USING A HIERARCHY-OF-EFFECTS APPROACH TO GAUGE THE EFFECTIVENESS OF CORPORATE SOCIAL-RESPONSIBILITY TO GENERATE GOODWILL TOWARD THE FIRM - FINANCIAL VERSUS NONFINANCIAL IMPACTS

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) has long been widely acknowledge d as something business should be more concerned with. However, Jew ma nagement models that encourage this to happen and by which managers ca n assess the impact of such activity on either stakeholders and/or the firm have been offered. This article describes why and how prosocial activities of the firm should be managed-and evaluated-in a conscious and explicit manner using another accepted, market-relevant paradigm. A management perspective that encourages the evaluation and control of prosocial activities by business using a hierarchy-of-effects techniq ue to gauge impact on attitudes and behaviors of stakeholders is offer ed. Pilot study data derived from a controlled experiment support the view described and illustrate how goodwill can be evaluated using an a ffects approach to CSR. (C) 1997 Elsevier Science Inc.