PREDICTING THE IMPACT OF CULTURAL VALUES AND SOCIOECONOMICS ON INTERNATIONAL CAUSE-RELATED MARKETING STRATEGIES.

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) is an important component of band equity strategy. To demonstrate CSR, firms often engage in cause-related marketing (CRM). CRM programs feature the firm's contribution of a percentage of each sale to a designated charitable cause. To date, few studies have examined CRM strategy in an international marketing context. This is surprising given research showing that: 1) consumers hold global firms to a higher CSR standard than local firms; 2) CSR explains a meaningful portion of brand preferences worldwide; and 3) globalization continues to drive international trade, global firms, and non-local consumption alternatives. To address the current gap, this research proposes a new model that hypothesizes the effects of cultural value orientation on international firms' CRM success. The model predicts that effects of "sponsor brand attitude" and "perceived fit between sponsor brand and sponsored cause" on positive CRM outcomes will vary depending on the target market's cultural value orientation. The new conceptual framework offers theoretically grounded propositions designed to assist international marketing managers while facilitating future research on international CRM strategy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]