关键词: CSR, 捐赠, 质量偏好, 消费者理性

Abstract: Corporate donations are a manifestation of their social responsibility, which helps to enhance brand image and stimulate market demand. Many companies use them as a marketing strategy. However, rational consumers may not overlook their preference for product quality due to corporate donation events. So, it is worth conducting in-depth research on how consumers’ attention and quality preferences towards donations affect market demand, how high the quality and donation settings are for the benefit of enterprises, and whether the dominant position of donation subjects affects quality and donation decisions.
This paper combs through the literature on the three dimensions of product quality decision-making in the context of supply chain, the interaction between CSR and quality and the impact of power structure on CSR and quality, and finds that few studies have examined the impact of CSR and quality level on market demand from the perspective of donation at the same time, and even fewer have considered the change in the CSR bearer body and the rational adjustment of the consumers’ attention to corporate donation. Based on this, the quality level and donation intensity are regarded as binary attributes of the product, the Hotelling model is introduced to portray the two-dimensional preference characteristics of consumers, the rational adjustment of consumers’ attention to donations is introduced into the market demand function, and the impacts of changes in the CSR bearer are investigated by integrating the three kinds of power structures: manufacturer-dominated, retailer-dominated and power-balanced. The results are compared with those of centralized decision-making to analyze the advantages and disadvantages of centralized decision-making, and the main conclusions and management insights of this paper are summarized with the help of numerical experiments.
The results show that: (1)The more sensitive consumers are, the greater the positive effect of donations, and the more it can improve the enthusiasm of enterprises for fulfilling social responsibility and the overall performance level of the chain. (2)When the power structure is asymmetric, it will be more favorable for follower firms to take on CSR; when the power structure is symmetric, each member will want the other to take on CSR. (3)When consumers are more sensitive to donations, an increase in quality sensitivity will lead to a decrease in CSR sensitivity, a weakening of the positive effect of CSR and a decrease in the supply chain’s performance level; when consumers are less sensitive to donation, an increase in quality sensitivity will lead to a decrease in the level of donations. However, the quality positive effect is more obvious, prompting the supply chain performance level to increase.
In addition, this paper can provide the following management insights: (1)In special circumstances such as natural disasters, donations provide psychological care and economic assistance to disaster-stricken areas, and have a CSR demonstration effect on other enterprises, which is beneficial for enhancing corporate image and brand promotion. (2)Donations have a positive effect on stimulating market demand and increasing corporate profits, but this effect will gradually weaken, and quality first should become the strategic goal of enterprises. But if consumers are more concerned about donations, companies can also win through donation marketing. (3)Enterprises should enhance their discourse power and influence in the supply chain by improving their own strength and management level, while promoting subordinate enterprises to fulfill CSR through incentive and cooperation mechanisms to optimize their own and overall profits. Enterprises can also establish strategic partnerships with companies with equivalent power, striving to achieve a “matching door” and flexibly deciding who will undertake CSR based on actual circumstances.

Key words: CSR, donation, quality preference, consumer rationality