报告时间：12月30日10:00-12:00

报告地点：管楼G216

报告题目：Effect of Consumer Awareness on Corporate Social Responsibility Under Asymmetric Information

报告摘要

This paper investigates the interaction between a firm and its consumers under the consideration of corporate social responsibility (CSR) and asymmetric information. We develop a game-theoretic model in which a firm can be either socially responsible or irresponsible. Consumers cannot observe the firm's exact CSR type, but the firm can communicate its CSR type through price and a noisy third-party certification. We adopt the signaling-game framework and solve the model to derive insights. Among other results, we highlight that, due to information asymmetry, as more consumers become socially concerned or as they have a stronger willingness to reward (punish) the responsible (irresponsible) firm, the responsible firm might be worse off, whereas the irresponsible firm might be better off. On the other hand, improving the accuracy of the deployed certifications will always benefit the responsible firm but may not necessarily hurt the irresponsible firm. We also find that the consumer-oriented CSR initiatives (e.g., increasing consumers' CSR awareness or enhancing their willingness to reward/punish) may cause social and environmental damages under asymmetric information. In addition, we extend our base model to endogenize the firm's CSR engagement decision and show that combining price signaling with a reasonably accurate certification could incentivize the profit-maximizing firm to adopt CSR when there are enough consumers concerning about CSR. Our results suggest that addressing the information asymmetry issue is key to aligning consumers' goodwill with firms' responsible behaviors. Concerned parties should first exert efforts to create transparency in firms' sustainability practices before making investments to educate consumers and influence their purchasing behaviors.

报告人简介

Dr. Guang Xiao is an Associate Professor at Department of Logistics and Maritime Studies, Hong Kong Polytechnic University. He received his bachelor’s degrees in Applied Mathematics and Philosophy from Peking University, master degree of Operations Research from University of Delaware, and Ph.D. degree in Operations Management from Washington University in St. Louis. His research interests include supply chain risk management, operations-marketing/finance interface, socially responsible operations, etc. His research has been published in leading journals, including Management Science, Manufacturing & Service Operations Management, and Production and Operations Management.