The impact of cause scope and cultural values on brand evaluations:the moderating role of corporate internationalization degree

Abstract

This paper analyzes the impact of brand philanthropic behaviors' causescope and consumers' cultural values on brand evaluations and the underlying mechanism. This research also investigates corporate internationalization degree as the moderating factorto propose practical strategies for brand managers.Three situational experiments were conducted by manipulating cause scope and cultural values to provide robust evidence for the proposed effects. The results show that transnational philanthropy (vs. national philanthropy) leads to more negative brand evaluations among guanxi-oriented consumers in the home-countries, while transnational philanthropy (vs. national philanthropy) leads to more positive brand evaluations of rules-oriented consumers. Moral elevation plays a mediating role in the interactive effects of cause scope and cultural values on brand evaluations. In order to improve brand evaluations, the negative impact of transnational philanthropy (vs. national philanthropy) on guanxi-oriented consumers' brand evaluations will be attenuated when brands adopt a strategy with a high degree of corporate internationalization.