ARTICLE IN PRESS

Australasian Marketing Journal ■■ (2016) ■■–■■

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Australasian Marketing Journal

j o u r n a l h o m e p a g e : w w w. e l s e v i e r. c o m / l o c a t e / a m j

Corporate negative publicity – the role of cause related marketing

Revadee Vyravene *, Fazlul K. Rabbanee
Curtin University, Western Australia, Australia

A R T I C L E I N F O A B S T R A C T

Article history: This paper examines the effects of cause-related marketing (CrM) strategies on consumers’ moral judge-
Received 10 November 2016 ment and purchase behaviour in the context of experiencing substantial corporate negative publicity.
Accepted 10 November 2016 Data for the study were collected from 343 respondents through mall intercept technique from two large
Available online
shopping malls of Australia. Quasi-experimental design technique was adopted for the study, where the
participants chose one particular cause out of two (ongoing conventional cause vs sudden disaster due
Keywords:
to garment factory collapse in Bangladesh). The findings revealed that 56% of the respondents sup-
Cause-related marketing
ported the sudden cause and are willing to pay (WTP) more for the betterment of the garment workers’
Moral judgement
Cause attributes living condition. The findings further indicated that CrM variables such as cause–brand fit, cause famil-
Willingness to pay more iarity and cause importance influence consumers’ moral judgement towards the CrM campaigns, which
Negative publicity eventually influence them to pay additional money for the product. The multi-group moderation and
mediation tests offer interesting theoretical and managerial insights.
© 2016 Australian and New Zealand Marketing Academy. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

C H I N E S E A B S T R A C T

本文考察了善因营销 （CrM) 策略在经历大量企业负面宣传的背景下对消费者的道德判断和购买行为的影响。研究

数据通过购物中心拦截技术，收集自澳大利亚的两个大型购物中心的 343 名受访者。本研究采用准实验设计技术，
参与者从两个原因（正在持续的常规原因以及孟加拉国制衣厂倒闭造成的突发性灾难 ）中选择一个特定原因。研
究结果显示，56% 的受访者支持突发善因，并愿意为改善服装工人的生活条件而支付更多薪水。研究结果进一步表
明，善因品牌适合性、善因的熟悉程度和善因的重要性等 CrM 变量会影响消费者对 CrM
运动的道德判断，最终影响他们为产品支付额外的款项。多组审核和中介效应检验提供了有趣的理论和管理见解.
© 2016 Australian and New Zealand Marketing Academy. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction Cause Related Marketing (CrM) is considered as an indicator of

Corporate negative publicity is widespread across industries. It
can originate from numerous sources such as from a mathemati-
cal flaw in Intel’s Pentium chip (Pullig et al., 2006) to sourcing
garment products from sweatshops (Emmelhainz and Adams, 1999)
to a recent Volkswagen emission crisis (Cavico and Mujtaba, 2016).
Negative publicity may cause weak customer satisfaction, drop in
sales, increased vulnerability to competitors’ marketing mix actions,
and spillover effects on other brands (Pullig et al., 2006; Van Heerde
et al., 2007). Existing research has focused on developing appro-
priate crisis-response strategies (Coombs, 1995; Xie and Peng, 2009).
Yet how firms can strategise themselves in a manner that insu-
lates them from negative publicity and how consumers evaluate the
brands in reaction to such publicity are under researched issues;
especially prior research is silent about the role of cause related mar-
keting in dealing with a negative publicity.
* Corresponding author. Fax: +618 9266 3937.
E-mail address: revadee.vyravene@curtin.edu.au (R. Vyravene).
showing concern towards community to retain their customers
(Marin and Ruiz, 2007). A typical CrM strategy involves a brand’s
promotional offer to customers to contribute a specific amount to
a designated cause (Isleworth, 2016; Müller et al., 2014). Over the
years cause related marketing has assumed significance in the mar-
keting strategy of firms. The growth of CrM rose from $120 million
in 1990 to $1.73 billion in 2012 (IEG Sponsorship Report, 2012) sug-
gesting that CrM may become the primary way that businesses
express their social responsibility. With the increasing pressure for
firms to be more socially responsible, CrM has become an increas-
ingly popular marketing tool (Kuo and Rice, 2015; Liston-Heyes and
Liu, 2013). The growing importance has resulted in several mar-
keting scholars researching this important area. Current wisdom of
CrM has focused primarily on characteristics of CrM campaign that
impact on consumers’ positive evaluation (Barone et al., 2000), re-
lationship between the brand and the cause (Pracejus and Olsen,
2004), effects of CrM campaigns on consumers’ attitudes towards
the sponsoring firm (Ross et al., 1992), and increasing brand equity
by building brand awareness, brand image, and brand loyalty
(Mazodier and Merunka, 2012). However, the underlying

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ausmj.2016.11.006
1441-3582/© 2016 Australian and New Zealand Marketing Academy. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Please cite this article in press as: Revadee Vyravene, Fazlul K. Rabbanee, Corporate negative publicity – the role of cause related marketing, Australasian Marketing Journal (2016),
doi: 10.1016/j.ausmj.2016.11.006
 ARTICLE IN PRESS
2 R. Vyravene, F.K. Rabbanee / Australasian Marketing Journal ■■ (2016) ■■–■■
mechanisms by which CrM influences consumers’ behavioural
actions have not been researched adequately (Mazodier and
Merunka, 2012; Vanhamme et al., 2012). Besides, consumers’ re-
sponse to CrM campaigns may emanate from their moral feelings
to support others in the society (Kim et al., 2012) and their routine
purchase decisions provide opportunities to demonstrate their moral
views (Kim and Johnson, 2013). Yet research focusing on how CrM
strategies affect the moral aspect of the consumers is sparse. In par-
ticular, as far as the authors’ knowledge goes, no research has been
done on how different cause attributes such as cause–brand fit and
cause importance influence consumers’ moral judgement and
behavioural response.
The paper aims to address the above research gaps by examin-
ing (i) the effects of CrM components on consumers’ moral
judgement, and (ii) if moral judgement influences consumers’ at-
titudes and behaviour. Therefore, the key purpose of this paper is
to explore the effects of CrM and its components on consumers’
moral judgement in the context of a negative corporate publicity.
In the consequent side, the paper examines whether consumers are
willing to pay more for the products of a company that has expe-
rienced a negative publicity in recent time and support a relevant
social cause. Exploring whether CrM campaign attributes influ-
ence consumers morally and thus induce them to buy a certain
product will enable the marketers to better understand the moral
behaviour of the consumers in a given situation of experiencing neg-
ative publicity.
The following sections of the paper are structured as follows:
first, we reviewed the existing CrM literature and explained the key
constructs used in the study. Second, we stated the relevant hy-
potheses with due theoretical support. Third, we describe the method
of conducting the study followed by the data analysis and results.
Last, we discuss the findings of the study with managerial
implications.
2. Literature
Publicity is recognised as being more credible and influential than
a company’s communications (Bond and Kirshenbaum, 1998). But
negative publicity has a reverse effect on corporate image if it is
spread across (Pullig et al., 2006; Xie and Peng, 2009). Ongoing neg-
ative publicity affects a company’s corporate image and has an
important influence on consumers’ attitudes and trust towards an
organisation (Dahlen and Lange, 2006). Negative publicity can also
affect consumers’ satisfaction, brand evaluation and purchase in-
tention (Huang and Chen, 2006; Pullig et al., 2006). Besides, research
shows that consumers give more importance to negative informa-
tion than positive information in forming judgements (Eagly and
Chaiken, 1993). Marketing researchers and practitioners have a
grown interest in investigating consumers’ attitudes towards neg-
ative publicity and strategies to cope with the detrimental effect of
such publicity. We posit that CrM strategy can be considered as a
useful tool in dealing with and diminishing the effect of negative
publicity.
Cause Related Marketing (CrM) is “the process of formulating
and implementing marketing activities that are characterized by an
offer from the firm to contribute a specified amount to a desig-
nated cause when consumers engage in revenue providing exchanges
and satisfy organizational and individual objectives” (Varadarajan
and Menon, 1988, p. 59). Firms use CrM, which is a form of social
responsibility and is considered as an indicator of showing concern
towards community to retain their customers (Marin and Ruiz, 2007).
Thus, CrM strategy bridges the socially responsible behaviour of a
firm and consumers’ consumption decision together (Moosmayer
and Fuljahn, 2010), which in turn helps the firms retain their cus-
tomers and attain customer loyalty (Vanhamme et al., 2012).
Companies also use CrM to counter negative publicity, i.e. mainly
Please cite this article in press as: Revadee Vyravene, Fazlul K. Rabbanee, Corporate negative publicity – the role of cause related marketing, Australasian Marketing Journal (2016),
doi: 10.1016/j.ausmj.2016.11.006
when their business practices are qualified as illegal and unethi-
cal (Marin and Ruiz, 2007). It is often hard for organisations to regain
their consumers’ trust after being negatively publicised. To fight
against negative media exposure businesses participate in philan-
thropic activities such as CrM. It was noted that for the past years,
numerous firms are participating in cause-related marketing cam-
paigns to ensure a positive brand image by showing their concern
to the community and to avoid any negative publicity (Bigné-Alcañiz
et al., 2012; Xie and Peng, 2009).
From a customer perspective, buying a CrM sponsored brand can
be classified as a morally sensitive act towards a specific cause (Lafferty
and Goldsmith, 2005). Consumers’ response to CrM campaigns may
emanate from their moral feelings to support others in the society
(Kim et al., 2012) and their routine purchase decisions provide op-
portunities to demonstrate their moral identity (Aquino and Reed,
2002; Kim and Johnson, 2013). Once a person recognises that a moral
issue exists, he/she undertakes a moral judgement about the event
(Jones, 1991) and elicit a moral act, in this case the CrM supporting
cause. Past studies have showed the positive effect on moral iden-
tity towards charitable behaviour (Aquino et al., 2011). However,
research is literally non-existent whether individuals’ moral judge-
ment can lead them towards donation behaviour such as participating
and purchasing a product from a CrM campaign. A number of im-
portant elements appear to influence consumer decisions to support
CrM efforts initiated by firms. These factors are discussed below.
2.1. Cause attributes
Businesses need to focus on cause attributes to ensure the success
of their CrM campaign. Studies found that cause attributes facili-
tate consumers’ acceptance of a CrM alliance (Vanhamme et al.,
2012). This research has focused on three types of cause attri-
butes: ‘cause–brand fit’, ‘cause familiarity’ and ‘cause importance’
as these attributes are relevant to this study. Besides, existing re-
search is still inconclusive about the effects of these three attributes
on the success of the CrM campaign, which are pointed out under
each sub-section below.
2.1.1. Cause–brand fit
Cause–brand fit describes the degree of similarity and compati-
bility between a firm and its supporting cause. Scholars have agreed
that the ‘fit’ between the supported cause and the sponsoring
organisations’ activities is vital to ensure a successful alliance between
the firm and the non-profit organisation (Bigné-Alcañiz et al., 2012;
Varadarajan and Menon, 1988). The firm’s image, positioning and
target market should be in line with supporting a cause and its target
audience to avoid any criticism or campaign letdown (Gupta and
Pirsch, 2006; Samu and Wymer, 2009). A high level of fit is more ap-
pealing, provokes positive consumer attitudes (Gupta and Pirsch, 2006;
Pracejus and Olsen, 2004) and higher purchase intention (Sen and
Bhattacharya, 2001), and reduce the possibility of consumer scep-
ticism (Szykman et al., 2004). However, other studies’ findings
contradict with the previous arguments as it was found that cause-
brand fit does not positively influence a brand’s image and consumers’
attitude towards products offered under CrM campaigns (Lafferty et
al., 2004; Menon and Kahn, 2003). Nevertheless Bigné-Alcañiz et al.
(2012) argued that further study is required to shed light on the role
of the cause–brand fit on consumer responses. In such an inconclu-
sive situation, this research attempts to investigate the effects of cause–
brand fit on consumers’ moral judgement and response behaviour
in the context of experiencing negative publicity.
2.1.2. Cause familiarity
Familiarity is the knowledge that a consumer has acquired with
an object. Such awareness increases with direct or indirect person-
al experience regarding the object (Holden and Vanhuele, 1999).
 ARTICLE IN PRESS
R. Vyravene, F.K. Rabbanee / Australasian Marketing Journal ■■ (2016) ■■–■■
Individuals are more confident and can easily process information
when they are familiar with the object (Lafferty and Goldsmith,
2005). With regard to a social cause, the more familiar a consum-
er is with a cause, the easier and quicker the cause will be retrieved
from their memory (Lafferty and Goldsmith, 2005). Trimble and Rifon
(2006) also highlighted that the impact of cause familiarity on con-
sumers’ perception of the cause and its allied firm is much higher
than the impact of a non-familiar cause. Thus, familiarity of the cause
and the company is a vital component to enhance consumers’ at-
titude (Lafferty and Goldsmith, 2005; Zdravkovic et al., 2010).
However, Lafferty and Goldsmith (2005) showed that there was
little difference between a high or low familiar cause related to the
chosen brand. Simmons and Becker-Olsen (2006) mentioned that
marketers should not only rely on choosing a familiar cause to ensure
the success of their CrM campaign. Therefore, it is evident that re-
searchers are still inconclusive about the influence of cause familiarity
upon cause-related marketing campaigns. This paper sheds light on
the effects of cause familiarity on consumers’ response towards a
CrM campaign.
2.1.3. Cause importance
The concept of personal importance is manifested in the CrM
studies as cause importance, which refers to the support of a cause
due to personal experience or social norms (Hou et al., 2008). In
formulating the CrM partnership with a not-for-profit organisation
(NPO), selecting a cause is considered to be important to consum-
ers as it has a stronger impact on perceptions of the alliance than
one that is not considered to be important (Bizer and Krosnick, 2001;
Lafferty and Edmondson, 2009). Previous work showed that con-
sumers’ affinity with a cause will enhance positive feelings and
purchase behaviour towards the brand’s products/services and con-
sumers are likely to patronise the cause more if they perceive the
cause important for them (Bhattacharya and Sen, 2003; Cornwell
and Coote, 2005). Thus, perceived cause importance influence con-
sumers to think about a cause and its message more (Grau and Folse,
2007). Therefore, it is inferred that cause importance influences con-
sumers’ perception of a CrM campaign based on the individual’s
personal relevance of the specific cause.
2.2. Moral judgement
As the basic tenet of CrM is to show concern for community
(Marin and Ruiz, 2007) and the firms often use CrM as one of the
primary ways to express their social responsibility. Hence, a CrM
campaign can be seen as a way for consumers’ to conduct a pur-
chase for a reason other than their personal benefits such as helping
society (Kim and Johnson, 2013), which reflects the relevance of a
moral issue in a CrM campaign. Consumers differ among them-
selves in terms of moral recognition towards an object (Reidenbach
and Robin, 1990). Moral judgement is manifested when an indi-
vidual selects the most ethical behaviour or perception while
undertaking decisions. It is defined as an individual’s judgement for
particular behaviours and options as being ethical or unethical,
correct or incorrect (Chen et al., 2009). Gilbert (2003) mentioned
that shoppers nowadays are more focused on inquiring about the
company’s ethical image before undertaking any further purchase
decisions. This makes the concept of moral judgement important
for marketers to understand. It was also underlined in previous work
that moral philosophies can be considered as one of the factors in-
fluencing an individual’s ethical decision making process (Valentine
and Hollingworth, 2012). Individuals’ moral intensity leads to them
towards actions which enhance their act of social responsiveness
towards others (Jones, 1991; Reed et al., 2007). Additionally, if a
society perceives an action as morally acceptable, individuals are
more likely to develop behavioural intentions to perform that action
(Barnett, 2001). Therefore, by participating in CrM campaigns,
Please cite this article in press as: Revadee Vyravene, Fazlul K. Rabbanee, Corporate negative publicity – the role of cause related marketing, Australasian Marketing Journal (2016),
doi: 10.1016/j.ausmj.2016.11.006
3
individuals can realise an act of social responsiveness by support-
ing the social cause sponsored by the brand. However, existing
research did not investigate the role of moral judgement in CrM
context. Although consumers are likely to be influenced morally and
act accordingly such as being willing to participate and pay once
they encounter a CrM campaign, current literature is silent about
the underlying mechanism of such influence of moral judgement.
This paper addresses this research gap by focusing on the effects
of different cause attributes of a CrM campaign on moral judge-
ment en-route to consumers’ willingness to pay more to support
the stated cause.
2.3. Willingness to pay
Consumers’ willingness to pay (WTP) is the maximum amount
of money a consumer is willing to spend while buying a product
or service (Krishna, 1991). Homburg et al. (2005) mentioned that
WTP is a measure of the value that a person assigns to a consump-
tion or usage experience in monetary units. Consumers’ WTP can
be influenced by a firm’s CrM activities. By adopting a CrM cam-
paign, firms evoke a positive feeling from consumers as the
campaigns are contributing for society’s wellbeing (Koschate-Fischer
et al., 2012). Further, it was found that American consumers were
willing to pay around 15–20% more for green products (Laroche et al.,
2001; Suchard and Polonski, 1991), meaning that consumers are
willing to pay more for a cause such as greenness of the product.
Other studies also showed that consumers were willing to pay more
for products which were produced under good conditions; not made
in sweatshops (Auger et al., 2003).
3. Hypothesis development
In this section, we discuss the underlying hypotheses that con-
stitute our conceptual framework reflecting the relationships among
the key constructs of our interest: cause–brand fit, cause familiar-
ity, cause importance, moral judgement and WTP.
When there is a fit between the brand and its supporting cause
in a CrM campaign, consumers are motivated to undergo a cogni-
tive thinking regarding this alliance (Bigné-Alcañiz et al., 2012). This
cognitive thinking may involve moral aspects as consumers often
are more likely to evaluate whether the firms perform their busi-
nesses ethically and morally by adopting such CrM campaigns
(Lafferty et al., 2004; Trevino et al., 1985). A good fit between the
company and the cause aligns consumers’ moral values with their
expectations, helping them in their decision making process (Kim
and Johnson, 2013; Koschate-Fischer et al., 2012). Thus a fit between
the brand and the cause that it supports helps the CrM campaign
to manifest its social consensus, which supports the relevant moral
aspect and helps consumers make a judgement if the campaign is
morally acceptable. This leads us to formulate the following
hypothesis:
Hypothesis 1 (H1). Consumers’ perceived cause–brand fit posi-
tively influences their moral judgement.
Consumers’ judgement of a firm is influenced by their prior ex-
perience with it and/or its product or services (Simonin and Ruth,
1998). Consumers’ past experiences with firms are often termed as
familiarity (Holden and Vanhuele, 1999). Past research shows that
a cause which is salient due to its familiarity has a greater impact
on consumers’ evaluation of the relevant CrM campaign (Lafferty
et al., 2004). This effect is aligned with the information integra-
tion theory, which indicates that consumers’ prior attitude or
knowledge influences them in assessing new information that they
receive from a CrM campaign reflecting the alliance between a brand
and a cause (Anderson, 1981). Moreover, ‘the details of moral
 ARTICLE IN PRESS
4 R. Vyravene, F.K. Rabbanee / Australasian Marketing Journal ■■ (2016) ■■–■■
Fig. 1. Conceptual framework.
decision making and behaviour processes become irrelevant if the
person does not recognise the moral issue’ (Valentine and
Hollingworth, 2012, p. 512). Thus, individuals’ familiarity with a
brand and its allied cause facilitates their understanding of the firms’
actions and the moral issue involved in their CrM campaign. There-
fore, we hypothesise that
Hypothesis 2 (H2). Consumers’ perceived cause familiarity has a
positive impact on their moral judgement.
Cause importance is the extent to which consumers perceive a
cause as highly linked to their own beliefs or to their personal life
experiences (Chen et al., 2009; Zaichkowsky, 1985). Consumers’ per-
sonal experiences regarding an object influence their moral
judgement and decision making relating to the object (Chen et al.,
2009). The more importance consumers perceive regarding a cause,
the higher the cause is investigated and the more consumers are
motivated to undertake cognitive effort to evaluate the relevant CrM
campaign (Zeynali and Golkar, 2013). Hou et al. (2008) also men-
tioned that as consumers have a higher level of importance towards
a cause, they become more motivated to devote more cognitive effort
evaluating the cause and the related event presented in the CrM
campaign. Therefore, we hypothesise that
Hypothesis 3 (H3). Consumers’ perceived cause importance pos-
itively influences their moral judgement.
Moral judgement arises when individuals perceive that there is
a moral issue within the matter they are considering (Jones, 1991).
Once individuals have recognised the ethical issue, their moral values
help them to take their decisions and make judgements on the issue
(Valentine and Hollingworth, 2012). Past studies showed that moral
behaviours are often observed as individuals feel the need to help
and be respected through their actions (Kim and Johnson, 2013).
Hence, consumers who are influenced morally by a CrM cam-
paign are more likely to help others. Moreover, Koschate-Fischer et al.
(2012) mentioned that consumers show their willingness to pay for
a cause as they want to feel involved in the goodwill of others. There-
fore, our next hypothesis is
Hypothesis 4 (H4). Moral judgement has a positive impact on con-
sumers’ willingness to pay more.
Consumers’ perceived moral views have a positive influence on
their moral judgement (Harrington, 1997; Jones, 1991). Moral judge-
ment enables individuals to decide whether their targeted behaviour
is morally acceptable or not (Trevino et al., 1985).Moral judge-
ment of an individual influences his or her perception whether the
respective action is morally right (Tan, 2002). When an individual
makes a moral judgement about an event, she/he establishes an in-
tention to act morally and then engages in moral behaviour (Reynolds
and Ceranic, 2007). Hence moral judgement is likely to help con-
sumers to assess whether a CrM marketing campaign is ethical and
Please cite this article in press as: Revadee Vyravene, Fazlul K. Rabbanee, Corporate negative publicity – the role of cause related marketing, Australasian Marketing Journal (2016),
doi: 10.1016/j.ausmj.2016.11.006
thus influences their behavioural intention. Moral intensity relat-
ing to a situation helps individuals in ethical decision making (Jones,
1991; Valentine and Hollingworth, 2012). Besides, past research
showed that moral judgement mediates the relationship between
recognition of the moral aspect towards an event and the inten-
tion to behave morally (Yang and Wu, 2009). Therefore, we postulate
the following mediating hypotheses:
Hypothesis 5 (H5). (a): Moral judgement mediates the relation-
ship between cause–brand fit and willingness to pay more.
(b): Moral judgement mediates the relationship between cause
familiarity and willingness to pay more.
(c): Moral judgement mediates the relationship between cause
importance and willingness to pay more.
The above mentioned hypothesised relationships are depicted
in Fig. 1.
4. Method
The premise of this study was drawn from a recent multi-
storied garment factory collapse (often termed as ‘Rana Plaza
disaster’) causing a death toll of thousands of labourers in Bangla-
desh, which has received extensive media attention in Australia and
across the world (Four Corners, 2013). Leading Australian clothing
retailers such as Kmart, Target, etc., usually source their clothing
merchandises mainly from Bangladesh at a very cheap price. The
workers of these garment factories are usually underpaid. The em-
ployees of these garment factories in Bangladesh have no choice but
to work and live in a very unsafe environment. The miserable con-
dition of garment workers has received huge media coverage during
April–May 2013 when the ‘Rana Plaza disaster’ took place. Hence,
the corporate image of Australian clothing giants was at stake and
the burning question that these giant clothing retailers faced at that
time was whether they could bypass their responsibilities towards
garment workers’ living conditions (Four Corners, 2013).
The conceptual framework shown in Fig. 1 has been examined
empirically in the context of the Australian clothing industry due
to the above mentioned concern whether Australian consumers are
willing to pay more for their clothes to support a better livelihood
of the garment workers of developing countries like Bangladesh.
The key concern was whether the branded clothing retailers can
bypass their responsibility for the miserable conditions of garment
workers. Can the corporate giants ensure a safe and sound liveli-
hood for the garment workers by paying more for their imported
merchandises? A consequent question was raised in both print and
mass media whether Australian consumers are willing to pay more
for their clothes in order to help the garment workers in Bangla-
desh and thus ensure a better living standard for them.
In this backdrop, this study is designed within the domain of CrM
and a social cause of contributing to Garment Workers’ Welfare Fund
 ARTICLE IN PRESS
R. Vyravene, F.K. Rabbanee / Australasian Marketing Journal ■■ (2016) ■■–■■
was developed1 and investigated for its effectiveness to induce con-
sumers to pay more. However, garment disaster is a recent
phenomenon and Australian consumers may not be familiar with
the newly developed cause, garment workers’ welfare fund. Besides,
consumers may be more familiar with an ongoing already estab-
lished conventional social cause, which might influence their
purchase intention. Hence in order to examine whether consum-
ers are willing to pay more to support the cause of Garment Workers’
Welfare Fund and better understand consumer moral behaviour in
a CrM context, this study compares it with a conventional social
cause, namely, The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria
in Africa, which is an already known on-going cause (Kim and
Johnson, 2013). This idea of cause related comparison has been used
over the years by academics within CrM literature (e.g. Cui et al.,
2003; Hou et al., 2008) to avoid any bias from participants and give
them a choice to select between two causes instead of imposing on
them only one particular cause.
The choice from the two causes also allows researchers to have
control over the domain fit. Domain fit refers to the extent that a
core business and its sponsoring cause are allied to each other (Ellen
et al., 2000; Varadarajan and Menon, 1988). The domain fit for this
study can be measured through the fact that the Garment Workers’
Welfare Fund is more allied to the retailing industry than the cause
of The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria. The find-
ings may reveal the effect of fit when examining consumers’ response
based on their selection of a CrM campaign.
4.1. Data collection
The data were collected through mall intercept in two large shop-
ping malls of Western Australia using a structured questionnaire.
Shoppers were approached to fill in the questionnaires. Once ap-
proached, the respondents were requested to fill in the questionnaire
in a designated area in order to ensure comfortability of the re-
spondents. In total 568 shoppers were approached; 343 shoppers
filled in the questionnaire with a response rate of 60.4%. The re-
searchers offered small gifts to each participant (the participant
randomly picked his/her gift), which probably explains such a high
response rate. 34 responses were discarded due to incomplete-
ness, leaving 309 responses to be usable for further analysis. The
questionnaire has a total of six sections focusing on the constructs
used in the study and the demographic section. It starts with a de-
scription of a scenario that comprises two paragraphs – one describes
a situation for T-shirt 1 supporting a conventional on-going social
cause, The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria in Africa,
followed by another paragraph for T-shirt 2 supporting a social cause
relating to a non-conventional sudden disaster, raising Garment
Workers’ Welfare Fund. Both T-shirts were identical in terms of fea-
tures. Then, the consumers were asked to choose which T-shirt they
would prefer to buy. Following this, the questionnaire includes nu-
merous statements relating to the constructs used in the study. The
scenarios are attached in the Appendix. The questionnaire was pre-
tested in a pilot study composed of 32 participants. Both scenarios
(for T-shirt 1 and T-shirt 2) were tested for manipulation and realism
check guided by the procedure used by Liao (2007) in the pilot test
where the scenarios were found to be reliable and distinct. The sce-
nario presented to the respondents based on the above two different
1 This cause was developed based on the urge made by Professor Muhammed
Yunus, the Nobel Laureate from Bangladesh who urged to create a welfare trust by
paying an additional $0.50 to resolve most of the problems of garment workers such
as their physical safety, social safety, work environment, pensions, health care, housing,
their children’s health, education, childcare, retirement, old age and travel. Hence,
investigating the effectiveness of such a social cause is highly relevant in this context
(The Guardian, 2013, at http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/may/12/
muhammad-yunus-bangladesh-appeal).
Please cite this article in press as: Revadee Vyravene, Fazlul K. Rabbanee, Corporate negative publicity – the role of cause related marketing, Australasian Marketing Journal (2016),
doi: 10.1016/j.ausmj.2016.11.006
5
causes helped in inducing the ethical issues and enabled the authors
to test the proposed hypotheses relating to moral judgement as an
individual’s moral judgement is initiated through the recognition
of an ethical concern.
In order to minimise the common method bias in the study, the
cover letter of the questionnaire assured respondents’ anonymity
and requested for their honest responses. This reduced respon-
dents’ evaluation apprehension and controlled possible sources of
common method bias (Podsakoff et al., 2003). Also, based on
Harman’s single-factor test (Podsakoff et al., 2003), the un-rotated
factor solution was run for all the items used in the study. This gen-
erated more than a single-factor, suggesting that common method
bias is not an issue in this study. Although it is difficult to identify
the exact source(s) of the method bias, these procedural remedies
help minimise the common method bias in this study (Ramaseshan
et al., 2013; Sharma and Chan, 2011).
4.2. Scale items, reliability and validity
All the constructs used in the study were borrowed from prior
studies and adapted to fit the context of the study. The cause–
brand fit was measured using 6 items taken from Bigné-Alcañiz et al.
(2012) based on a 10-point semantic differential rating scale
(Incongruent/Congruent, Incompatible/Compatible, Meaningless/
Meaningful, Not Complementary/Complementary, Does not go
together/Goes Together, Illogical/Logical). Cause familiarity was mea-
sured with three statements taken from Simonin and Ruth (1998).
The scale items were anchored on a seven-point Likert scale. A 9-item
semantic differential scale (seven-point items) by Vanhamme et al.
(2012) was used to measure cause importance. Moral judgement
was measured through 3 items on a 7-point Likert-type scale de-
veloped by Chen et al. (2009). Guided by the scale items used in
Srinivasan et al. (2002), respondents’ willingness to pay more was
measured through 2 statements anchored in a 7 point Likert scale
beginning with ‘strongly disagree’ and ending with ‘strongly agree’.
The minimum Cronbach’s alpha value for the measuring items was
0.75 for moral judgement.
The constructs used in the study were assessed for their uni-
dimensionality, reliability, and validity (Anderson and Gerbing, 1982;
Veloutsou, 2007). The results of the exploratory factor analysis con-
firmed that the items actually loaded on the respective constructs. We
followed the two-step procedure of structural equation modelling (SEM):
running measurement model to assess convergent and discriminant
validities prior to estimating the path relationship in a structural model
(Gerbing and Anderson, 1988) using AMOS version 21.0. The conver-
gent validity of the constructs was tested by checking the substantial
factor loading of all items (Hair et al., 1995; Raimondo and Costabile,
2008), which significantly (at the .01 level) loaded onto the expected
latent construct (see Table A1 in Appendix). Further, an AVE (average
variance extracted) greater than 0.50 for each construct also sup-
ported the convergent validity of the constructs of interest (Fornell and
Larcker, 1981). To check the discriminant validity, we investigated the
correlation among the constructs – cause–brand fit, cause familiarity,
cause importance, moral judgement, and willingness to pay, which were
found to be within the acceptable limit in support of the discriminant
validity of the constructs (Kline, 2015).
The Cronbach alpha (Table A1 in Appendix) and composite re-
liability (Table A1 in Appendix) for all the constructs are above the
required threshold level (0.7), suggesting adequate internal con-
sistency of the scale items used. The average variance extracted (AVE)
for each construct exceeded the minimum cut-off point of 0.5 (Fornell
and Larcker, 1981; Hair et al., 2010). The square root of AVE of a
given construct was greater than the absolute value of the stan-
dardised correlation of the given construct with any other construct/
variable (Table A2), which supports convergent and discriminant
validities (Bagozzi and Yi, 1988; Fornell and Larcker, 1981). The
 ARTICLE IN PRESS
6 R. Vyravene, F.K. Rabbanee / Australasian Marketing Journal ■■ (2016) ■■–■■
goodness of fit measures for the measurement model show a good
fit (χ2 = 384.25, df = 214, χ2/df = 1.79, RMSEA = 0.051, CFI = 0.96,
TLI = 0.96; and NFI = 0.93), showing that the constructs in the model
were different from each other (Garson, 2011).
5. Data analysis and results
Out of the 309 participants, 54.4% of the respondents were female
and 45.6% were male. 44% of the respondents chose to buy T-shirt
1 supporting cause 1 (The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and
Malaria in Africa), whereas 56% chose T-shirt 2 supporting cause 2
(Garment Workers’ Welfare Fund).
In order to test the hypotheses shown in Fig. 1 for both cause 1
(T-shirt 1) and cause 2 (T-shirt 2), we ran a multi-group analysis
using AMOS 21 and compared the structural path relationships for
both causes. The fit indices of the structural model showed excel-
lent fit with the data (χ2 = 701.76, df = 426, χ2/df = 1.64, RMSEA = 0.046,
CFI = 0.95, TLI = 0.94 and NFI = 0.88). The structural path relation-
ships and the corresponding coefficients for both cause 1 and cause
2 are shown in Table A2 and Fig. A1[(a) and (b)] in the Appendix.
Table A2 shows that all the hypothesised relationships are sup-
ported (p-value less than 0.05 for all the hypotheses) for both causes.
For cause 1, the standardised β coefficients of the links of cause–
brand fit, cause familiarity, and cause importance with moral
judgement are 0.41, 0.19, and 0.24; and the standardised β coeffi-
cient of the link between moral judgement and WTP is 0.43. For
cause 2, the standardised β coefficients of the links of cause–
brand fit, cause familiarity, and cause importance with moral
judgement are 0.21, 0.28, and 0.42; and the standardised β coeffi-
cient of the link between moral judgement and WTP is 0.62. Hence,
respondents’ moral judgement is influenced by cause–brand fit, cause
familiarity and cause importance for both causes, which again is
found to induce the consumers to pay more for the product that
supports the respective social cause.
Following Walsh et al. (2008), we compared the chi-square values
and path coefficients of fully constrained (FC) model (by restrict-
ing all the paths of the model) and totally free (TF) model (without
restricting any of the paths of the model) in order to examine
whether respondents’ opinions towards both causes significantly
differ from each other. The fit indices of the FC model was
found to be satisfactory with χ2 = 741.33, df = 452, χ2/df = 1.64,
RMSEA = 0.046, CFI = 0.94, TLI = 0.94 and NFI = 0.87. The chi-
square and degrees of freedom difference between the constrained
and unconstrained models is Δχ 2 = (741.33 − 701.76 = 39.57);
Δdf = (452 − 426 = 26) and the corresponding p-value is <0.05. Hence,
it is evident that respondents’ perceptions towards the two causes
differ significantly. Now, in order to test whether respondents’ per-
ceptions differ in all the links or one particular link of the model,
we constrained each link separately to be equal across the two
groups, calculated χ2 differences and compared it with the totally
free model. The results showed that respondents’ perceptions differ
significantly in the link between cause importance and moral judge-
ment (Δχ2 = 3.21, Δdf = 1, p = 0.05 (app.)) but not in any other links
of the model (for links between cause–brand fit and moral judge-
ment: Δχ2 = 1.76; Δdf = 1; p > 0.10; for links between cause familiarity
and moral judgement: Δχ2 = 0.90, Δdf = 1; p > 0.10; and for links
between moral judgement and WTP: Δχ2 = 1.47; Δdf = 1; p > 0.10).
Next, we examined whether moral judgement mediates the rela-
tionship between cause–brand fit, cause familiarity and cause
importance with WTP. We followed the mediation procedure sug-
gested by MacKinnon et al. (2002), which has been used by marketing
scholars in recent times (for example, see Reimann et al., 2010). We
examined both direct and the indirect effects of cause–brand fit, cause
familiarity, cause importance on WTP via moral judgement. The direct
effects of cause–brand fit, cause familiarity, and cause importance on
WTP were found to have mixed results for both causes. For cause 1, direct
Please cite this article in press as: Revadee Vyravene, Fazlul K. Rabbanee, Corporate negative publicity – the role of cause related marketing, Australasian Marketing Journal (2016),
doi: 10.1016/j.ausmj.2016.11.006
effects of cause familiarity (β = 0.36; p = 0.001) were found to be sig-
nificant, but the direct effects of cause–brand fit (β = 0.09; p = 0.33) and
cause importance (β = 0.18; p = 0.052) on WTP were found to be in-
significant. For cause 2, the direct effects of cause-familiarity (β = 0.21;
p = 0.006) and cause importance (β = 0.32; p = 0.001) on WTP were found
to be significant, and the direct effects of cause–brand fit (β = 0.032;
p = 0.67) were found to be insignificant.
Regarding the indirect effect, we calculated the critical ratio of the
paths for both cause 1 and cause 2. In case of cause 1, it was found that
none of the indirect links between cause–brand fit (β = 0.042; CR = 0.73),
cause familiarity (β = 0.017; CR = 0.65), and cause importance (β = 0.026;
CR = 0.66) with WTP via moral judgement are significant. Hence, moral
judgement is not a mediator in case of cause 1. Thus H5 (a), H5 (b), and
H5 (c) are not supported in case of cause 1. In case of cause 2, the in-
direct link between cause importance and WTP via moral judgement
is significant (β = 0.103; CR = 2.01), but other indirect links between
cause–brand fit (β = 0.054; CR = 1.42), cause familiarity (β = 0.068;
CR = 1.54) with WTP are not significant. Hence, moral judgement me-
diates only the link between cause importance and WTP in case of cause
2. Thus H5 (c) is supported but H5 (a) and H5 (b) are not supported
for cause 2.
6. Discussion and implications
This research is designed under the CrM purview in the context
of experiencing a negative publicity by the Australian clothing re-
tailers. It aimed to examine whether Australian consumers are
morally willing to act favourably when they encounter a CrM cam-
paign supporting a social cause of raising fund to support the
garment workers of developing countries. Thus the study exam-
ines whether running a CrM campaign can be a useful marketing
strategy to deal with the corporate negative publicity after a crisis.
The results highlighted that more than 50% of the participants
were willing to sacrifice more money in addition to their pur-
chase amount to help a social cause. The findings further revealed
that majority of the respondents (56%) preferred to buy T-shirt 2
supporting the second cause relating to the recent sudden disas-
ter in Bangladesh garment workers compared to cause 1 that
supports an ongoing social disaster. The findings of the study re-
vealed that consumers are willing to pay more money for their
clothes if they find that the clothing retailer attempts to support
poor garment workers of developing countries. Generally consum-
ers are willing to support a social cause relating to humanitarian
ground. If consumers have a choice, they are willing to support a
sudden disaster more than an ongoing social issue. This highlights
the importance of having a fit between a brand and its supporting
cause as the product, T-shirt fits better with the cause relating to
garment workers more than the cause to deal with diseases in Africa.
Consumers’ moral judgement is triggered more once they encoun-
ter information relating to a recent disaster of garment workers’
death and poor living standard than an ongoing conventional social
cause to support diseases in Africa. These findings are supported
by Ellen et al. (2000), who found that disaster situation is per-
ceived as more important, because disasters are perceived as having
a higher level of personal involvement. Similarly, respondents are
likely to perceive more proximity and involvement with the cause
relating to garment workers’ welfare fund than the ongoing con-
ventional cause of dealing with diseases in Africa. Besides, the good
fit between clothing and the cause to improve the living standard
of the labourers who produce the clothes may play a positive role
in this regard. The study further revealed that all the three ante-
cedents (cause–brand fit, cause familiarity and cause importance)
were found to have a significant positive effect on consumers’ moral
judgement for both cause 1 and cause 2. Consumers’ moral judge-
ment was found to influence consumers’ willingness to pay for both
causes. Moral judgement was found to partially mediate the
 ARTICLE IN PRESS
R. Vyravene, F.K. Rabbanee / Australasian Marketing Journal ■■ (2016) ■■–■■
relationship between cause importance and WTP for cause 2, i.e.
supporting a living standard of the garment workers.
The findings of the study offer significant theoretical and manage-
rial implications. This research extends the existing CrM literature and
highlights the importance of specific attributes such as cause famil-
iarity, cause importance and cause brand fit in generating moral
judgement of the consumers. Thus the study opens a new perspec-
tive of the construct ‘moral judgement’ in marketing literature by
outlining its role in the context of a CrM and by showing evidence that
different cause attributes influence consumers’ moral judgement en-
route to their willingness to pay more. Further, the study offers a concrete
verdict regarding the inconclusive findings of existing research about
the effects of cause–brand fit and cause familiarity on consumers’ re-
sponse behaviour (as discussed in Sections 2.1.1 and 2.1.2).
From a managerial view, marketing practitioners may leverage con-
sumers’ participation towards CrM campaigns by highlighting its moral
relevance. Practitioners can try to segment their market towards in-
dividuals with high levels of moral intensity or can even promote the
moral consequence of their CrM campaigns. Firms participate in phil-
anthropic activities to reinforce their corporate image as well as to
alleviate their negative publicity in media (Xie and Peng, 2009). As
evident from the findings of this research, firms allying with a social
cause (e.g. related to sudden disaster) are more likely to draw con-
sumers’ attention and pay more to participate in the campaign.
Therefore, CrM campaigns can help firms to deal with the negative
publicity. Moreover, Pullig et al. (2006) highlighted that consumers’
exposure to negative publicity weakens their satisfaction and pur-
chase intention. But in this research, we see that CrM campaigns
actually have induced consumers to participate in the campaign and
thus they are willing to pay more to support the allied social cause.
These findings are supported by Klein and Dawar (2004), who stated
that companies can evade the negative publicity and enhance their
corporate image by investing in socially responsible activities.
7. Limitations and future research directions
Findings from this study should be viewed in the light of some
limitations which indicate avenues for future research. First, this
paper’s findings cannot be generalised to a wider population ex-
ternal to the Australian context as it has been tested within this
particular country. Hence, for further research in this field, it would
be interesting to conduct cross cultural comparisons to test whether
these findings differ across cultures. Second, this study focused on
a tangible product ‘T-shirt’, the findings of which may not be ap-
plicable to all types of products (such as in case of fast-moving
consumer goods) as consumers’ perception may vary for different
types of products, hence further research can test our model with
various goods and services. Third, this paper focused on three cause
(a)
Cause .41
Brand Fit
.19 .43
Cause Moral
Familiarity Judgment
.24
Cause
Importance
Fig. A1. (a): Structural model for cause 1. (b): Structural model for cause 2.
Please cite this article in press as: Revadee Vyravene, Fazlul K. Rabbanee, Corporate negative publicity – the role of cause related marketing, Australasian Marketing Journal (2016),
doi: 10.1016/j.ausmj.2016.11.006
7
attributes: cause–brand fit, cause familiarity and cause impor-
tance; and did not consider other CrM attributes such as cause
proximity due to the limited scope of the research and time con-
straint. Further studies may investigate other cause attributes such
as cause proximity, etc., and their impact on consumers’ willing-
ness to pay more. Fourth, while presenting the stimuli, i.e. cause 1
and cause 2 in the survey instrument, cause 1 was always pre-
sented prior to cause 2. This might create a potential selection bias
and may contribute to response error. Therefore, future research
should create a balance in presenting the causes in the question-
naire by swapping the sequence. Fifth, this study focused only on
two social causes; it will be worthwhile for future research to test
other causes (i.e. animal welfare, environment protection) or even
give participants the choice to select their cause to see whether it
generates different results. Sixth, future CrM studies may examine
the moderating role of personality traits (big five personality traits)
on consumers’ judgement and perceptions towards a CrM cam-
paign. Finally, we only referred to consumers’ willingness to pay for
the product as the ultimate outcome variable. Future study may be
pursued based on a longitudinal research design to measure con-
sumers’ actual purchase behaviour towards an actual CrM campaign.
Appendix
Scenario
Please read the scenario below before answering the
questions:
Suppose you are shopping in your favourite clothing retail outlet.
While shopping, you find two T-shirts (T-shirt 1 and T-shirt 2) that
you like. You like the colour, style and quality of both T-shirts equally.
The prices of T-shirt 1 and T-shirt 2 are the same. Both T-shirt 1 and
T-shirt 2 are imported from the same country. However, they support
two different causes.
If you buy T-shirt 1, a percentage of the profit goes to The Global
Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria in Africa. You recall that
people in many of the African countries suffer terribly from several
deadly diseases and The Global Fund is an on-going effort to help
poor people combat against these diseases.
On the other hand, if you buy T-shirt 2, a percentage of profit
goes to the Garment Workers Welfare Fund, a recent initiative to
ensure the welfare of garment workers in third-world countries. You
are aware that many of the developed countries import cheap clothes
from third world countries where the workers are extremely un-
derpaid. They have no choice but to work and live in a very unsafe
environment. The miserable condition of garment workers has re-
ceived huge media coverage in recent times due to a factory collapse
resulting in a death toll of more than a thousand workers.
(b)
Cause .21
Brand Fit
Willingness .28 .62
Willingness
to Pay Cause Moral
to Pay
More Familiarity Judgment
More
.42
Cause
Importance
 ARTICLE IN PRESS
8 R. Vyravene, F.K. Rabbanee / Australasian Marketing Journal ■■ (2016) ■■–■■

Table A1
Descriptive statistics and factor loading of the scale items.

Constructs Factor loading Mean SD

Cause–brand fit: [α: 0.92; CR = 0.96; AVE = 0.81]

CBF1: Incongruent–congruent 0.84 6.76 2.13
CBF2: Incompatible–compatible 0.85 7.00 2.00
CBF3: Meaningless–meaningful 0.79 7.38 2.13
CBF4: Not complementary–complementary 0.85 6.99 2.04
CBF5: Does not go together–goes together 0.86 6.88 2.24
CBF6: Illogical–logical 0.84 7.22 2.20
Cause familiarity: [α: 0.84; CR = 0.97; AVE = 0.88]
CF1: The cause is very familiar to me. 0.83 4.62 1.81
CF2: I definitely recognise the cause. 0.90 5.37 1.55
CF3: I definitely have heard about the cause. 0.89 5.45 1.65
Cause importance: [α: 0.94; CR = 0.97; AVE = 0.81]
CI1: Unimportant–important 0.81 5.63 1.32
CI2: Of no concern–of concern 0.83 5.58 1.37
CI3: Irrelevant–relevant 0.86 5.44 1.49
CI4: Means nothing to me–means a lot to me 0.83 5.26 1.41
CI5: Worthless–valuable 0.87 5.59 1.38
CI6: Does not matter–matters 0.85 5.71 1.36
CI7: Unappealing–appealing 0.80 5.36 1.39
CI8: Non-essential–essential 0.84 5.44 1.43
CI9: Very insignificant–very significant 0.83 5.67 1.41
Moral judgement: [α: 0.84; CR = 0.94; AVE = 0.77]
MJ1: In my opinion, buying the T-shirt is a moral obligation. 0.83 4.11 1.90
MJ2: In my opinion, it is morally wrong to buy the T-shirt (R). 0.30 2.47 1.66
MJ3: One should buy the T-shirt due to its moral implications. 0.88 4.01 1.81
MJ4: There are moral reasons for buying the T-shirt. 0.83 4.74 1.70
MJ5: I consider the decision of buying the T-shirt to be ethical. 0.84 4.73 1.79
Willingness to pay: [α: 0.92; CR = 0.95; AVE = 0.87]
WP1: How likely are you willing to pay more for this T-shirt? 0.96 5.17 1.78
WP2: How likely are you willing to sacrifice more money for this T-shirt? 0.96 5.06 1.81

Table A2
Standardised coefficients, critical ratio (CR), and p-value of the structural model.

Paths Cause 1 (T-shirt 1) Cause 2 (T-shirt 2) Decision

β CR p-value β CR p-value

Cause–brand fit = > moral judgement 0.41 3.88 0.001 0.21 2.63 0.008 H1 supported for both causes
Cause familiarity = > moral judgement 0.19 1.99 0.046 0.28 3.73 0.001 H2 supported for both causes
Cause importance = > moral judgement 0.24 2.41 0.016 0.42 4.82 0.001 H3 supported for both causes
Moral judgement = > willingness to pay 0.43 3.76 0.001 0.62 7.35 0.001 H4 supported for both causes

References
Anderson, J.C., 1981. Integration theory applied to cognitive responses and attitudes.
In: Petty, R.E., Ostrom, T.M., Brock, T.C. (Eds.), Cognitive Responses in Persuasion.
Erlbaum, Hillsdale, NJ, pp. 361–397.
Anderson, J.C., Gerbing, D.W., 1982. Some methods for respecifying measurement
models to obtain unidimensional construct measurement. J. Mark. Res. 19 (4),
453–460.
Aquino, K., Reed, A., II, 2002. The self-importance of moral identity. J. Pers. Soc.
Psychol. 83 (6), 1423–1440.
Aquino, K., McFerran, B., Laven, M., 2011. Moral identity and the experience of moral
elevation in response to acts of uncommon goodness. J. Pers. Soc. Psychol. 100
(4), 703–718.
Auger, P., Burke, P., Devinney, T.M., Louviere, J.J., 2003. What will consumers pay for
social product features? J. Bus. Ethics 42 (3), 281–304.
Bagozzi, R.P., Yi, Y., 1988. On the evaluation of structural equation models. J. Acad.
Mark. Sci. 16 (1), 74–94.
Barnett, T., 2001. Dimensions of moral intensity and ethical decision making: an
empirical study. J. App. Soc. Psychol. 31 (5), 1038–1057.
Barone, M.J., Miyazaki, A.D., Taylor, K.A., 2000. The influence of cause-related
marketing on consumer choice: does one good turn deserve another? J. Acad.
Mark. Sci. 28 (2), 248–262.
Bhattacharya, C.B., Sen, S., 2003. Consumer-company identification: a framework for
understanding consumers’ relationships with companies. J. Mark. 67 (2), 76–88.
Bigné-Alcañiz, E., Currás-Pérez, R., Ruiz-Mafé, C., Sanz-Blas, S., 2012. Cause-related
marketing influence on consumer responses: the moderating effect of cause–
brand fit. J. Mark. Com. 18 (4), 265–283.
Bizer, G.Y., Krosnick, J.A., 2001. Exploring the structure of strength-related attitude
features: the relation between attitude importance and attitude accessibility.
J. Pers. Soc. Psychol. 81 (4), 566.
Bond, J., Kirshenbaum, R., 1998. Under the Radar: Talking to Today’s Cynical Consumer,
vol. 2. John Wiley & Sons, New York.
Cavico, F.J., Mujtaba, B.G., 2016. Volkswagen emissions scandal: a global case study
of legal, ethical, and practical consequences and recommendations for sustainable
management. Glob. J. Res. Bus. Manage. 4 (2), 411–433.
Chen, M.F., Pan, C.T., Pan, M.C., 2009. The joint moderating impact of moral intensity
and moral judgment on consumer’s use intention of pirated software. J. Bus. Ethics
90 (3), 361–373.
Coombs, W.T., 1995. Choosing the right words the development of guidelines for the
selection of the “appropriate” crisis-response strategies. Manage. Com. Quart.
8 (4), 447–476.
Cornwell, T.B., Coote, L.V., 2005. Corporate sponsorship of a cause: the role of
identification in purchase intent. J. Bus. Res. 58 (3), 268–276.
Cui, Y., Trent, E.S., Sullivan, P.M., Matiru, G.N., 2003. Cause-related marketing: how
generation Y responds. Int. J. Retail. Dist. Manage. 31 (6), 310–320.
Dahlen, M., Lange, F., 2006. A disaster is contagious: how a brand in crisis affects
other brands. J. Advert. Res. 46 (4), 388–397.
Eagly, A.H., Chaiken, S., 1993. The Psychology of Attitudes. Harcourt Brace Jovanovich
College Publishers, Orlando, FL.
Ellen, P.S., Mohr, L.A., Webb, D.J., 2000. Charitable programs and the retailer: do they
mix? J. Retail. 76 (3), 393–406.
Emmelhainz, M.A., Adams, R.J., 1999. The apparel industry response to “sweatshop”
concerns: a review and analysis of codes of conduct. J. Supply Chain Manage.
35 (2), 51–57.
Fornell, C., Larcker, D.F., 1981. Evaluating structural equation models with
unobservable variables and measurement error. J. Mark. Res. 18 (1), 39–
50.
Four Corners. 2013. “Fashion victims”. Streaming video. 45:22 http://www
.abc.net.au/4corners/stories/2013/06/25/3785918.htm. Accessed June 2016.
Garson, D., 2011. Validity: short notes, North Carolina State University, Public
Administration Program. http://faculty.chass.ncsu.edu/garson/PA765/validity.htm.
Accessed May 2016.
Gerbing, D.W., Anderson, J.C., 1988. An updated paradigm for scale development
incorporating uni-dimensionality and its assessment. J. Mark. Res. 25 (2),
186–192.

Please cite this article in press as: Revadee Vyravene, Fazlul K. Rabbanee, Corporate negative publicity – the role of cause related marketing, Australasian Marketing Journal (2016),
doi: 10.1016/j.ausmj.2016.11.006
 ARTICLE IN PRESS
R. Vyravene, F.K. Rabbanee / Australasian Marketing Journal ■■ (2016) ■■–■■
Gilbert, J., 2003. A matter of trust. Sales Market. Manage. 155 (3), 30–35.
Grau, S.L., Folse, J.A.G., 2007. Cause-related marketing (CRM): the influence of
donation proximity and message-framing cues on the less-involved consumer.
J. Advert. 36 (4), 19–33.
Gupta, S., Pirsch, J., 2006. The company-cause-customer fit decision in cause-related
marketing. J. Consum. Mark. 23 (6), 314–326.
Hair, J.F., Anderson, R.E., Tatham, R.L., Black, W.C., 1995. Multivariate Data Analysis
with Readings, fourth ed. Prentice Hall, Englewood Cliffs, NJ.
Hair, J.F., Black, W.C., Babin, B.J., Anderson, R.E., Tatham, R.L., 2010. Multivariate Data
Analysis, seventh ed. Prentice Hall, Upper Saddle River, NJ.
Harrington, S.J., 1997. A test of a person – issue contingent model of ethical decision
making in organisations. J. Bus. Ethics 16 (4), 363–375.
Holden, S.J., Vanhuele, M., 1999. Know the name, forget the exposure: brand
familiarity versus memory of exposure context. Psychol. Market. 16 (6), 479–496.
Homburg, C., Koschate, N., Hoyer, W.D., 2005. Do satisfied customers really pay more?
A study of the relationship between customer satisfaction and willingness to
pay. J. Mark. 69 (2), 84–96.
Hou, J., Du, L., Li, J., 2008. Cause’s attributes influencing consumer’s purchasing
intention: empirical evidence from China. Asia Pac. J. Mark. Logistics 20 (4),
363–380.
Huang, J.H., Chen, Y.F., 2006. Herding in online product choice. Psychol. Mark. 23 (5),
413–428.
IEG Sponsorship Report, 2012. Economic uncertainty to slow sponsorship growth
in 2012. http://www.sponsorship.com/About-IEG/Press-Room/Economic
-Uncertainty-To-Slow-Sponsorship-Growth-In.aspx. Accessed June 2016.
Isleworth, O.K.B., 2016. Moral identity centrality and cause-related marketing. Eur.
J. Mark. 50 (1–2), 236–259.
Jones, T.M., 1991. Ethical decision making by individuals in organisations: an
issue-contingent model. Acad. Manage. Rev. 16 (2), 366–395.
Kim, J.E., Johnson, K.K., 2013. The impact of moral emotions on cause-related
marketing campaigns: a cross-cultural examination. J. Bus. Ethics 112 (1), 79–90.
Kim, N., Sung, Y., Lee, M., 2012. Consumer evaluations of social alliances: the effects
of perceived fit between companies and non-profit organisations. J. Bus. Ethics
109 (2), 163–174.
Klein, J., Dawar, N., 2004. Corporate social responsibility and consumers’ attributions
and brand evaluations in a product–harm crisis. Int. J. Res. Mark. 21 (3), 203–217.
Kline, R.B., 2015. Principles and Practice of Structural Equation Modeling. Guilford
Publications, New York.
Koschate-Fischer, N., Stefan, I.V., Hoyer, W.D., 2012. Willingness to pay for cause-
related marketing: the impact of donation amount and moderating effects. J.
Mark. Res. 49 (6), 910–927.
Krishna, A., 1991. Effect of dealing patterns on consumer perceptions of deal
frequency and willingness to pay. J. Mark. Res. 28 (4), 441–451.
Kuo, A., Rice, D.H., 2015. The impact of perceptual congruence on the effectiveness
of cause-related marketing campaigns. J. Consum. Psychol. 25 (1), 78–88.
Lafferty, B.A., Edmondson, D.R., 2009. Portraying the cause instead of the brand in
cause-related marketing ads: does it really matter? J. Mark. Theory Pract. 17 (2),
129–144.
Lafferty, B.A., Goldsmith, R.E., 2005. Cause–brand alliances: does the cause help the
brand or does the brand help the cause? J. Bus. Res. 58 (4), 423–429.
Lafferty, B.A., Goldsmith, R.E., Hult, G.T.M., 2004. The impact of the alliance on the
partners: a look at cause-brand alliances. Psychol. Mark. 21 (7), 509–531.
Laroche, M., Bergeron, J., Barbaro-Forleo, G., 2001. Targeting consumers who are
willing to pay more for environmentally friendly products. J. Consum. Mark. 18
(6), 503–520.
Liao, H., 2007. Do it right this time: the role of employee service recovery performance
in customer-perceived justice and customer loyalty after service failures. J. App.
Psychol. 92 (2), 475–489.
Liston-Heyes, C., Liu, G., 2013. A study of non-profit organisations in cause-related
marketing: stakeholder concerns and safeguarding strategies. Eur. J. Mark. 47
(11/12), 1954–1974.
MacKinnon, D.P., Lockwood, C.M., Hoffman, J.M., West, S.G., Sheets, V., 2002. A
comparison of methods to test mediation and other intervening variable effects.
Psychol. Meth. 7 (1), 83.
Marin, L., Ruiz, S., 2007. “I need you too!” Corporate identity attractiveness for
consumers and the role of social responsibility. J. Bus. Ethics 71 (3), 245–260.
Mazodier, M., Merunka, D., 2012. Achieving brand loyalty through sponsorship: the
role of fit and self-congruity. J. Acad. Mark. Sci. 40 (6), 807–820.
Menon, S., Kahn, B.E., 2003. Corporate sponsorships of philanthropic activities: when
do they impact perception of sponsor brand? J. Consum. Psychol. 13 (3), 316–327.
Moosmayer, D.C., Fuljahn, A., 2010. Consumer perceptions of cause related marketing
campaigns. J. Consum. Mark. 27 (6), 543–549.
Müller, S.S., Fries, A.J., Gedenk, K., 2014. How much to give? The effect of donation
size on tactical and strategic success in cause-related marketing. Int. J. Res. Mark.
31 (2), 178–191.
Podsakoff, P.M., MacKenzie, S.B., Lee, J.Y., Podsakoff, N.P., 2003. Common method biases
in behavioral research: a critical review of the literature and recommended
remedies. J. App. Psychol. 88 (5), 879–903.
Pracejus, J.W., Olsen, G.D., 2004. The role of brand/cause fit in the effectiveness of
cause-related marketing campaigns. J. Bus. Res. 57 (6), 635–640.
Please cite this article in press as: Revadee Vyravene, Fazlul K. Rabbanee, Corporate negative publicity – the role of cause related marketing, Australasian Marketing Journal (2016),
doi: 10.1016/j.ausmj.2016.11.006
9
Pullig, C., Netemeyer, R.G., Biswas, A., 2006. Attitude basis, certainty, and challenge
alignment: a case of negative brand publicity. J. Acad. Mark. Sci. 34 (4), 528–
542.
Raimondo, M.A., Costabile, M., 2008. How relationship age moderates loyalty
formation the increasing effect of relational equity on customer loyalty. J. Serv.
Res. 11 (2), 142–160.
Ramaseshan, B., Rabbanee, F.K., Tan Hsin Hui, L., 2013. Effects of customer equity
drivers on customer loyalty in B2B context. J. Bus. Ind. Mark. 28 (4), 335–346.
Reed, A., Aquino, K., Levy, E., 2007. Moral identity and judgments of charitable
behaviors. J. Mark. 71 (1), 178–193.
Reidenbach, R.E., Robin, D.P., 1990. Toward the development of a multidimensional
scale for improving evaluations of business ethics. J. Bus. Ethics 9 (8), 639–
653.
Reimann, M., Schilke, O., Thomas, J.S., 2010. Customer relationship management and
firm performance: the mediating role of business strategy. J. Acad. Mark. Sci. 38
(3), 326–346.
Reynolds, S.J., Ceranic, T.L., 2007. The effects of moral judgment and moral identity
on moral behavior: an empirical examination of the moral individual. J. App.
Psychol. 92 (6), 1610.
Ross, J.K., Patterson, L.T., Stutts, M.A., 1992. Consumer perceptions of organisations
that use cause-related marketing. J. Acad. Mark. Sci. 20 (1), 93–97.
Samu, S., Wymer, W., 2009. The effect of fit and dominance in cause marketing
communications. J. Bus. Res. 62 (4), 432–440.
Sen, S., Bhattacharya, C.B., 2001. Does doing good always lead to doing better?
Consumer reactions to corporate social responsibility. J. Mark. Res. 38 (2),
225–243.
Sharma, P., Chan, R.Y., 2011. Counterfeit proneness: conceptualisation and scale
development. J. Mark. Manage. 27 (5–6), 602–626.
Simmons, C.J., Becker-Olsen, K.L., 2006. Achieving marketing objectives through social
sponsorships. J. Mark. 70 (4), 154–169.
Simonin, B.L., Ruth, J.A., 1998. Is a company known by the company it keeps?
Assessing the spillover effects of brand alliances on consumer brand attitudes.
J. Mark. Res. 35 (1), 30–42.
Srinivasan, S.S., Anderson, R., Ponnavolu, K., 2002. Customer loyalty in e-commerce:
an exploration of its antecedents and consequences. J. Retail. 78 (1), 41–50.
Suchard, H.T., Polonski, M.J., 1991. A theory of environmental buyer behaviour and
its validity: the environmental action-behaviour model. In: AMA Summer
Educators’ Conference Proceedings, vol. 2. American Marketing Association,
Chicago, IL, pp. 187–201.
Szykman, L.R., Bloom, P.N., Blazing, J., 2004. Does corporate sponsorship of a
socially-oriented message make a difference? An investigation of the effects of
sponsorship identity on responses to an anti-drinking and driving message. J.
Consum. Psychol. 14 (1), 13–20.
Tan, B., 2002. Understanding consumer ethical decision making with respect to
purchase of pirated software. J. Consum. Mark. 19 (2), 96–111.
The Guardian, “Muhammad Yunus appeals to west to help Bangladesh’s
garment industry”. 2013. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/may/12/
muhammad-yunus-bangladesh-appeal. (Accessed September 2016).
Trevino, L.K., Sutton, C.D., Woodman, R.W., 1985. Effects of reinforcement
contingencies and cognitive moral development on ethical decision-making
behavior. In: Annual Meeting of the Academy of Management. San Diego.
Trimble, C.S., Rifon, N.J., 2006. Consumer perceptions of compatibility in cause-related
marketing messages. Int. J. Nonprofit Volunt. Sect. Mark. 11 (1), 29–47.
Valentine, S., Hollingworth, D., 2012. Moral intensity, issue importance, and ethical
reasoning in operations situations. J. Bus. Ethics 108 (4), 509–523.
Van Heerde, H., Helsen, K., Dekimpe, M.G., 2007. The impact of a product-harm crisis
on marketing effectiveness. Mark. Sci. 26 (2), 230–245.
Vanhamme, J., Lindgreen, A., Reast, J., Van Popering, N., 2012. To do well by doing
good: improving corporate image through cause-related marketing. J. Bus. Ethics
109 (3), 259–274.
Varadarajan, P.R., Menon, A., 1988. Cause-related marketing: a coalignment of
marketing strategy and corporate philanthropy. J. Mark. 52 (3), 58–74.
Veloutsou, C., 2007. Identifying the dimensions of the product-brand and consumer
relationship. J. Mark. Manage. 23 (1–2), 7–26.
Walsh, G., Evanschitzky, H., Wunderlich, M., 2008. Identification and analysis of
moderator variables: investigating the customer satisfaction-loyalty link. Eur. J.
Mark. 42 (9/10), 977–1004.
Xie, Y., Peng, S., 2009. How to repair customer trust after negative publicity: the roles
of competence, integrity, benevolence, and forgiveness. Psychol. Mark. 26 (7),
572–589.
Yang, H.L., Wu, W.P., 2009. The effect of moral intensity on ethical decision making
in accounting. J. Moral Educ. 38 (3), 335–351.
Zaichkowsky, J.L., 1985. Measuring the involvement construct. J. Consum. Res. 12
(3), 341–352.
Zdravkovic, S., Magnusson, P., Stanley, S.M., 2010. Dimensions of fit between a brand
and a social cause and their influence on attitudes. Int. J. Res. Mark. 27 (2),
151–160.
Zeynali, S., Golkar, H., 2013. The importance of cause importance and gender on
consumer’s purchasing intention in cause-related marketing: a case study among
customers of Iranian chain stores. Asian J. Soc. Sci. Hum. 2 (2), 421–431.