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ABSTRACT. Based on a consumer survey conducted
in France, Germany, and the U.S., the study investi-
gates consumers readiness to support socially respon-
sible organizations and examines their evaluations
of the economic, legal, ethical, and philanthropic
responsibilities of the firm. French and German
consumers appear more willing to actively support
responsible businesses than their U.S. counterparts.
While U.S. consumers value highly corporate eco-
nomic responsibilities, French and German consumers
are most concerned about businesses conforming with
legal and ethical standards. These findings provide
useful guidance for the efficient management of social
responsibility initiatives across borders and for fur ther
academic inquiries.
KEY WORDS: corporate benevolence, corporate
citizenship, corporate ethics, corporate social respon-
sibility, cross-cultural research, socially responsible
consumer behavior
The past ten years have witnessed the gradual
development of a research stream investigatinghow corporate social responsibility can help the
marketing of the organization and its products
to consumers. This trend started with Robin andReidenbachs (1988) conceptualization of cor-
porate social responsibility along with Varadarajanand Menons (1988) depiction of cause-related
marketing. Since then, the marketing potentialof corporate responsibility initiatives has been
investigated by a flourishing body of literaturewith a focus on issues such as corporate envi-
ronmentalism (e.g., Drumwright, 1994; Menonand Menon, 1997), corporate citizenship (e.g.,
Maignan et al., 1999), and more generally frommarketing actions with a social dimension (e.g.,
Brown and Dacin, 1997; Drumwright, 1996;Handelman and Arnold, 1999; Osterhus, 1997).
A few industry surveys (e.g., Business Wire,1997; Jones, 1997; Lorge, 1999) and formal
academic inquiries (e.g., Brown and Dacin, 1997;
Handelman and Arnold, 1999) have yielded pre-liminary evidence revealing that corporate social
responsibility may induce consumer goodwilltoward the organisation. However, past surveys
have either focused on limited aspects of corpo-rate social responsibility such as community
involvement or corporate giving (e.g., Brown andDacin, 1997) or have considered corporate social
responsibility in general without inquiring aboutconsumers understanding of this notion (e.g.,
Business Wire, 1997; Smith, 1996). As a result,past research has suggested that consumers arewilling to support socially responsible businesses,
but has not characterised the corporate behav-iours that are perceived as significant of social
responsibility by consumers. In addition, theconcept of corporate social responsibility and
most of the empirical work on the topic origi-
nate from the U.S. (for exceptions, see Maignanand Ferrell, 2000; Pinkston and Carroll, 1994).Yet, given the international scope of corporate
activities today, it is essential for businesses toknow whether corporate social responsibilities
are perceived in the same manner across borders.
Against this backdrop, the main objective ofthis study was to add to existing U.S. research
by considering the potential of corporate social
Consumers Perceptions of
Corporate Social Responsibilities:
A Cross-Cultural Comparison Isabelle Maignan
Journal of Business Ethics 30: 5772, 2001. 2001 Kluwer Academic Publishers. Printed in the Netherlands.
Isabelle Maignan is an assistant professor of marketing atthe University of Groningen, The Netherlands. Herwork has appeared in theJournal of Business Ethics,
Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science,
Journal of Business Research, Journal of
Advertising, along with other journals and conferenceproceedings.
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responsibility as a consumer marketing tool in
three countries. To that effect, the research firstevaluated the extent to which consumers in
France, Germany, and the U.S. are willing tosupport responsible organizations when shopping.
Then, the study investigated how consumers inthese three countries evaluate the economic,legal, ethical, and philanthropic responsibilities of
businesses. Comparing consumers understandingof and reaction to corporate social responsibility
in France, Germany, and the U.S. seemedrelevant given, on the one hand, the similarity of
these three nations in terms of economic devel-opment and democratic tradition and, on the
other hand, their vastly differing nationalideologies (Lodge, 1990; Thurow, 1992) and
cultural values (Hofstede, 1980, 1983; Schwartz,1992).
Background of the study
In this section, past research findings on con-
sumers reactions to responsible corporate behav-iors is first reviewed briefly. Then, the nature of
corporate social responsibilities is discussed.
Do consumers support socially responsible businesses?
Very little research has examined the extent to
which consumers are willing to make an effort
to support socially responsible businesses andpunish irresponsible organizations. Preliminary
evidence has been provided by industry surveys.For example, a study by Walker research found
that 88 percent of U.S. consumers are more likelyto buy from a company that is socially respon-
sible (Smith, 1996). Similarly, a survey by the
Council on Foundations indicated that sixteenpercent of U.S. consumers claim to seek do-gooders when shopping while another forty
percent found corporate citizenship to be a tie-
breaking activity (Council on Foundations,1996). Even though these studies are encouraging
for socially responsible businesses, they considersocial responsibility in general and do not
examine how consumers characterize corporatesocial responsibility.
Among academic inquiries, interesting findings
were brought about by Brown and Dacin
(1997) who demonstrated in an experiment thatnegative corporate responsibility associations can
have a detr imental effect on overall product eval-
uation, whereas positive associations can enhanceproduct evaluations. Brown and Dacin (1997)used two activities to induce corporate social
responsibility associations: corporate giving andcommunity involvement. Even though these
two activities are significant of philanthropicresponsibility, they do not represent the full
spectrum of corporate social responsibility ini-tiatives. Thus, Brown and Dacin s (1997) study
merely suggests that some philanthropic actions
can affect product evaluations. In another exper-
imental study, Handelman and Arnold (1999)observed that marketing actions with a socialdimension generate consumers support for the
organization. Handelman and Arnold (1999)considered three types of corporate social actions:
commitment to the family, the community, andthe nation. Accordingly, the authors assessed con-
sumers evaluations of three specific types ofresponsibility initiatives, but could not establish
how consumers act toward an organization that
they consider as generally responsible. In fact, asdiscussed below, past research has provided very
limited insights into consumers definition ofsocially responsible corporate behaviors.
What is corporate social responsibility?
Bowen (1953) has been acknowledged as thefirst scholar to have written a manuscript on the
topic of corporate responsibilities (Carroll, 1979;Wartick and Cochran, 1985). Bowen (1953)
claimed that businesses have the obligation to
pursue those policies, to make those decisions,or to follow those lines of action which are desir-
able in terms of the objectives and values of oursociety (p. 6). This seminal contribution was
the starting point of an abundant literature onthe nature of corporate social responsibilities
(e.g., Ackerman and Bauer, 1976; Davis, 1973;Eells and Walton, 1961; Mason, 1960; McGuire,
1963).In order to characterize the exact nature of
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businesses social duties, scholars have generally
adopted one of the two following paths: (1) sur-veying managers about the importance for
businesses to adopt a certain number of behav-iors (e.g., Eells and Walton, 1961; Eilbert and
Parket, 1973; McGuire, 1963; Sethi, 1979), or(2) defining corporate social responsibilities basedon normative arguments (e.g., Ackerman and
Bauer, 1976; Davis, 1973; Swanson, 1995; Wood,1991). Carroll (1979) adopted the second path
to develop a classification of corporate socialresponsibilities that has been widely adopted in
later research (e.g., Lewin et al., 1995; Swanson,1995; Wartick and Cochran, 1985; Wood, 1991).
Carroll (1979) suggested that businesses have tofulfill four main responsibilities: economic, legal,
ethical, and philanthropic. Economic responsi-bilities designate the obligations for businesses to
be productive and profitable. Legal responsibili-
ties correspond to societys expectation to seebusinesses meet their economic duties within the
framework of legal requirements. Ethical respon-sibilities require that businesses abide by estab-
lished norms defining appropriate behavior, andphilanthropic responsibilities reflect the common
desire to see businesses get actively involved inthe betterment of society.
Interestingly, this acknowledged classification like other less established frameworks has not
been brought to the scrutiny of consumers or of
the general public. Even though the notion ofcorporate social responsibility implies that cor-
porate activities have to conform with establishedsocial norms and values (Sethi, 1979), prevailing
social norms have not been formally surveyed inpast research. Some empirical studies surveyed
managers understanding of corporate socialresponsibilities based on Carrolls (1979) classifi-
cation (e.g., Aupperle, Carroll and Hatfield,
1985; Pinkston and Carroll, 1994); yet noattempt has been made to establish whether thisframework depicts appropriately consumers per-
ceptions of corporate responsibilities.
Overall, the value of corporate social respon-sibility as a consumer marketing tool remains
uncertain for three main reasons. First, there isvery limited evidence that consumers are indeed
willing to give their support for examplethrough repeat purchase or positive word-of-
mouth to socially responsible businesses.
Second, little is known about consumers defin-
ition of socially responsible corporate behaviors.Third, corporate social responsibilities have
been investigated mostly in the U.S.; hence, the
appropriateness of these corporate actions as away to market the organization to consumersacross borders remains uncertain. Against these
caveats, the study examined the extent towhich consumers in France, Germany, and the
U.S. are willing to grant their active support tosocially responsible businesses. In addition, the
research compared and contrasted consumersevaluation of corporate social responsibilities
as defined by Carroll (1979) in the three coun-
tries considered. The next section introduces
the hypotheses at the heart of the empiricalinvestigation.
Hypotheses development
This section is divided in three parts. First, con-
sumers support for corporate social responsibilityin the three countries of interest is considered.
Then, the relative importance attributed byconsumers in each country to economic, legal,
ethical, and philanthropic responsibilities respec-
tively is discussed. Finally, consumers evaluationsare compared across countries.
Lodges (1990) comparative analysis ofbusiness-government relations in the U.S. and
Europe is used as a conceptual background tosurvey cross-national differences. Lodge (1990)
suggested that the underlying ideology of acountry encourages firms in that country to
pursue a primary strategic objective; this positionreceived empirical support in a study by Katz et
al. (1998). Lodges (1990) depiction of national
ideologies is especially relevant for the presentstudy since consumers depiction of corporate
social responsibilities can be expected to reflectunderlying national ideologies. Lodge (1990)
differentiated between individualist and com-munitarian ideologies. Individualism values the
short-term betterment of the individual, whereascommunitarianism emphasizes the needs of the
community and the benefits of consensus. Lodgefurther classified the U.S. as an exemplar of the
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individualistic ideology, while he depicted France
and Germany as mainly communitarian coun-tries. Whereas Lodge (1990) examined national
ideologies based on the structure of the interac-tions between government and businesses,
Hofstede (1980, 1983) and Schwartz (1992) con-sidered the characteristics of national culturesaccording to the values held by individuals. Yet,
the results of these two different approachesconcur since both Hofstede (1980, 1983) and
Schwartz (1992) also rated France and Germanyas more collectivist and less individualist than
the U.S.These general evaluations of national ideolo-
gies and cultures are also in agreement with morespecialized analyses that have compared the social
responsibility and ethics practices in the U.S. andEurope (e.g., Buchholz, 1998; Vogel, 1992). For
example, Vogel (1992) noted that the U.S.
approach to business ethics is more individual-istic, legalistic, and universalistic than in any other
capitalist societies (p. 30).
Support for corporate social responsibility acrossborders
Given that the French and German ideologies arecommunitarian, consumers in those two coun-
tries are likely to incorporate societys well-being
in their shopping decisions. Thus, they mayconsider corporate social responsibility as an
important purchasing criterion. They may evenbe ready to make specific efforts for example
paying a higher price or shopping at a less con-venient location to buy the products of com-
panies known to be socially responsible, whileavoiding to purchase from companies with a poor
reputation in terms of social responsibility. Such
proactive behaviors in favor of responsible orga-nizations may not be as prevalent in the U.S.where individualism may dictate consumers to
pay less attention to the social impact of corpo-
rate activities. Accordingly, the followinghypotheses (H1, H2a, H2b) are advanced:
H1: Consumers in France and Germany will
give the same level of support to sociallyresponsible businesses when shopping.
H2: Consumers in (a) France and (b)
Germany will be more supportive of
socially responsible businesses whenshopping than U.S. consumers.
Evaluation of corporate social responsibilities in eachcountry
As discussed earlier, Carroll (1979) identified
four different types of corporate responsibilities:economic, legal, ethical, and philanthropic. Since
this framework has been widely acknowledged inthe literature (e.g., Lewin et al., 1995; Maignan
et al., 1999; Swanson, 1995; Wartick and
Cochran, 1985; Wood, 1991), its dimensions can
be expected to be meaningful to consumers.Subsequently, consumers are likely to differen-tiate between the four types of social responsi-
bilities as suggested in the following hypothesis:
H3: Consumers in France, Germany, andthe U.S. respectively will distinguish
between the four following types ofcorporate social responsibilities: (1)
economic, (2) legal, (3) ethical, and (4)philanthropic.
Carroll (1979) stated that: The first andforemost social responsibility of businesses is
economic in nature. Before anything else, thebusiness institution is the basic economic unit in
our society (p. 500). Carroll further ranked theother corporate responsibilities in the following
decreasing order of importance: (1) legal, (2)ethical, and (3) philanthropic responsibilities.
One may wonder whether the ranking proposedby Carroll on the basis of very limited norma-
tive arguments is also shared by consumers in the
three countries considered. Since the U.S. isdepicted as the best example of the individualist
ideology (Lodge, 1990), its different social actorsare likely to consider that both themselves and
other social actors strive to serve mainly theirshort term self-interests. Accordingly, U.S. con-
sumers probably expect businesses to strive toachieve high profitability levels. Thus, the
following hypotheses (H4a, H4b, H4c) areproposed:
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H4: Consumers in the U.S. will allocate
more importance to corporate eco-nomic responsibilities than to corporate
(a) legal, (b) ethical, and (c) philan-thropic responsibilities respectively.
Given that Germany and France are charac-terized mainly by a communitarian ideology, the
members of these two societies are unlikely toperceive the pursuit of ones self-interest as an
appropriate overriding goal for any social agent.Accordingly, French and German consumers may
not view economic achievements as the primary
social duty of businesses. Instead, these con-sumers may sense that businesses should use
their economic resources to foster the well-being
of society in general. Accordingly, corporateeconomic responsibilities may be viewed byFrench and German consumers as secondary to
other corporate social responsibilities. Thus, thefollowing hypotheses (H5a, H5b, H5c) are
advanced:
H5: Consumers in France and Germany will
allocate less importance to corporateeconomic responsibilities than to cor-
porate (a) legal, (b) ethical, and (c) phil-anthropic responsibilities.
Hypotheses H4 and H5 compare the impor-tance attributed to economic responsibilities
relative to other social responsibilities in eachcountry. As far as the other three social respon-
sibilities are concerned, Carroll (1979) proposedthe following decreasing order of importance: (1)
legal, (2) ethical, and (3) philanthropic. The
analyses by Lodge (1990), Hofstede (1980, 1983)or Schwartz (1992) do not provide any specific
reasoning suggesting whether or not this rankingis applicable in each of the three countries con-
sidered. Consequently, Carrolls evaluation isadopted and the following hypothesis is sug-
gested:
H6: Consumers in France, Germany, and theU.S. will rank the legal, ethical, and
philanthropic corporate responsibilitiesin the following decreasing order of
importance: (1) legal, (2) ethical, and (3)discretionary.
Comparison of corporate social responsibilities acrosscountries
Lodges (1990) analysis of national ideologies
along with Hofstedes (1980, 1983) and
Schwartzs (1992) studies of national cultures donot clearly differentiate between France andGermany in terms of individualism and com-
munitarianism. Consequently, as stated in the fol-lowing hypotheses (H7a to H7d), the importance
attributed to each type of social responsibility isnot expected to differ significantly among French
and German consumers.
H7: Consumers in France and Germany will
allocate the same level of importance to
corporate (a) economic, (b) legal, (c)ethical, and (d) philanthropic responsi-
bilities.
As discussed earlier, U.S. consumers are likelyto view economic achievements as the most
important corporate responsibilities whereasFrench and German consumers are not expected
to view economic achievements as the overriding
goal of corporations. Consequently, corporateeconomic responsibilities are likely to be granted
more importance by U.S. consumers than by
their French and German counterparts. Hence,the following hypotheses (H8a and H8b) areproposed:
H8: Consumers in the U.S. will allocate
more importance to corporate eco-
nomic responsibilities than consumers in(a) France, and (b) Germany.
Given the prevalence of the communitarian
ideology in France and Germany, consumers inboth nations can be expected to allocate much
importance to businesses conforming to thenorms and values acknowledged as essential in
their respective country. Hence, these twoconsumer groups might be especially eager to
see businesses follow the appropriate modes ofbehavior as defined in ethical principles and in
the law. Accordingly, the following hypotheses
(H9a, H9b, H10a, H10b) are proposed:
H9: Consumers in (a) France and (b)Germany will allocate more importance
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to corporate legal responsibilities than
consumers in the U.S.H10: Consumers in (a) France and (b)
Germany will allocate more importanceto corporate ethical responsibilities than
consumers in the U.S.
In addition, the communitarian nature of theFrench and German ideologies is likely to make
the search for a common good an overridingobjective of all social agents, including businesses.
Consumers in these two countries may valuemore than their U.S. counterparts the initiatives
undertaken by businesses to actively foster thewell-being of society. Thus, as advanced in the
following hypotheses (H11a and H11b), U.S.consumers may attribute less importance to
philanthropic responsibilities than French and
German consumers respectively:
H11: Consumers in the U.S. will allocate lessimportance to corporate philanthropic
responsibilities than consumers in (a)France and (b) Germany.
Methodology
This section first introduces the steps that wereadopted to develop measurement instruments.
Then, the data gathering process is presented.
Instrument development
One common procedure was employed todevelop measures of (1) consumers support of
socially responsible businesses and (2) consumersevaluation of corporate social responsibilities.
First, a literature search was conducted in the
hope of finding relevant existing measurementinstruments. Two existing scales were especiallyuseful to measure consumers evaluation of cor-
porate social responsibilities. First, Aupperle,Carroll and Hatfield (1985) constructed a survey
instrument that assessed managers evaluation of
the four social responsibilities defined by Carroll(1979). A second useful reference was a scale
developed by Maignan and Ferrell (2000) tosurvey businesses commitment to corporate
citizenship on the basis of information provided
by managers. This instrument was based onCarrolls (1979) classification of social responsi-
bilities and was developed specifically to beapplicable in both the U.S. and France. The
authors discussion of cross-cultural differenceswas instrumental for the present study.
In a second step, an initial battery of items
was generated for each of the two measures.Consistent with the recommendations of
Churchill (1979), three pre-tests were employedto assess the quality, face validity, and content
validity of the items. First, the items were sub-mitted to six scholars with an expertise in the
field of business and society. These scholars hadto pinpoint any ambiguous item and had to rate
each item in terms of representativeness andconsistency. Based on the comments therebyobtained, items were modified and rephrased. In
a second pre-test, the resulting items were sub-mitted to university employees excluding pro-
fessors in each country. These informants wereasked to participate in a survey about shopping.
Respectively 53, 45, and 42 usable questionnaireswere obtained in the U.S., France, and Germany.
The items descriptive statistics, inter-item alongwith item-to-total correlations, and reliability
estimates were examined and helped furtherrefine the instrument. At this stage, potential
wording and formulation consistency issues
became apparent and were solved. Finally, theresulting items were submitted again to the six
experts in the field of business and society. Theirsuggestions led to only some minor modifications
in the wording and presentation of the items.This procedure resulted in a five-item instru-
ment to measure consumers support of respon-sible businesses. On a seven-point scale, the
informants had to rate the following statements:
(1) I would pay more to buy products from asocially responsible company; (2) I consider the
ethical reputation of businesses when I shop; (3)I avoid buying products from companies that
have engaged in immoral actions; (4) I would paymore to buy the products of a company that
shows caring for the well-being of our society;(5) If the price and quality of two products are
the same, I would buy from the firm that has asocially responsible reputation. An exploratory
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factor analysis with a varimax rotation was con-
ducted and yielded one single factor in eachsample. The resulting reliability coefficients
were: 0.97, 0.92, and 0.96 for the French,German, and U.S. samples respectively. For the
measure of consumers evaluation of corporatesocial responsibilities, a total of sixteen itemswere employees four for each social responsi-
bility. Respondents had to rate each item on aseven point scale (ranging from strongly disagree
to strongly agree) based on the statement: Ibelieve that businesses must . . . (all scale items
are presented in Table I).Much attention was paid to maintaining trans-
lation equivalence (Agarwal, 1992). To thateffect, all the items employed were first translated
into French and German respectively and back-translated into English by professional translators.
The few discrepancies observed between the
original instrument and its back translated versionwere only minor and easily solved by the trans-
lators. The resulting questionnaire was entitledSurvey of Shopping Styles and included forty
items asking about shopping habits in addition tothe measures developed for the purpose of this
study. Demographic questions were also incor-porated in the survey.
Data collection
One main concern with the data collection
process was to obtain information from compa-rable samples in France, Germany, and the U.S.
Recruiting consumers within a similar workplaceenvironment seemed to provide some assurance
of sample comparability in terms of social status,education, and lifestyles. Consequently, ques-
tionnaires were distributed in different insurance
companies and banks in each of the three coun-tries. Specifically, in the U.S., informants wererecruited among one bank in a South Eastern
city, and one insurance company in a North
Eastern city. In France, questionnaires weredistributed in one insurance company and
two banks, all located in metropolitan areas. InGermany, a bank and an insurance company
located in the Western part of the country wereemployed as data gathering sites.
In each case, a contact person was asked to pass
two hundred questionnaires among colleagues at
all levels of the organizations and in as many dif-ferent departments as possible. The German
contacts managed to pass only 120 surveys. A
total of 169 French, 94 German, and 145 U.S.usable questionnaires were returned. An exami-nation of the respondents demographic profile
(see Table II) revealed that the three samples werequite comparable in terms of age, gender, edu-
cation, and position in the company.
Analysis and results
Support for corporate social responsibility across
borders
A summary of the study results is presented in
Table III. An analysis of covariance (ANCOVA)was used to test for hypotheses H1 through
H2b with responsible shopping behaviors as thedependent variable and age, gender, and educa-
tion as covariates. All three covariates were sig-nificant; the resulting F was also statistically
significant (F = 9.50; df = 2; p < 0.01). Apost-hoc LSD test first revealed no difference inthe average score obtained in France and in
Germany. Thus, hypothesis H1 was supported.The post hoc test also indicated that the mean
score obtained for consumers support of corpo-rate social responsibility was significantly higher
in France (mean = 4.95) and Germany (mean =5.19) respectively than in the U.S. (mean =
4.40). Hence, hypotheses H2a and H2b weresupported.
Evaluation of corporate social responsibilities in each
country
Exploratory factor analyses were conducted inde-pendently in each sample to examine hypothesis
H3. As indicated in Table I, four factors onefor each type of corporate social responsibility
were clearly apparent in the three samples.No instance of obvious cross-loading could be
observed; communality and eigenvalue indicatorsalso fell within recommended guidelines (Hair et
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al., 1995). These results provided support for
hypothesis H3: French, German, and U.S. con-sumers respectively appeared to clearly regroup
corporate social responsibilities according to their
economic, legal, ethical, and philanthropicnature. As shown in Table I, reliability scores
were good for each type of corporate socialresponsibility in the three countries: cronbach
alpha ranged from 0.81 to 0.92 in the Frenchsample, from 0.91 to 0.96 in the German sample,
and from 0.86 to 0.93 in the U.S. sample.Table IV presents the correlations between
each type of corporate social responsibilities inFrance, Germany, and the U.S. respectively. This
Table also reports the correlation scores obtainedbetween each social responsibility and an overall
responsibility item included in the survey:
I believe that businesses must make effortsto behave in a socially responsible manner.
Interestingly, in all three samples, economicresponsibilities were either not significantly cor-
related or negatively correlated to the otherthree social responsibilities, except for legal
responsibilities in France. In addition, unlike thelegal, ethical, and discretionary responsibilities,
economic responsibilities were not significantlyassociated with the overall responsibility item in
France and Germany and were negatively
correlated to that item in the U.S. Yet, the meanscores allocated to economic responsibilities were
above the neutral point in each sample. Theseobservations imply that consumers do allocate
economic responsibilities to businesses, but dif-
ferentiate between corporate economic respon-sibilities on the one hand and corporate legal,
ethical, and philanthropic responsibilities on theother hand. A further examination of Table IV
indicated that philanthropic responsibilitieswere not associated significantly with the other
three responsibilities in the French sample only.However, they were positively correlated to the
overall responsibility item.Hypotheses H4a to H6 were tested through a
series of one-sample t-tests in each country (see
Table IV). In the U.S. sample, consumers ratedeconomic responsibilities as significantly more
important than ethical (t= 3.13,p < 0.01) andphilanthropic responsibilities (t = 9.37, p U.S.
GR. > U.S.
a Covariates included in the analyses: education and gender; b Covariates included in the analysis: education,
gender and age; c Covariate included in the analysis: gender; d Covariate included in the analysis: age; *p
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