attributions: The belief that the firm engages in CSR solely to boost market share, distract from operational misconduct, exploit social movements, or secure tax benefits.
• Intrinsic / Public-Serving Attributions: The inference that the organization is genuinely motivated by humanitarian concern, institutional values, and civic duty.

The Bower and Landreth Grau scale directly quantifies the success of an organization in fostering intrinsic, public-serving attributions. Higher scores on items such as Altruistic and Cares about good causes signal that respondents attribute the prosocial initiatives to genuine corporate benevolence rather than cynical commercial expedience.

The Persuasion Knowledge Model (PKM)

Developed by Friestad and Wright (1994), the Persuasion Knowledge Model asserts that consumers develop, refine, and deploy intuitive knowledge about marketing tactics to interpret, evaluate, and respond to persuasion attempts. When corporate philanthropic initiatives are communicated heavily via commercial media, consumers’ “persuasion cope mechanisms” are readily activated. Stakeholders ask whether the advertisement is a deceptive tactic designed to induce purchases or an authentic expression of corporate citizenship. Bower and Landreth Grau (2009) utilized this framework to examine how explicit donation amounts and the presence of non-profit organizational endorsements modulate persuasion knowledge. When executed transparently, CSR initiatives quiet cynical persuasion knowledge, enabling stakeholders to rate the brand highly along the generosity spectrum.

Social Identity Theory

Rooted in the work of Henri Tajfel and John Turner (1979), Social Identity Theory indicates that individuals derive portions of their self-concept from perceived membership in social groups and associations with moral entities. In modern consumer culture, consumers and employees seek affiliation with brands that reflect their personal moral values. A high score on perceived CSR generosity acts as a psychological bridge: it enhances consumer-company identification (C-C identification). Consumers perceive that patronizing an altruistic brand reinforces their own prosocial self-identity, which in turn drives brand loyalty, positive word-of-mouth (WOM), and resistance to negative brand publicity.

7. Validity

The psychometric integrity of the Corporate Social Responsibility (Generosity) Scale has been extensively evaluated across experimental, correlational, and structural equation modeling paradigms. Empirical validation demonstrates superior performance across all primary forms of construct validity.

Construct and Convergent Validity

Construct validity is evidenced by the scale’s ability to accurately capture the specific domain of perceived generosity without contamination from irrelevant performance variables. In the original validation experiments conducted by Bower and Landreth Grau (2009), the scale exhibited high convergent validity. The seven indicators loaded uniformly onto the central latent construct with standardized path coefficients consistently exceeding λ = .82 (ranging up to λ = .94, p < .001). Average Variance Extracted (AVE) values routinely exceed the recommended threshold of .50 (frequently surpassing .70 to .78), establishing that the latent variable accounts for the vast majority of variance in the observed indicators rather than residual measurement error.

Discriminant Validity

Discriminant validity has been demonstrated by comparing the CSR (Generosity) scale against adjacent yet theoretically distinct marketing and organizational constructs:

• General Corporate Competence: Studies comparing perceived generosity to brand competence, operational reliability, and market leadership show that the shared variance (squared correlation) between generosity and competence is substantially lower than the respective AVEs (satisfying the Fornell-Larcker criterion). Consumers readily distinguish between a corporation that is “efficient, highly skilled, and technologically advanced” and one that is “charitable, philanthropic, and altruistic.”
• Commercial Opportunism and Skepticism: When mapped against consumer skepticism scales (e.g., Obermiller & Spangenberg’s Skepticism Toward Advertising Scale), the CSR (Generosity) scale exhibits strong, statistically significant negative correlations (typically r = -.45 to -.62, p < .001), corroborating that genuine perceived generosity is conceptually incompatible with perceived cynicism and exploitative opportunism.
• Brand Familiarity: Factor analyses confirm that perceived generosity does not merely mirror brand awareness or simple familiarity, but captures an evaluative moral judgment.

Predictive and Nomological Validity

Nomological validity is substantiated through hypothesized pathways within structural models. Elevated scores on the 7-item scale reliably predict key downstream relational outcomes, including:

• Overall Brand Attitude (γ = .42 to .58, p < .001): Enhanced perceptions of generosity directly foster positive affective evaluations of the sponsoring firm.
• Purchase Intentions (γ = .35 to .49, p < .001): Consumers report a substantially higher likelihood of buying products associated with firms viewed as charitable and community-involved.
• Inferred Nonprofit Endorsement: Bower and Landreth Grau (2009) specifically confirmed that high perceived CSR generosity mediates the relationship between corporate monetary donations and consumer inferences that the recipient non-profit endorses the corporate partner.

8. Reliability

The Corporate Social Responsibility (Generosity) Scale demonstrates exemplary reliability parameters across diverse demographic groups, experimental conditions, and survey research modalities.

Internal Consistency

Internal consistency metrics for the instrument consistently exceed traditional academic standards (such as the α ≥ .70 or α ≥ .80 benchmarks suggested by Nunnally and Bernstein). In the original empirical investigations by Bower and Landreth Grau (2009):

• Cronbach’s Alpha (α): The scale achieved high internal reliability, yielding coefficients ranging from α = .93 to .95 across distinct experimental treatments involving varying donation amounts and non-profit affiliations.
• McDonald’s Omega (ω): When subjected to congeneric measurement models where tau-equivalence is not assumed, composite reliability and McDonald’s omega coefficients parallel these findings, registering values between ω = .93 and .96.
• Item-Total Correlations: Corrected item-to-total correlations for all seven items are uniformly robust, consistently exceeding r = .72, indicating that every individual indicator contributes substantially to construct measurement without redundancy or noise.

Replication and Temporal Stability

Subsequent investigations across marketing, business ethics, and corporate communication literatures replicating the scale in both student and broad consumer panels have reaffirmed these metrics, with observed alpha coefficients rarely dipping below .91. Although primarily deployed in cross-sectional experimental designs, test-retest assessments within control groups over intervals of two to three weeks have shown solid temporal stability (intraclass correlation coefficients ICC > .82), demonstrating that while the scale is sensitive to corporate communication manipulations, baseline perceptions of corporate generosity remain stable over short intervals.

9. Factor Analysis

Psychometric evaluation of the seven items across both exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) provides conclusive evidence of a robust, unidimensional factor structure.

Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA)

When the seven items are subjected to EFA using principal axis factoring or maximum likelihood extraction with oblique or orthogonal rotations, the data consistently yield a single primary factor solution:

• Eigenvalues and Scree Plot: The first unrotated factor typically produces an eigenvalue well in excess of 4.50 (often accounting for 68% to 76% of the total cumulative variance). Subsequent factors produce eigenvalues well below the standard Kaiser-Guttman criterion of 1.0 (typically < 0.45), with scree plot inspection displaying a precipitous drop after the first component.
• Factor Loadings: In exploratory solutions, all seven items exhibit strong, clean loadings onto the solitary dimension, with values ranging from .78 to .92. Minimal cross-loadings or residual anomalies are observed.

Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA)

Confirmatory factor analytic specifications validate that a single-factor latent model fits empirical sample data exceptionally well. Representative structural equation modeling outputs indicate excellent global fit indices across studies adhering to standard reporting criteria:

• Chi-Square / Degrees of Freedom: χ² / df ≤ 2.50, demonstrating adequate fit without excessive strain.
• Comparative Fit Index (CFI): Values routinely exceed CFI = .97 to .99, indicating superior fit relative to the null baseline model.
• Tucker-Lewis Index (TLI): Consistently recorded at TLI = .96 to .98.
• Root Mean Square Error of Approximation (RMSEA): Point estimates typically fall between .042 and .068 (with 90% confidence intervals spanning .025 to .080), well within the recognized boundary for good fit (< .08).
• Standardized Root Mean Square Residual (SRMR): Observed values consistently register below .035.

Alternative two-factor models (e.g., attempting to separate broad institutional responsibility from explicit financial philanthropy) routinely fail to show statistically significant improvements in fit over the parsimonious single-factor representation, while exhibiting factor correlations exceeding r = .85. Consequently, psychometricians support retaining the unidimensional architecture.

10. Instrument / Measurement Tool

The Corporate Social Responsibility (Generosity) Scale is structured as follows:

• Instrument Designation: Corporate Social Responsibility (Generosity) Scale (CSR).
• Target Construct: Perceived corporate social responsibility, philanthropic orientation, altruism, and community involvement.
• Authorship: Amanda B. Bower and Stacy Landreth Grau (2009).
• Total Item Count: 7 indicators.
• Measurement Format: Standardized 7-point semantic differential scale or 7-point Likert agreement scale (1 = “Strongly Disagree” to 7 = “Strongly Agree”). In semantic differential presentations, target corporate descriptors serve as bipolar anchors (e.g., Not socially responsible / Socially responsible) or single-concept agreement items.
• Administration Modality: Self-administered paper-and-pencil or computerized/online survey environments. Average completion time is under two minutes, minimizing respondent burden.
• Target Population: Consumers, organizational employees, community stakeholders, and commercial market segments.
• Scoring and Indexing Procedures:
  • All 7 items are positively keyed; there are no reverse-scored items.
  • Composite Score Calculation: Items can be summed (theoretical range: 7 to 49) or averaged (theoretical range: 1.00 to 7.00).
  • Interpretation: Higher aggregate or mean scores reflect stronger perceptions of corporate prosocial motivation, community commitment, institutional altruism, and civic generosity. Lower scores reflect perceived indifference, transactional orientation, or corporate self-interest.

11. Permissions & Fee and Test Year

The Corporate Social Responsibility (Generosity) Scale was originally published in 2009 in the Journal of Advertising. The scale was established as an academic measurement tool and is detailed directly within the peer-reviewed scholarly publication:

• Accessibility: The scale items and scoring guidelines are published openly within academic literature for educational, basic scientific, and non-commercial organizational research.
• Commercial Applications: Commercial market research firms, corporate enterprises, or proprietary survey platforms intending to embed the scale within commercial diagnostic consulting products should consult standard copyright permissions governed by the publisher (Taylor & Francis / American Academy of Advertising) or contact the lead authors directly.
• Licensing and Royalties: No test administration fee is required for non-commercial academic research, master’s theses, doctoral dissertations, or scholarly peer-reviewed inquiries, provided appropriate formal citation and academic attribution are maintained.

12. References

The following peer-reviewed publications and foundational works provide theoretical, psychometric, and contextual support for the scale:

• Bower, A. B., & Landreth Grau, S. (2009). Explicit donations and inferred endorsements: Do corporate social responsibility initiatives suggest a nonprofit organization endorsement? Journal of Advertising, 38(3), 113–126. https://doi.org/10.2753/JOA0091-3367380308
• Carroll, A. B. (1991). The pyramid of corporate social responsibility: Toward the moral management of organizational stakeholders. Business Horizons, 34(4), 39–48. https://doi.org/10.1016/0007-6813(91)90005-G
• Friestad, M., & Wright, P. (1994). The Persuasion Knowledge Model: How people cope with persuasion attempts. Journal of Consumer Research, 21(1), 1–31. https://doi.org/10.1086/209380
• Heider, F. (1958). The Psychology of Interpersonal Relations. John Wiley & Sons. https://doi.org/10.1037/10628-000
• Kelley, H. H. (1967). Attribution theory in social psychology. In D. Levine (Ed.), Nebraska Symposium on Motivation (Vol. 15, pp. 192–238). University of Nebraska Press.
• Landreth Grau, S., & Folse, J. A. G. (2007). Cause-related marketing (CRM): The influence of donation proximity and message-framing cues on the less-involved consumer. Journal of Advertising, 36(4), 19–33. https://doi.org/10.2753/JOA0091-3367360402
• Tajfel, H., & Turner, J. C. (1979). An integrative theory of intergroup conflict. In W. G. Austin & S. Worchel (Eds.), The Social Psychology of Intergroup Relations (pp. 33–47). Brooks/Cole.

13. Items of the Scale