Are Consideration and Choice of Socially Involved Products Affected by Consumer Social Values?
Dr. André Carlos Martins Menck, Dr. João Bento de Oliveira Filho

Abstract
This paper investigates personal values moderating the importance of corporate social involvement on consumer behavior. It uses a choice setting in order to minimize social desirability, common in attitudinal responses. A mail survey with choice conjoint tasks was used for four different product categories. Corporate social involvement was found to be a strong source of value to consumers, with cross-elasticity levels of the same magnitude as other functional attributes. However, the hypothesized interaction between corporate social involvement and personal values did not receive empirical support. The conclusion is that a firm’s social involvement affects consumer behavior regardless of social-value market segments, in contrast to prevailing expectations.

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