Selfless First Movers and Self‐Interested Followers: Order of Entry Signals Purity of Motive in Pursuit of the Greater Good

When do brands get credit for contributing to the greater good? Prior research has shown that consumers reward brands for prosocial initiatives (e.g., corporate philanthropy, social responsibility, cause marketing) in line with the perceived purity of their motives. We report four experiments demonstrating that consumers interpret the order in which brands launch prosocial initiatives as a signal of their underlying motivations for doing good....