When CSR-based identification backfires: Testing the effects of CSR-related negative publicity

In the face of much research documenting an ameliorative, buffering effect of consumer-company identification on consumer reactions to negative publicity about a company, this paper theorizes and demonstrates, through two studies, that when such identification is based on a company's CSR (i.e., corporate social responsibility), as opposed to CA (i.e., corporate ability), strongly identified consumers react more, rather than less, negatively to...