Attitude Toward the Company (Social Responsibility)

What it measures

A five-item scale measuring the degree to which a consumer believes a company is genuinely committed to social welfare and corporate citizenship. Items assess perceived legitimacy of the company's engagement with a cause, overall social responsibility, good corporate citizenship, the importance placed on helping others, and the extent to which promotional activities benefit the cause rather than the company. The scale is particularly suited to cause-related marketing and corporate social responsibility research.

Response format

7-point Likert

Scale items

• I think this company has a legitimate interest in this cause.
• This is a socially responsible company.
• This company is a good corporate citizen.
• Helping others appears important to this company.
• This promotion benefits research more than it benefits this company.

Full scale items shown. Always cite the original source when using this scale in research.

Usage notes & scoring

Three reliability estimates across independent samples: α = .933 (Study 1, n = 630 national panel), α = .881 (Study 2, n = 477 non-students), and α = .904 (Study 3) — Folse, Niedrich & Grau (2010). VALIDITY: CFA in each of the three studies confirmed adequate model fit and scale quality. NOTE: Adapted from Brown & Dacin's (1997) product-level social responsibility measure (Journal of Marketing 61(1), 68–84), reframed for organisational rather than product evaluation. Item 5 ('This promotion benefits research more than it benefits this company') is cause-specific and should be reviewed for applicability when used outside a cause-related marketing context.

Recommended companion scales

Citation

Folse, Judith Anne Garretson, Ronald W. Niedrich, and Stacy Landreth Grau (2010). Cause-retailing marketing: The effects of purchase quantity and firm donation amount on consumer inferences and participation intentions. Journal of Retailing, 86(4), 295–309.

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