The interactions of CSR, self-congruity and purchase intention among Chinese consumers

• In the context of Chinese consumers, we found that the relationship between four dimensions of CSR (i.e., economic, legal, ethical, philanthropic) and purchase intention.
• Basic responsibilities such as economic and legal responsibility affected purchase intention directly, while high-level responsibilities such as ethical and philanthropic responsibility affected purchase intention through the mediation of self-congruity.

This research aimed to identify the influence of Chinese consumers' beliefs about dimensions of corporate social responsibility (CSR) on self-congruity and their purchase intentions in the fashion industry. We examined the relationship between four dimensions of CSR (i.e., economic, legal, ethical, philanthropic) and purchase intention and hypothesised that basic responsibilities such as economic and legal responsibility affected purchase intention directly, while high-level responsibilities such as ethical and philanthropic responsibility affected purchase intention through the mediation of self-congruity. The results of our online survey supported our hypotheses. This finding implies that consumers' self-concept is closely related to the higher-level CSR dimensions and less related to the basic duties of companies such as their economic and legal responsibility. We confirmed that fashion companies' ethical responsibility and philanthropic responsibility could be more influential when it was self-congruous. We found that ethical responsibility is a relatively weak dimension in influencing purchase intention compared with other CSR dimensions. Based on this result, we suggest several implications for companies interested in the Chinese market.

Chinese abstract本研究旨在鉴定中国消费者于企业社会责任维度的理解对自我一致性和时装购买意愿的影响。本文研究了四个CSR维度（经济、法律、道德、慈善）和购买意向之间的关系，并推测，诸如经济和法律的基本企业责任，直接影响消费者购买意向，而道德和慈善等高层次责任通过调解自我一致性，从而影响消费者的购买意向。在线调查结果证实了该假设。该发现表明，消费者的自我概念与高层次的CSR维度密切相关，和公司的基本职责，例如经济和法律责任关联不大。研究证实，对自我一致性较强的时装公司而言，企业的道德和慈善责任更具影响力。本研究发现，同其他CSR维度相比，道德责任对消费者购买意向的影响相对薄弱。在此基础上，我们为有意在中国市场发展的企业提出几点建议。