UNDERSTANDING ATTRIBUTIONS OFCORPORATE SOCIAL IRRESPONSIBILI.docx

UNDERSTANDING ATTRIBUTIONS OF
CORPORATE SOCIAL IRRESPONSIBILITY
DONALD LANGE
Arizona State University
NATHAN T. WASHBURN
Thunderbird School of Global Management
Notwithstanding the significance to organizations of external
reactions to bad behav-
ior, the corporate social responsibility literature tends to focus
on the meaning of and
expectations for responsible behavior, rather than on the
meaning of irresponsible
behavior. Here we develop a theoretical perspective that
explicitly focuses on irre-
sponsibility and that particularly helps explain attributions of
social irresponsibility
in the minds of the firm’s observers. In contrast to approaches
in the corporate social
responsibility literature that tend to deemphasize the role of the
individual perceiver
of firm behavior in favor of emphasizing such broader social
structures as value
systems, institutions, and stakeholder relations, our focus is on
how the social reality
of external expectations for social responsibility is rooted in the
perceptions of the
beholder. We draw on attribution theory to describe how
attributions of irresponsibil-
ity stem from the observer’s subjective assessments of effect

undesirability, corporate
culpability, and affected party noncomplicity. We describe how
those assessments
affect each other and how they are influenced by the observer’s
perceptions of effect
and firm characteristics and by the observer’s social
identification with the affected
party or the implicated corporation. We conclude by describing
the important role of
frames on irresponsibility attributions.
Widespread external perceptions that a firm
has acted in a socially irresponsible manner
can have negative consequences for a firm,
since an organization’s success—indeed its sur-
vival—depends, in part, on satisfying normative
expectations from its environment (Pfeffer &
Salancik, 1978; Scott, 2008). When organizational
action seems controversial to observers and
constituents, the firm risks losing current and
potential members, as well as outside endorse-
ment and support, and it risks providing “am-
munition for adversaries” (Elsbach & Sutton,
1992: 712). An organization that is seen as a bad
actor in society can have a hard time attracting
customers, investors, and employees (Fombrun,
1996). Indeed, ample evidence from empirical
research shows that counternormative behavior
can lead to such consequences for the firm as
lawsuits, financial losses through settlements
and sales declines, increases in the cost of cap-
ital, market share deterioration, network partner
loss, or other costs associated with a negative
reputation (e.g., Baucus & Baucus, 1997; David-
son, Worrell, & Cheng, 1994; Haunschild, Sulli-

van, & Page, 2006; Karpoff, Lee, & Martin, 2008;
Strachan, Smith, & Beedles, 1983).
In spite of the demonstrated significance to
organizations of reactions to bad behavior, the
corporate social responsibility (CSR) literature
tends to focus on the meaning of and expecta-
tions for responsible behavior, rather than on
the meaning of irresponsible behavior. Irre-
sponsibility, distinct from responsibility, is
often not discussed explicitly in the CSR litera-
ture,1 but the implication is that irresponsibility
is simply the opposite side of the responsibility
coin—that is, the failure to act responsibly. Here
we develop a theoretical perspective that ex-
plicitly focuses on irresponsibility and that par-
ticularly helps explain attributions of social ir-
responsibility in the minds of the firm’s
observers.
We are grateful to former associate editor Jean-Philippe
Bonardi and the three anonymous reviewers for providing
challenging and insightful feedback throughout the review
process.
1 A number of counterexamples to this tendency include
Mattingly and Berman (2006); Strike, Gao, and Bansal (2006);
Doh, Howton, Howton, and Siegel (2010); and Muller and
Kräussl (2011).
� Academy of Management Review
2012, Vol. 37, No. 2, 300–326.
http://dx.doi.org/10.5465/amr.2010.0522
300
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One reason that perceptions of social irre-
sponsibility are of particular interest is that they
have a greater capacity to arouse the firm’s ob-
servers. Research on human perception shows
that there is significant asymmetry between the
cognitive processing that observers do in re-
sponse to negative (adverse or threatening)
events and the cognitive processing they do in
response to positive events (Baumeister, Brat-
slavsky, Finkenauer, & Vohs, 2001; Fiske & Tay-
lor, 2008; Kanouse & Hanson, 1972). When con-
fronted with negative behavior, people will
spend more time thinking about it than positive
or neutral behavior, they will search more ex-
tensively for causal information, and their re-
sulting judgments, allegations, and actions will
be more extreme (Fiske & Taylor, 2008; Shaver,
1985; Taylor, 1991). As Shaver observes, “People
are never blamed for doing good” (1985: 3). Con-
sequently, perceptions of social irresponsibility
are likely to generate stronger observer reac-
tions and ultimately loom much larger for the
firm than perceptions of social responsibility
(Frooman, 1997; McGuire, Dow, & Argheyd, 2003;
Muller & Kräussl, 2011; Pfarrer, Pollock, & Rin-
dova, 2010; Rao & Hamilton, 1996).
Moreover—and owing to the heightened cog-
nitive activity and intensified causal search as-

sociated with negative behavior—attributions
of social irresponsibility are of particular inter-
est because they lend themselves to a focus on
the individual’s perceptions. Thus, they provide
a context for considering how social under-
standings of firm behavior in terms of appropri-
ateness and responsibility ultimately are rooted
in the interpretations and knowledge held by
individual observers of the firm (cf. Bitektine,
2011). This is important because, as a driver of
consequences for the firm, especially in terms of
the firm’s relationship with its environment, cor-
porate behavior is socially irresponsible only to
the extent that observers perceive it as such. Yet
in the CSR literature researchers have paid rel-
atively little attention to the question of how
such perceptions of firm irresponsibility come to
be. A commonality among different lines of CSR
research, whether from the stakeholder (e.g.,
Barnett, 2007), economic (e.g., Margolis & Walsh,
2003), reputation (e.g., Bertels & Peloza, 2008),
social contract (e.g., Donaldson & Dunfee, 1999),
or institutional (e.g., Campbell, 2007) perspec-
tive, is that each, in its own way, models envi-
ronmental expectations for socially responsible
behavior as a fairly stable social reality. This
approach is useful in many ways, but it risks
confusing expectations for social responsibility
as universal law and ignores the role of the
human observer in evaluating the firm’s behav-
ior in light of socially constructed expectations
(cf. Berger & Luckman, 1967: 187). In contrast to
the prevailing approach to environmental ex-
pectations found in the CSR literature—an ap-
proach that deemphasizes the role of the indi-

vidual perceiver of firm behavior in favor of
emphasizing such broader social structures as
value systems, institutions, and stakeholder re-
lations—our focus here is on how the social
reality of firm irresponsibility has its roots in the
perceptions of the beholder.
ATTRIBUTION THEORY AND PERCEPTIONS
OF CORPORATE SOCIAL IRRESPONSIBILITY
In this article we consider how subjective un-
derstandings and interpretations of firm behav-
ior can add up to perceptions of corporate social
irresponsibility. The subjective nature of those
understandings and interpretations might un-
derlie, for example, the greater degree of public
disdain directed at BP in the United States in the
wake of its 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill relative
to the public disdain directed at Royal Dutch
Shell—in spite of Shell’s association with mas-
sive amounts of oil spilled over the past
fifty years, causing tremendous environmental
destruction in the Niger Delta (Nossiter, 2010).
Similarly, the subjective nature of observer un-
derstandings and interpretations might under-
lie the higher level of public scorn directed at
Ford Motor Company in the 1970s for its Pinto
model relative to that directed at its competitors
with their own compact cars. The Ford Pinto
became known as a deathtrap and one of the
worst cars ever made (Dowie, 1977), even though
other compact cars on the market at the time
(e.g., Chevrolet Vega, AMC Gremlin, Toyota Co-
rolla, Volkswagen Beetle) shared many of the
Pinto’s design flaws and had similar track re-
cords in terms of occupant deaths per million

cars in operation (Schwartz, 1991). Ford execu-
tives were characterized as having “deliber-
ately and intentionally made a high-level cor-
porate decision which they knew would kill or
maim a known and finite number of people”
(Schwartz, 1991: 1036), while other carmakers es-
caped this attribution.
2012 301Lange and Washburn
Certainly, as with most of the countless exam-
ples where one firm or firm action is widely seen
as more socially irresponsible than another,
there are identifiable characteristics of the BP
and Pinto situations that lend themselves to
subjective perceptions of irresponsibility. With
respect to BP, the Gulf spill was relatively con-
centrated in time, especially compared to incre-
mental spills occurring over many years, and it
followed a dramatic oil platform explosion that
killed oil workers. From the perspective of
United States observers, the BP spill was geo-
graphically proximate, and it had an immediate
negative economic impact. All of these charac-
teristics distinguished BP’s profile in the Gulf oil
spill situation from Shell’s profile in the Niger
Delta oil spill situation. With respect to Ford, the
Pinto was associated, in lawsuits and press re-
ports, not just with the debilitating injuries and
deaths of its occupants, including children, but
also with automobile fires and explosions.
Moreover, Ford was associated in the press—
accurately or not—with callous and heartless
corporate decision making, including a putative

internal and secretive cost-benefit analysis in
which the financial cost to Ford of the human
lives predicted to be lost in Pintos was com-
pared to the cost of making the Pinto safer
(Gioia, 1992). All of these characteristics distin-
guished Ford’s profile in the Pinto situation from
its competitors’ profiles.
Our objective is to achieve a better under-
standing of these kinds of effects, whereby char-
acteristics within given situations predictably
skew subjective perceptions and, in particular,
an observer’s perception that a firm is socially
irresponsible. Understanding these effects is
valuable not only for researchers but also for
practitioners, since subjective perceptions help
constitute the external environment within
which the firm must exist and with which the
firm must interact. As Wry notes with respect to
how external observers react to a firm and its
behavior, “Individuals act based on perceptions,
not objective reality” (2009: 156). An observer’s
belief that a firm has the quality of social irre-
sponsibility is, in effect, an attribution—a term
that we use from attribution theory to describe
an observer’s explanations of the firm’s behav-
iors and outcomes in terms of firm and situa-
tional characteristics. Indeed, attribution theory
provides the theoretical foundation in this
article as we develop our descriptive model of
perceptions of corporate social irresponsibility.
Attribution theory—which is, in reality, a collec-
tion of theories and theoretical perspectives
(Kelley & Michela, 1980)—was developed in so-
cial psychology and extended to organization

studies (Martinko, 2004) and is devoted to the
nature, causes, and consequences of attribu-
tions (e.g., Hamilton, 1980; Heider, 1958; Kelley,
1973; Kelley & Michela, 1980; Lord & Smith, 1983;
Martinko, 2004). At the level of the observer, the
idea of corporate social irresponsibility is a cog-
nitive structure, or schema, meaning that it is an
element of the observer’s abstract expectations
about how the world operates (Fiske & Taylor,
1991). We draw on arguments central to attribu-
tion theory, especially about how observers form
causal inferences (Heider, 1958; Kelley & Mi-
chela, 1980) and moral judgments (Brewin &
Antaki, 1987; Hamilton, 1980; Jones & Davis, 1965;
Kanouse & Hanson, 1972), to help explain the
factors that may lead observers to categorize
observations of firm behavior as fitting the so-
cial irresponsibility schema.
While the firm and situation being observed
have specific qualities that exist independent of
an observer, in this article we explore the theo-
retical mechanisms that influence an observer’s
attention to and interpretation of those qualities.
Corporate social irresponsibility attributions
are rationally derived as the observer considers
the evidence about the firm’s behavior and sit-
uation, but because those attributions are de-
pendent upon the individual’s attention and in-
terpretation, they are highly subjective. As Fiske
and Taylor write, attribution is “far from logical
and thorough” (1991: 553).
The primary theoretical mechanisms affecting
observer attention and interpretation, and there-
fore underpinning our model of corporate social

irresponsibility attributions, involve (1) observer
rational judgment and inference, (2) observer bi-
ases and perceptual limitations that skew per-
ceptions of the firm and situation, and (3) the
sensitivity of observer assessments to the ways
that others have filtered and framed information
about the firm and situation. As we describe in
our model development below, observer rational
judgment and inference include considerations
of evidence about the firm’s intent with respect
to a negative social effect, about the affected
party’s power and foresight with respect to the
effect, and about characteristics of the firm and
302 AprilAcademy of Management Review
situation that provide clues as to whether the
firm was indeed causal.
Playing a large role in our model development
are the theoretical mechanisms of observer bi-
ases and perceptual limitations. We describe
how observer attributions are shaped by ten-
dencies toward self and ingroup protection.
These observer tendencies produce biases
that can result in selective attention, skewed
interpretation, and gap filling in response to
missing or ambiguous evidence (Fiske & Tay-
lor, 2008). We also describe how observer bi-
ases and perceptual limitations help explain
how attention and interpretation can be influ-
enced by specific qualities of the effect—
including negativity, seriousness, unexpect-
edness, and concentration in time and space—

and by specific qualities of the implicated
firm—including size and prominence. Addi-
tionally, observer attention and interpretation
can be influenced by the observer’s possible
preexisting categorization of the firm as fitting
the schema of social irresponsibility.
Moreover, we describe how the observer’s
judgments and inferences are sensitive to the
accounts and apologies offered by the firm, as
well as to the way that third parties have fil-
tered and framed the information about the firm,
effect, and affected party (Snow & Benford, 1988;
Wood & Mitchell, 1981). Such accounts, apolo-
gies, and frames are commonly available to the
firm’s observers, predominantly emanating from
or transmitted by the media. Because of the fre-
quent association of corporations with ill effects,
and because corporations are such an omni-
present, socially significant, and influential fea-
ture of modern life, it is likely that the general
observer is quite accustomed and attentive to
narratives from the firm or from third parties
that attempt to disassociate or associate the
firm with bad behavior. Such narratives reso-
nate in the context of widespread cultural con-
cerns about organizations in general. Those cul-
tural concerns derive from the ubiquity of
organizations and their reach into all aspects of
social life, combined with pervasive suspicions
that as firms prioritize profits over social inter-
ests, they may act in ways that are exploitive
and immoral (Korten, 2001; Scott, 2003).
Attribution theory most often conceptualizes
the targets of attributions as individual actors,

but the same theoretical explanations can be
relevant when a social group is the target of
attributions (Sherman & Percy, 2010; Yzerbyt, Ro-
gier, & Fiske, 1998). A social group will be per-
ceived analogously to an individual for the pur-
poses of attribution when it is perceived as
having a high degree of entitativity, meaning
that the group is seen as a coherent, unified, and
meaningful entity (Campbell, 1958; Lickel et al.,
2000; McConnell, Sherman, & Hamilton, 1997;
Yzerbyt et al., 1998). “The difference between
perceptions of individuals and groups virtually
disappears when a group is high in perceived
entitativity” (Sherman & Percy, 2010: 149). This
would be the case for corporations, which are
perceived by outsiders as coherent, unified, and
meaningful entities. As Sherman and Percy
write, “Despite the fact that corporations consti-
tute groups of people rather than individuals,
the entitativity of such groups leads them to be
viewed much like cohesive individuals” (2010:
168). Accordingly, the model we develop in this
article positions the corporation as the target
of perceiver attributions, under the assump-
tion that perceivers view the corporation as if
it were a cohesive individual to be held re-
sponsible for its behaviors and outcomes.
THREE PRIMARY FACTORS UNDERLYING
CORPORATE SOCIAL
IRRESPONSIBILITY ATTRIBUTIONS
To model corporate social irresponsibility at-
tributions, we start by assuming a knowledge-

able and reasonable observer, albeit subject to
typical human cognitive limitations, biases, and
spontaneous reactions. We suggest that when
such an observer makes an attribution of social
irresponsibility, he or she not only is judging
that the corporation effected some social harm
but also is concluding that the corporation has a
moral responsibility and should be held in con-
tempt for the harm. In this way an attribution of
corporate social irresponsibility is relevant to
the two lines of thought in attribution theory
identified by Hamilton (1980). In the first line of
thought, the perceiver is conceptualized as an
“intuitive psychologist” (Heider, 1958; Ross, 1977:
174) conducting “explanatory inquiry” (Hamil-
ton, 1980: 769). Here the perceiver is seen as
continually engaging in causal analysis—
spontaneously making inferences to explain the
behavior and outcomes of others (Heider, 1958;
Kelley, 1967, 1973). A key distinction for the ob-
server when developing causal inferences is be-
tween causes understood as emanating from the
actor and causes understood as emanating from
the situation the actor is in (Heider, 1958). In the
second line of thought, the perceiver is concep-
tualized as an “intuitive lawyer” conducting
“sanctioning inquiry” (Hamilton, 1980: 767). Here
the perceiver is seen as assigning responsibility
or blame for harm. The emphasis is not strictly
on determining cause and effect but, rather, on
concluding who is worthy of sanction (Alicke,

2000; Hamilton, 1980). Indeed, sanctioning in-
quiry may transcend careful analysis of cause
and effect (Hamilton, 1980). Thus, in this line of
thought in the attribution theory literature,
attribution entails moral evaluation (Brewin &
Antaki, 1987; Kanouse & Hanson, 1972; Mar-
tinko, 1995).
We integrate both of these lines of thought
from attribution theory to develop our core
model of corporate social irresponsibility attri-
butions. Thus, we build on the central idea that
the observer’s attributions entail both causal in-
ferences and moral judgments. Causal infer-
ences imply that the observer arrives at social
irresponsibility attributions in part by trying to
explain a social harm in terms of distinguishing
between causes emanating from within the firm
and causes emanating from outside the firm.
Especially relevant with respect to the latter are
perceptions of the affected party’s complicity in
the negative effect. Moral judgments imply that
the observer arrives at social irresponsibility
attributions in part by trying to vest moral re-
sponsibility for a social harm—that is, trying to
determine if the firm implicated in the harm
should be held in contempt. Here the perceived
nature and magnitude of the harm, as well as
the firm’s perceived ability to have avoided the
harm, are key considerations, as is—again—the
perceived complicity in the negative effect of the
affected party. Therefore, based on their role in
both causal inference and moral judgment, we
model three primary factors as underlying cor-
porate social irresponsibility attributions: (1) as-
sessments of effect undesirability, (2) assess-

ments of corporate culpability for the effect, and
(3) assessments that the affected party has a low
level of complicity in the effect. We illustrate the
core model in Figure 1 and describe the three
factors next.
Effect Undesirability
Crucial to the perceiver’s categorization of the
corporation as socially irresponsible are percep-
tions that there has been a negative social effect
(i.e., an observed social outcome perceived as
undesirable and ostensibly associated with the
corporation). Distinguishing beneficial or neu-
tral effects from negative effects is a normative
calculation that can differ depending on the val-
ues and perspectives of different perceivers
(Crouch, 2006). However, existing theory sug-
gests that part of that calculation is rooted in
perceptions that the social effects may be per-
sonally threatening, may trigger moral im-
pulses, and/or may violate strong norms for cor-
porate outcomes (cf. Donaldson & Dunfee, 1999;
Haidt & Bjorklund, 2008; Jones & Davis, 1965).
The idea that individuals make judgments of
negativity based on what is personally threat-
ening—that is, in terms of self-preservation—is
consistent with a premise that runs through dif-
ferent strains of modern psychological theory—
namely, that the human brain is engaged in a
constant evaluative process in which environ-
mental stimuli are immediately and intuitively
sorted in terms of approach-avoid or good-bad
FIGURE 1

The Core Model of Corporate Social
Irresponsibility Attributions
Observer
assessments of
effect undesirability
based on
threat avoidance,
moral impulses, and
norms for
moral behavior
Observer
assessments of
affected party
noncomplicity
based on
judgments of power
to prevent effect
and of foresight
(P1a and P1b)
Observer
attributions
of
corporate social
irresponsibility

P3+
P2+
Observer
assessments of
corporate culpability
based on
inferences of causality
and judgments of
moral
responsibility
(for a review see Haidt & Bjorklund, 2008). This
kind of sorting is adaptive, since being at-
tuned to self-threatening effects promotes self-
preservation (Pratto & John, 1991). Extending this
idea further, researchers have argued that per-
ceptions of undesirability may be rooted in
moral reflexive judgment (Haidt & Bjorklund,
2008), pertaining to “‘flashes’ of approbation or
disapprobation” about an actor’s behavior (Ap-
piah, 2009: 128). In other words, organizational
actions might be perceived as negative in a
moral sense if they fall into categories of stimuli
that evoke deep-seated negative moral reac-
tions. Such categories of stimuli might include
perceptions of suffering, unfairness, violations

of ingroup/outgroup boundaries, disrespect, and
impurity (Appiah, 2009).
Providing a further context for judgments of
effect undesirability are the strong global norms
for human behavior that exist across cultures.
Donaldson and Dunfee (1999) call these global
standards “hypernorms” and describe them as
entailing “principles so fundamental to human
existence that they serve as a guide in evaluat-
ing lower level moral norms” (Donaldson & Dun-
fee, 1994: 265). Along with local standards of
corporate social obligation, including legal
standards and industry norms—which may
themselves be shaped by hypernorms—hyper-
norms are important standards that observers
use to assess the desirability of firm behavior.
Of course, norms and moral impulses may be
understood and expressed differently among
different individuals, even leading to conflicting
interpretations of the undesirability of the ef-
fects of firm action. For example, in the early
1990s Dayton Hudson Corporation stopped its
long tradition of contributing to Planned Parent-
hood after the corporation came under harsh
external criticism for the undesirable effect of its
donations, particularly in terms of financing
abortion. Not long thereafter the firm retreated
to its old policy and resumed its contributions to
Planned Parenthood. Again Dayton Hudson was
responding to harsh external criticism for the
undesirable effects of its actions—this time from
those who argued that, by terminating its dona-
tions, the firm was limiting choice and access to
legal abortion for women (Jennings, 2006).

In sum, perceptions that there has been a neg-
ative effect feed into the perceiver’s overall cog-
nitive schema of corporate social irresponsibil-
ity. Assessments of effect undesirability will be
dependent on the values, perspectives, and in-
terpretations of the perceiver and likely will be
rooted in the individual’s perceptions of threat,
moral impulses, and strong norms for corporate
outcomes.
Corporate Culpability
When a perceiver associates a corporation
with an undesirable social outcome, the corpo-
ration becomes the target of the perceiver’s at-
tributional activity. In other words, the perceiver
considers the corporation’s culpability with re-
spect to the negative effect. Again drawing on
Hamilton’s (1980) analogy, such a consideration
positions the perceiver both as intuitive psy-
chologist—judging the firm’s causality—and as
intuitive lawyer—judging the firm’s moral re-
sponsibility. In essence, judgments of causality
and moral responsibility are the product of a
rational knowledge-seeking process in which
the perceiver considers the available evidence.
With respect to causality, the perceiver develops
lay theories— commonsense explanations—
about why or how effects have occurred (Heider,
1958; Jones & Nisbet, 1972; Kelley & Michela,
1980). When the firm is the target of the perceiv-
er’s attributional activity, the critical causal
question to be resolved is to what extent the
source of the negative effect is internal rather
than external to the firm (Green & Mitchell, 1979;

Heider, 1958; Mitchell & Wood, 1980). Evidence
supporting external explanations would include
the cognitive availability of plausible alterna-
tive causal agents or explanations for the effect
(Einhorn & Hogarth, 1986; Kelley, 1972, 1973).
As an example of plausible alternative causal
agents, consider how BP’s recent lawsuits citing
its business partners’ negligence as leading to
the Gulf oil spill disaster (Burdeau & Weber,
2011) may suggest to observers that those busi-
ness partners were indeed at least partially
causal. As an example of plausible alternative
causal explanations, consider how evidence of a
victim’s family history of illness might weaken
the explanation that the victim’s sickness was
caused by a corporation’s product. When alter-
native causal agents or explanations are read-
ily available, they can discount or completely
replace the explanation that the corporation
caused a negative effect (Einhorn & Hogarth,
1986). Discounting causality in the face of alter-
native causal explanations may help explain
why automobile manufacturers generally
are not strongly causally linked to the tens of
thousands of annual automobile-related fatali-
ties. The many complex and interactive per-
ceived causes of those fatalities include car de-
sign, but they also include such factors as road
and weather conditions, driver skill and atten-
tiveness, and alcohol use. Then again, if infor-

mation surfaces highlighting the role of design
flaws in a series of automobile accidents, the
discounting effect of alternative causal expla-
nations may weaken.
Observers exercise their reason not only as
they consider alternative causal agents or ex-
planations but also as they consider other read-
ily perceivable evidence that hints at causality
(Einhorn & Hogarth, 1986). Such evidence in-
cludes covariation (i.e., the degree to which firm
action and negative effect are perceived to occur
together; Einhorn & Hogarth, 1986; Kelley, 1967;
Kelley & Michela, 1980), temporal order (i.e.,
whether the firm’s action is perceived to precede
the negative effect; Einhorn & Hogarth, 1986; Kel-
ley & Michela, 1980), and size congruence be-
tween cause and effect (i.e., observers will see
as more plausible a large firm causing a large
effect than a small firm causing a large effect;
Einhorn & Hogarth, 1986; Kelley & Michela, 1980;
Shultz & Ravinsky, 1977). Further evidence hint-
ing at corporate causality includes the percep-
tion that other corporations do not generally do
what the focal corporation is perceived to have
done (i.e., a low degree of “consensus” between
this firm’s behavior and other firms’ behavior in
similar situations) and that the focal corporation
appears to have a tendency to act in this way
over time (i.e., a high degree of “consistency” of
this firm’s behavior in similar situations) and
across contexts (i.e., a low degree of “distinctive-
ness” of this firm’s behavior when the situation
changes; Kelley, 1967; Kelley & Michela, 1980:
462). (Below we return to the concepts of con-
sistency and distinctiveness when we explore

the role of the firm’s perceived disposition for
social irresponsibility in social irresponsibility
attributions.)
Even when such “cues to causality” (Einhorn &
Hogarth, 1986: 6) are strong, the case for corpo-
rate culpability is not complete. Ultimately, so-
cial irresponsibility attributions require that a
corporation be perceived not only as causal but
also as morally responsible. In other words, the
perceiver judges the firm as deserving contempt
or sanction with respect to the negative effect
(Hamilton, 1980; Jones & Davis, 1965). The cogni-
tive processing rule that Hamilton (1980: 768)
applies in this regard concerns whether the per-
ceiver judges that the target “could have done
otherwise.” Moral responsibility judgments are
therefore associated with beliefs that the firm
had reasonable foresight of the negative out-
comes and was not coerced into the action or
driven by strong moral justifications (Fincham &
Jaspars, 1980; Fiske & Taylor, 2008; Heider, 1958;
Lagnado & Channon, 2008; Shaver, 1985; Shaver
& Drown, 1986).
These beliefs, then, are about the firm’s moral
cognizance, deriving from perceptions of both
the firm’s awareness of the harm it was causing
and its free will in continuing the harmful
course of action. If the observer believes that the
firm’s moral responsibility is low, even high
causality perceptions will not result in strong
assessments of culpability. For example, ob-
servers may perceive the firm as morally dis-
tanced from its own bad behavior, perhaps

because it identified and fired employees asso-
ciated with that behavior. In that case, even
though observers judge the firm as having a
causal relationship with the effect, they may
deem the firm’s moral responsibility as low,
which would not support strong assessments of
corporate culpability.
In sum, the perceiver’s categorization of the
corporation as socially irresponsible depends
on judgments that the corporation was both
causal and morally responsible with respect to
the undesirable effect. The perceiver assesses
causality by considering available alternative
explanations and causal agents, as well as
other evidence providing cues to causality. The
perceiver assesses moral responsibility in terms
of whether the firm was both aware of the neg-
ative effect and was exercising intent and free
will in pursuing the harmful course of action.
Affected Party Noncomplicity
Implied by the existence of a firm’s action
leading to an undesirable social effect is a party
who is the recipient of that effect. Affected par-
ties could range from specific identifiable indi-
viduals—such as the drivers and passengers
who died in Pinto fires—to more generalized
affected groups—such as citizens of the Gulf of
Mexico region who suffered economic hardship

following the 2010 oil spill. Along with a nega-
tive effect and a culpable corporation, the third
primary factor underlying corporate social irre-
sponsibility attributions is an affected party per-
ceived as a victim. In other words, those attribu-
tions depend, in part, on an affected party who
is perceived as being low in complicity (or non-
complicit) in the negative outcome.
As attribution researchers who study blame
point out, affected parties who are perceived to
have more control over a negative effect are, in
turn, perceived to be more blameworthy and
therefore are less likely to elicit sympathy from
observers (Alicke, 2000; Weiner, Graham, &
Chandler, 1982; Weiner, Perry, & Magnusson,
1988). Alternatively, when affected parties are
perceived to have less control over a negative
effect, observers are less likely to blame them
for the situation. For example, in an experimen-
tal setting Weiner et al. found that
the physically based stigma of blindness was
perceived as uncontrollable, [and] the blind indi-
vidual was liked and pitied while eliciting little
anger. . . . Conversely, individuals with mental-
behavioral stigmas were perceived as being re-
sponsible for their condition, were rated rela-
tively low on liking, [and] evoked little pity and
relatively high anger (1988: 741).
Likewise, parties apparently negatively af-
fected by some corporate action will be per-
ceived as more or less in control of the outcome
and will receive respectively more or less sym-
pathy from observers as a result. Perceiver con-

cern for a victim will be consistent with the
perceiver’s cognitive schema of corporate social
irresponsibility. In contrast, the perceiver’s cat-
egorization of the firm as socially irresponsible
will be diminished when his or her perception is
that an affected party was in some way in con-
trol of the negative effect. And, as we discuss
below, perceptions that the affected party is
complicit in the negative effect will have direct
implications for reducing how much the firm
itself is perceived as culpable for the effect.
Two perceived characteristics of the affected
party can influence whether the party is thought
to be in control of, and therefore complicit in, the
negative effect: (1) the power to act to prevent
the effect and (2) knowledge or foresight of the
effect (Shaver, 1985). The first characteristic
pertains to whether the observer concludes
that the affected party could have done some-
thing to avoid the negative effect. For example,
as common perceptions have gradually
changed from the view of chronic drunkenness
as a consequence of the user’s free will and
moral failing to the view of alcoholism as a
disease (Schneider, 1978), the degree to which
the user is perceived as in control of and com-
plicit in the negative effect has decreased.
The second characteristic pertains to the per-
ception that without foresight of consequences,
even a powerful victim cannot take the action
necessary to avoid a negative effect. Alterna-
tively, when an affected party is perceived as
having full information about possible deleteri-

ous effects of corporate action, he or she is more
likely to be seen as able to avoid those effects.
Thus, as public awareness of smoking health
hazards has increased, smokers increasingly
are perceived as being knowledgeable about
the negative effects of the product, and they are
therefore less likely to be perceived as innocent
victims. Given that perceptions of the affected
party’s power and foresight to prevent the effect
underlie judgments of the affected party’s com-
plicity, it is not surprising that certain types of
affected parties will be more readily judged as
being low in complicity. In particular, more
physically or mentally vulnerable affected
parties are more likely to elicit perceptions of
victim innocence, which would include the
young, the very old, and defenseless-seeming
animals. Consider, for example, that children
who take up the habit of smoking are much
less likely than adults to be seen as complicit in
the negative effect, since they are seen as hav-
ing a more limited capacity for sophisticated
foresight.
In sum, perceptions of affected party noncom-
plicity in the negative effect feed into the per-
ceiver’s categorization of the corporation as so-
cially irresponsible. The perceiver assesses
affected party complicity by considering how
much power the affected party had to prevent
the negative outcome, as well as by considering
how much knowledge or foresight the affected
party had of the negative effect.
The Core Model of Corporate Social
Irresponsibility Attributions

A baseline premise of our core model, as
shown in Figure 1, is that corporate social irre-
sponsibility attributions depend on the com-
bined presence of the three factors we described
above. In other words, those attributions depend
on perceptions that there has been a negative
effect, that there is a culpable corporation, and
that the affected party is not fully complicit in
the effect. If an observer sees the effect as neu-
tral or beneficial, the firm as not culpable,
and/or the affected party as highly complicit in
the outcome, the observer’s corporate social ir-
responsibility attributions are apt to be low or
nonexistent. Consider, for example, Hoffman
and Ocasio’s (2001) contrast of two events—Love
Canal (buried toxic waste) and Cuyahoga River
(fire on a polluted waterway). A perceiver would
be likely to see each event as entailing a harm-
ful effect as well as a victim group noncomplicit
in the outcome. However, in the case of Love
Canal, a firm was readily identifiable as re-
sponsible—“From the start, the event had a
clear villain who was assessed blame—the
company which had created the buried toxic
waste, the Hooker Chemical Company” (Hoff-
man & Ocasio, 2001: 421)—whereas in the case of
Cuyahoga River, where industrial waste caused
the fire, no specific firm was easily identifiable
as responsible. Thus, absent a firm perceived as
culpable, corporate social irresponsibility attri-

butions will fail to develop.
Importantly, the argument that corporate so-
cial irresponsibility attributions depend on as-
sessments of corporate culpability requires a
clear distinction between those two constructs.
That distinction is evident when considering
that culpability alone is not sufficient for corpo-
rate social irresponsibility attributions; instead,
a negative effect and a noncomplicit affected
party are also required. If Love Canal had not
been perceived as having such an undesirable
effect (an effect that, in fact, included health
hazards to residents and the long-term evacua-
tion of a residential neighborhood), or if the Love
Canal residents had been perceived as some-
how highly responsible for their own fate, attri-
butions of corporate social irresponsibility
would have been much less likely, even if the
firm was perceived as culpable—that is, as-
sessed as causal in the effect and morally re-
sponsible for its actions. Thus, casino compa-
nies could be perceived as culpable—causal
and morally responsible—for the harmful social
effects of gambling, but at the same time corpo-
rate social irresponsibility attributions could be
weak because gamblers are seen as highly com-
plicit in their fate.
When perceivers see the effect as at least
somewhat negative, the corporation as at least
somewhat culpable, and the affected party as at
least somewhat noncomplicit, then the perceiv-
ers can form attributions of corporate social ir-
responsibility. If all three factors are present to
some degree, then a higher level of any one of

those factors will result in a higher level of cor-
porate social irresponsibility attributions.
Proposition 1a: Observer attributions
of corporate social irresponsibility de-
pend on the combined presence of
three components: observer assess-
ments that the effect is at least some-
what undesirable, observer assess-
ments that the corporation is at least
somewhat culpable, and observer as-
sessments that the affected party is at
least somewhat noncomplicit.
Proposition 1b: If all three components
are present to some degree, then attri-
butions of corporate social irresponsi-
bility are positively related to higher
levels of any of the three.
Attribution theory suggests that perceivers
consider the characteristics of the target and the
target’s situation in concert when making attri-
butions for the cause of and responsibility for an
effect, and therefore that perceivers’ perceptions
of the situation’s characteristics can influence
their perceptions of the target’s characteristics
with respect to the attribution, and vice versa
(Fiske & Taylor, 2008; Mitchell & Wood, 1980). As
applied to our core model of corporate social
irresponsibility attributions, the implication
from attribution theory, then, is that the three
primary factors we have identified may influ-
ence each other. In particular, as we explain
next, perceptions of effect undesirability can in-
fluence perceptions of corporate culpability, and

perceptions of corporate culpability and af-
fected party noncomplicity can influence
each other.
Consider that when an observer is contem-
plating the negativity of effects, attribution the-
ory suggests that the observer will search more
extensively for their causal associations (Alicke,
2000; Fiske & Taylor, 2008; Shaver, 1985; Taylor,
1991). Indeed, Mitchell and Wood (1980) demon-
strated in lab studies that the seriousness of an
effect positively influenced the degree to which
targets were perceived as responsible for a neg-
ative effect. The strong desire to identify causes
and responsibility could bias observer percep-
tions of a firm already linked in the observer’s
mind with the effect. As we argued above, per-
ceptions of a greater degree of victim suffering
are likely to elicit observer sympathy and con-
cern (Weiner et al., 1982; Weiner et al., 1988).
Observers may then enter “blame-validation
mode,” in which they actively seek explanations
for the negative effect and lower their typical
standards for establishing corporate causality
(Alicke, 2000: 558). In this mode, even if cues to
causality are ambiguous, sympathy for the vic-
tim and a desire to assign causality and respon-
sibility may lead observers to assess the link-
age between the effect and the implicated firm
“in a biased manner by exaggerating the [firm’s]
volitional or causal control, by lowering their

evidential standards for blame, or by seeking
information to support their blame attributions”
(Alicke, 2000: 558).
For example, the horrible suffering associated
with victims of Ford Pinto crashes could have
increased the plausibility for observers that
Ford’s internal cost-benefit analysis, which
emerged in the press at the time, was evidence
that Ford executives were morally cognizant as
they made decisions that posed great potential
harm to Pinto drivers and passengers—even
though Ford officials adamantly denied that the
cost-benefit analysis factored into their decision
making. As an effect is perceived as more neg-
ative, a firm associated with that effect can eas-
ily seem more culpable to observers. Such per-
ceived culpability would entail a judgment of
moral responsibility consonant with deep-
seated cultural suspicions surrounding busi-
ness firms—in particular, suspicions that, in
their drive for profits, firms can be oblivious to
public welfare (Korten, 2001).
Proposition 2: Assessments of effect
undesirability are positively related to
subsequent assessments of corporate
culpability.
When the observer is contemplating the cor-
poration’s culpability for a negative effect and
perceives that culpability as high, the ob-
server has a ready explanation that can help
discount perceptions that the affected party
had the power and foresight to prevent or
avoid the effect. That explanation, because it

makes a strong case that the effect was out of
the control of the affected party, can help
countermand correspondence bias (Gilbert &
Malone, 1995), or the natural tendency of an
observer to “view people rather than the envi-
ronment as the prepotent controlling forces
behind harmful events” (Alicke, 2000: 568). For
instance, a cigarette smoker may be thought
by observers to be responsible for his or her
own negative health outcomes associated
with smoking. However, some of that onus may
have transferred to the tobacco companies in
the mid 1990s when company internal docu-
ments were divulged indicating full knowl-
edge of the harmful and addictive effects of
the product and revealing the conscious mar-
keting of tobacco products to children (Hurt &
Robertson, 1998; Segal, 1997). It is possible that
when observers learned that tobacco compa-
nies were perhaps secretly plotting against
their own customers, observer perceptions of
customers’ complicity in tobacco-related
health problems decreased, at least some-
what. That decrease in perceived affected
party complicity would be consistent with ar-
guments and findings in the attribution theory
literature suggesting that observers become
angry at perpetrators and sympathetic with
victims when perpetrators are perceived as
being in control of negative outcomes (Weiner,
1993; Weiner et al., 1982).
When the observer is contemplating the af-
fected party’s complicity in the negative effect
and perceives that complicity as high—that is,

perceives the affected party as having foresight
and control with respect to the effect—that per-
ception may constitute exactly the kind of evi-
dence that would effectively discount the expla-
nation that the firm is the morally responsible
agent. Indeed, correspondence bias would lead
observers to favor a plausible explanation that
the affected party is responsible for its negative
outcomes (Alicke, 2000). Thus, ever since manda-
tory health warnings have appeared on ciga-
rette packages, as they have in the United States
since 1966, observers may have a greater ten-
dency to perceive cigarette smokers as being
forewarned and therefore at least somewhat
complicit in the negative health outcomes they
may suffer from smoking. If so, those observers
may conclude that tobacco companies are only
partially responsible for the negative outcomes,
or perhaps that they are not responsible at all.
Together, these arguments lead us to predict that
assessments of high corporate culpability can re-
duce assessments of affected party complicity
and, in a complementary fashion, that assess-
ments of high affected party complicity can reduce
assessments of corporate culpability.
Proposition 3: Assessments of corpo-
rate culpability are positively re-
lated to assessments of affected
party noncomplicity.

FURTHER INFLUENCES ON THE CORE MODEL
OF CORPORATE SOCIAL
IRRESPONSIBILITY ATTRIBUTIONS
In the prior section we described the three
primary factors underlying corporate social irre-
sponsibility attributions—assessments of effect
undesirability, corporate culpability, and af-
fected party noncomplicity—and we considered
how those factors can be influenced by each
other. In this section we delve further into the
observer’s subjective construction of corporate
social irresponsibility attributions. To do so we
continue with attribution theory as our theoreti-
cal foundation, and we consider how observer
cognitive bias, attention, and social identifica-
tion may influence the observer’s attributions.
We illustrate the expanded model of corporate
social irresponsibility attributions in Figure 2.
Above we argued that assessments of effect
undesirability are rooted in perceptions that the
effect is threatening, is a trigger of moral im-
pulses, or is a violation of strong norms. How-
ever, perceptual filtering and interpretive bi-
ases can influence whether an observer
FIGURE 2
The Expanded Model of Corporate Social Irresponsibility
Attributionsa
Effect
characteristics,

including
unexpectedness
and concentration
in time and space
Observer social
identification
with the affected
party
Firm
characteristics,
including
perceived disposition for
irresponsible behavior, size,
and prominence
P4+
P5a+ and P5b+
P6a+ P6b−
P8a+ P8b−
P7−
Observer
attributions of
corporate
social

irresponsibility
Observer
assessments of
affected party
noncomplicity
based on
judgments of power to
prevent effect and
of foresight
Observer
assessments of
effect undesirability
based on
threat avoidance,
moral impulses, and
norms for
moral behavior
Frames
positioning firm
as causal and
morally
responsible for
harming innocent
victims

P9+
Observer
assessments of
corporate culpability
based on
inferences of causality
and judgments of
moral
responsibility
Observer social
identification
with the
implicated firm
a The dotted lines indicate the relationships illustrated and
labeled in Figure 1.
perceives an effect as a threat, a trigger of moral
impulses, or a violation of norms. As a result, the
observer could be presented with two effects—
ostensibly equivalent in terms of some objective
standard of harm—and yet the observer’s sub-
jective distinctions between the two effects
might lead him or her to judge one of the effects
as of much greater undesirability than the other.

Consider that by objective moral standards, and
all else being equal, an outcome of harm to
thousands of people should stimulate harsher
assessments of undesirability than an outcome
of harm to a handful of individuals. Yet, at times,
the event of smaller impact may prompt greater
alarm because, for one reason or another, it at-
tracts attention, foments emotions, and inspires
intense reaction (cf. Nordgren & Morris McDon-
nell, 2011).
Here we propose two effect characteristics
that will prompt observer attention to and con-
sideration of the undesirability of the effect: (1)
unexpectedness and (2) concentration in time
and space. Both characteristics lead the effects
to be perceptually figural for observers, mean-
ing that they cognitively stand out against the
background—that is, they are more salient
(McArthur & Ginsberg, 1981; McArthur & Post,
1977). Both characteristics make the effects cog-
nitively available to perceivers, and cognitive
availability amplifies the perceived importance
of the event, which can then bias further percep-
tions as the perceiver easily brings the event to
mind (Tversky & Kahneman, 1974). Indeed, attri-
bution theorists point out that salience can in-
fluence the attributions that observers make
(Fiske & Taylor, 2008; Smith & Miller, 1979). In
particular, salient stimuli are seen by observers
as more causal (Taylor & Fiske, 1978). When un-
desirable effects are salient to observers, they
are likely to prompt observer search for causal-
ity and responsibility (Alicke, 2000; Fiske & Tay-
lor, 2008; Shaver, 1985; Taylor, 1991).

Unexpectedness leads to salience since ob-
servers will have their attention drawn to and
focused on strange and novel effects (Fiske &
Taylor, 2008; McArthur, 1981). When effects are
expected, they are understood as normal and
are easily categorized. Because they are com-
monplace, they fade into the background. Con-
sider how the regularity with which traffic acci-
dents occur has desensitized observers. In
general, automobile accidents (involving people
the observer does not know) remain in the ob-
server’s background. The exception is when
some unexpected feature of a particular car ac-
cident draws it out of the background—for ex-
ample, the unexpectedly low speed at which
Ford Pintos in rear end collisions were failing
catastrophically, and the unexpected nature of
the way in which Ford Pinto accident victims
were reportedly dying (namely, by fiery explo-
sion; Schwartz, 1991). When effects are unusual
or unexpected, they become figural and salient
because they do not easily fit into existing cat-
egories of understanding. In such cases observ-
ers must process and modify their existing un-
derstandings to either expand a cognitive
category or create a new one (Einhorn & Hog-
arth, 1986; Schank & Abelson, 1977). If an effect
can potentially be seen by the observer as
threatening, as a trigger of moral impulses, or
as a violation of norms, the enhanced cognitive
processing and categorization activity induced
by unexpectedness is likely to center on and
intensify the sense of threat, moral violation,
and/or norm infringement. Consequently, unex-
pectedness can lead an effect to be perceived by

the observer as even more undesirable.
Concentration of the effect in time and space
also leads to salience that can influence ob-
server subjective assessments of effect undesir-
ability. Human perceptual capabilities are opti-
mized to perceive imminent dangers rather than
subtle insidious effects (Gattig & Hendrickx,
2007). When effects are dispersed over time or
geographic space, the complete effect may sim-
ply be less visible and salient to the observer.
An observation at any point in time or space will
be only part of the complete effect and therefore
may appear trivial, causing the total impact of
the effect to be less perceptible (Gattig, 2002).
For example, the temporally and geographically
dispersed motor vehicle–related fatalities in the
United States may escape widespread notice,
even though they number in the tens of thou-
sands annually, but the concentrated tragedy of
a U.S. airline accident killing hundreds of peo-
ple would draw immediate U.S. public alarm. As
another example, consider that global deforest-
ation as the result of industrial activities is
likely to be judged undesirable once it has hap-
pened, but because it occurs slowly and is
spread out over a large geographic area, observ-
ers are less likely to react during the process.
Thus, negative effects that accumulate over time
or space—in which the threats, moral violations,
or norm infringements are only incrementally

evident—will be less salient and alarming than
negative effects that are available for examina-
tion immediately and in their entirety.
Proposition 4: When an effect has the
potential to be seen by an observer as
threatening, as a trigger of moral im-
pulses, or as a violation of norms, its
unexpectedness and/or concentration
in time and space will be positively
related to observer assessments of ef-
fect undesirability.
Previously, we argued that observers will
base their assessments of a corporation’s culpa-
bility on inferences of causality and judgments
of moral responsibility. As with the other per-
ceiver assessments in our model, these assess-
ments of corporate culpability are subjective
constructions—influenced by human processes
of interpretation and perception. An observer
could therefore see two corporations as different
in their culpability even if, objectively, there
was no difference. Here we propose three firm
characteristics that can influence subjective as-
sessments of corporate culpability: perceived
disposition, size, and prominence.
First, with respect to perceived disposition,
consider that a firm’s observers are attuned not
just to the firm’s most recent actions but also to
its prior actions and, therefore, that attributions
are an interaction of the observer’s prior beliefs
and current observations (Folkes, 1988; Klein &
Dawar, 2004). Klein and Dawar (2004) demon-
strated the strength of these kinds of prior be-

liefs in an experimental setting exploring con-
sumer attributions when a company has a crisis
involving a well-publicized defective or danger-
ous product. The authors argued that a consum-
er’s prior perceptions of the company as socially
responsible create a halo or spillover effect,
leading to a bias about whether the company is
or is not responsible for the product-harm crisis.
Indeed, Klein and Dawar found that consumers
who had existing negative perceptions of a com-
pany’s CSR disposition blamed the company
more for the product-harm incident than did con-
sumers who had positive perceptions of the
company’s CSR disposition. Their results
showed that a “negative CSR image” led to “un-
flattering attributions and blame while a posi-
tive image led to attributions similar to those
made by control subjects who had no prior im-
pression of the firm” (Klein & Dawar, 2004: 215).
When an observer believes that the firm has
exhibited a high degree of consistency in its
behavior over time in similar situations and a
low degree of distinctiveness in its behavior,
even when the context changes, the observer is
likely to attribute the cause of the behavior as
internal to the firm (Kelley, 1967; Kelley & Mi-
chela, 1980).
An observer’s perceptions that a firm has a
disposition for socially irresponsible behavior
represent a kind of existing implicit theory
about the firm that can shape the observer’s
inferences and judgments about the firm’s cur-
rent behavior (Jones & Davis, 1965; Lord & Smith,
1983). The firm’s perceived disposition serves as

a cognitive anchor, biasing the observer as he or
she makes adjustments from the anchor to reach
an interpretation of the meaning of new firm
action (Tversky & Kahneman, 1974). For exam-
ple, Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. and Target Corpora-
tion have very similar profiles in terms of wages
and other employee benefits. However, because
of a history of bad relations with organized la-
bor, Wal-Mart is seen as a “pariah to U.S. labor
unions and urban activists” (Bustillo & Zimmer-
man, 2010: 1). The company has to fight labor
unions and other groups in order to expand its
urban footprint, because these groups fear that
Wal-Mart will drive down wages. Target, whose
perceived disposition is more favorable, is held
to a different standard by activists (Bustillo &
Zimmerman, 2010) and has expanded with com-
paratively little opposition from labor groups.
Both firms’ stores are likely to have similar eco-
nomic effects on a community, but Wal-Mart po-
tentially is seen as more culpable for negative
effects than is Target.
A firm’s perceived favorable disposition also
may bias an observer’s interpretation of new
firm behaviors such that the expectation of con-
tinued reliability tends to be confirmed (Darley
& Fazio, 1980). A firm with the perceived dispo-
sition of high social responsibility may get the
benefit of the doubt among observers, who will
discount the possibility of both causality and
moral responsibility when the firm is newly as-
sociated with a negative effect. This would es-
pecially be the case if other cues to causality
and moral responsibility were minimal. How-
ever, and in accordance with reactance theory

(Brehm & Brehm, 1981), it is possible that very
positive prior expectations may lead, paradoxi-
cally, to especially negative observer reactions
to firm behavior violating those expectations (cf.
Klein & Dawar, 2004; Rhee & Haunschild, 2006).
Taken together, these arguments suggest that
although a firm’s perceived disposition for so-
cial responsibility could bias observer assess-
ments of corporate culpability, the direction of
that bias is unclear. In contrast, a firm’s per-
ceived unfavorable disposition is not subject to
reactance effects, and its predicted effect on as-
sessments of corporate culpability is more
straightforward.
Proposition 5a: The implicated corpo-
ration’s perceived disposition for so-
cial irresponsibility is positively re-
lated to observer assessments of
corporate culpability.
Along with a firm’s perceived disposition for
social irresponsibility, its size and prominence
are also likely to influence observer assess-
ments of corporate culpability. A firm’s size may
provide the observer with cues to causality, as
well as cues about moral responsibility. In par-
ticular, this may be the case when the compar-
ison is between very large and small firms. Peo-
ple generally regard large firms “as purposive
entities that use structured analyses to guide

their actions and protect their interests” (Lange,
Boivie, & Henderson, 2009: 184; Meyer & Rowan,
1977). In other words, people think larger firms
have the capacity to conduct sophisticated anal-
yses of their options in decision situations, and
therefore have the ability to predict and avoid
harmful side effects to others. People are also
likely to perceive larger firms as having more
financial slack and strategic flexibility. Thus,
firm size, because of the perceptions that size is
associated with abundant options for action and
enhanced capacity to scrutinize those options
and their possible harmful side effects, may
lead to observer impressions that the firm
caused the negative effect, that it had foresight
of the consequences of its behavior, and that it
had no moral justification for its actions.
In addition to its size, a firm’s prominence—
that is, how well known it is—helps make the
firm salient to observers. As demonstrated in
attribution theory research, what is salient in
the observer’s perceptual field with respect to
the effect is likely to be perceived as causal
(Smith & Miller, 1979; Taylor & Fiske, 1975, 1978).
The firm’s salience will also make more plausi-
ble outside claims that the firm not only is as-
sociated with but also is culpable for a negative
effect. (We talk more about outside claims below
when we address the role of “frames” in social
irresponsibility attributions.) The firm’s salience
helps take attention off issue advocates as pos-
sible inventors or exaggerators of a problem.
Consequently, large, prominent firms are often
targeted by issue advocates. Developing a story

that portrays them as morally responsible
causal agents may be an easy sell. For example,
labor advocates found it easy to strongly asso-
ciate the well-known firm Nike in the public
mind with labor abuses in Asia (Rushford, 1997).
Proposition 5b: The implicated corpo-
ration’s size and prominence are pos-
itively related to observer assessments
of corporate culpability.
Next, we further elaborate the model of corpo-
rate social irresponsibility attributions by con-
sidering how the degree to which observers so-
cially identify with the affected party or with the
implicated corporation may affect subjective as-
sessments of effect undesirability, corporate cul-
pability, and affected party noncomplicity. Our
overriding argument is that social identifica-
tion, by putting the observer in the shoes of
either the affected party or the firm, influences
social irresponsibility attributions because the
observer has a vested interest in the attribution
(Ashforth & Mael, 1989). This argument is consis-
tent with Jones and Davis’s (1965) idea of “hedo-
nic relevance,” whereby the perceiver’s attribu-
tional activity is biased when the event under
consideration has implications for the perceiv-
er’s own welfare. In other words, attributions are
influenced because “the perceiver’s motivation,
elicited by the action’s consequences for him, is
thought to affect the processing of information
about the action” (Kelley & Michela, 1980: 461).
Social identity theory and the related self-
categorization theory (see review by Haslam &

Ellemers, 2005) start from the observation that
humans have a natural tendency to organize
their worlds into social categories, and these
theories then describe how individuals derive
their self-concepts in part from the categories
with which they see their personal identities
overlapping (Hogg, Terry, & White, 1995; Tajfel &
Turner, 1979). People have complex motivations
for orienting themselves in relation to society
according to social categories, including satis-
fying the fundamental human needs for affilia-
tion and belonging (Baumeister & Leary, 1995);
maintaining or enhancing their own self-esteem
(Brewer, 1979); seeking self-definition through
assimilation and individuation, aligning with
some social categories to help define who they
are and distancing from other social categories
to help define who they are not (Baumeister &
Leary, 1995; Brewer, 1991); reducing uncertainty
(Hogg & Terry, 2000); and confirming and verify-
ing their own self-view (Polzer, Milton, & Swann,
2002). Any of these motivations can lead an in-
dividual to see him or herself as part of a social
category. An individual who identifies strongly
with a social group or category is someone who
draws critical self-concept–relevant informa-
tion, value, and feelings from his or her percep-
tions that he or she is a member of the social
group or category (Hogg et al., 1995; Tajfel &
Turner, 1979). In the context of our model, some
observers may socially identify with the group

they see as affected by the undesirable effect. Of
course, as organizational identification re-
searchers have demonstrated, the concept of so-
cial group can also easily include the firm such
that individuals (both insiders and outsiders)
can socially identify with a particular firm (Has-
lam & Ellemers, 2005; Pratt, 1998). In the context
of our model, some observers may socially iden-
tify with the firm that is implicated in the neg-
ative effect.
Because of the overlap of personal and social
identities that identification implies, the
strength of observer identification with the af-
fected party will be positively related to the de-
gree to which the observer will tend to distin-
guish less between his or her own interests and
outcomes and those of the affected party. Simi-
larly, the strength of observer identification with
the implicated firm will be positively related to
the degree to which the observer sees his or her
own interests and outcomes as aligned with the
firm’s (Dutton & Dukerich, 1991; Haslam & Elle-
mers, 2005). As we describe in more detail below,
if the observer socially identifies with the af-
fected party or the firm, that social identification
is likely to influence the observer’s assessments
of effect undesirability, corporate culpability,
and affected party noncomplicity, thereby con-
tributing to the subjective construction of corpo-
rate social irresponsibility attributions.
Above we argued that perceptions of effect
undesirability are likely to be rooted in threat
avoidance, moral impulses, and strong norms

for corporate outcomes. When the negative ef-
fect is perceived to be happening to a group
with which the observer strongly identifies—
meaning that the observer distinguishes little
between his or her interests and those of the
affected party—by definition, the observer will
find the effect to be personally threatening and
undesirable. Social identification therefore not
only draws the observer’s attention to the effect
but also prompts consideration of its personal
impact. The personalized nature of the effect
may also enhance the observer’s negative moral
impulses and perceptions of norm violations. As
such, the death of thousands and the lingering
health complications of many thousands more
following the 1984 Union Carbide gas leak in
Bhopal, India, may have seemed less severe to
U.S. observers than it did to observers in India,
who more strongly socially identify with the vic-
tims. Had the same accident occurred in the
United States, social identification of U.S. ob-
servers with the victims would likely have been
much deeper and public assessments of the suf-
fering much greater, even controlling for the
greater attention a U.S.-based accident would
have received in the United States.
A contrasting result may occur when the ob-
server identifies with the implicated firm. In that
case the observer is likely to find confusing and
incongruous the implication that the firm would
be associated with behavior contrary to his or
her values and normative expectations. If so, the
more strongly the observer identifies with the
firm, the more likely he or she is to discount the
seriousness or negativity of the effect. This dis-

counting would be consistent with self-serving
attributional biases (see review by Fiske & Tay-
lor, 2008), in which information inconsistent with
ego protection might be overlooked. For exam-
ple, consider a fan who identifies strongly with
the National Football League (NFL) and, conse-
quently, has a strong affinity with the NFL’s
goals, processes, and routines. Upon learning of
the high incidence of concussions and other
head injuries among the league’s players
(Sokolove, 2010), this fan may overlook the mag-
nitude and severity of these injuries. Discount-
ing the negative effect is ego protective for a fan
who would not want to view him or herself as
actively contributing to the suffering of others.
Proposition 6a: Observer social identi-
fication with the affected party is pos-
itively related to assessments of effect
undesirability.
Proposition 6b: Observer social identi-
fication with the implicated firm is
negatively related to assessments of
effect undesirability.
In addition to diminishing observer assess-
ments of effect undesirability, observer social
identification with the implicated corporation is
likely to lead the observer to assess the corpo-
ration as less culpable. As we argued above,
inferences of causality and judgments of moral

responsibility (including foresight and inten-
tionality) underlie an assessment of corporate
culpability. When observer identification with
the implicated firm is higher, the observer is
more likely to be skeptical of evidence suggest-
ing the firm’s causality, more likely to search for
and find plausible alternative explanations that
challenge the firm’s causality, and less likely to
accept third-party claims that position the firm
as causal. In addition, an observer who has a
higher level of identification with the firm is less
likely to see it as morally responsible with re-
spect to the negative effect. That observer is
more likely to accept accounts from the firm and
its advocates that contend the organization’s
processes and intents adhere to normative ex-
pectations, that proclaim the firm’s innocence,
or that justify the firm’s association with the
negative effects, as well as accounts and apol-
ogies that decouple the firm from negative in-
tent (Elsbach, 1994; Wood & Mitchell, 1981).
Again, this discounting of causality and moral
responsibility is consistent with self-serving at-
tributional biases, since self-serving bias ex-
tends to groups with which the observer identi-
fies (i.e., “group-serving bias”), leading ingroup
members to attribute negative ingroup behavior
to external causes (Fiske & Taylor, 2008: 80).
Consequently, the football fan who identifies
strongly with the NFL may be very amenable to
justifications that hard hits are an inherent part
of the physical game of professional football.
That fan would be less likely than observers
who do not socially identify with the NFL to see
the NFL as highly culpable with respect to

player injuries, even as the problem of head
injuries in football receives increasing public
attention (e.g., Sokolove, 2010).
Proposition 7: Observer social identifi-
cation with the implicated corporation
is negatively related to assessments of
the corporation’s culpability.
An observer’s identification with the impli-
cated firm or, alternatively, with the affected
party could also influence the observer’s assess-
ments of the affected party’s complicity in the
negative effect. Self-serving attributional bias
would lead an observer with a higher level of
identification with the implicated firm to search
for and attend to plausible alternative explana-
tions that relieve the firm—and, by extension,
the observer him/herself—of culpability (Fiske
& Taylor, 2008). This deflection of responsibility
would be consistent with the observer’s deep-
seated desire to avoid being blameworthy for
the situation (Shaver, 1970, 1985).
The search for plausible alternative explana-
tions is apt to include consideration that the
affected party was not totally innocent with re-
spect to the effect. Any suppositions by the ob-
server that the affected party had some power to
prevent the effect, or had some reasonable fore-
sight of the effect, will therefore be amplified by
the observer’s identification with the firm. In
addition to being consistent with self-serving
attributional bias, efforts by observers who
identify with the implicated firm to find the af-
fected party complicit in the negative effect are

consistent with a fundamental human motiva-
tion to see victims as responsible for their own
negative outcomes. That motivation stems from
observers’ need to believe in a just world (Lerner
& Matthews, 1967; Lerner & Miller, 1978). Conse-
quently, the football fan who identifies strongly
with the NFL may be especially open to argu-
ments that the players are well aware of the
possibility of injury, that they choose to play
voluntarily, and that they are well compensated
for the risk.
In turn, when it is with the affected party that
an observer identifies, these same needs and
desires will diminish rather than bolster the de-
gree to which the observer assesses the affected
party as complicit. The need to believe in a just
world and the desire to deflect blame are both
aimed at ego protection. When the affected
party is clearly an outgroup, threats to self can
be reduced by perceiving the affected party as
complicit in the negative effect. However, when
an observer identifies with the affected party
such that the observer’s self-identity is inter-
twined with the identity of the affected party,
threats to the affected party may be perceived
as personal threats. In this case threats to self
can be reduced by deflecting perceptions of
blame away from the affected party—and, by
extension, away from the self (Fiske & Tay-
lor, 2008).

Consistent with the argument that observer
social identification with the affected party will
influence assessments of affected party com-
plicity is Shaver’s observation that “perceivers
can be wholly rational judges of another’s re-
sponsibility for producing a negative outcome
only if they can be confident that they will never
be in similar circumstances” (1985: 134). When
observers see themselves as similar to the af-
fected party, they lose that confidence. It then
becomes harder to hold the belief that the neg-
ative outcome is justified either as the natural
consequence of some behavioral error on the
part of the victim or as retribution for some char-
acter flaw of the victim (Lerner & Miller, 1978;
Shaver, 1985). When one socially identifies with
the victim, the belief that the negative effect is
justified or deserved could be tantamount to be-
lieving oneself to deserve consequences or ret-
ribution, and such a belief could be contradic-
tory to ego protection.
Proposition 8a: Observer social identi-
fication with the affected party is pos-
itively related to assessments of the
affected party’s noncomplicity in the
negative effect.
Proposition 8b: Observer social identi-
fication with the implicated corporation
is negatively related to assessments of
the affected party’s noncomplicity in
the negative effect.
CORPORATE SOCIAL

IRRESPONSIBILITY FRAMES
Earlier we touched on the idea that an observ-
er’s information about and interpretation of ef-
fect, corporation, and affected party can be in-
fluenced by parties who filter and frame the
information. Here we consider that idea in more
depth, because the information that parties sup-
ply to the observer, as well as the way the infor-
mation is presented (e.g., how the specific
pieces of information are assembled, empha-
sized, deemphasized, or distorted), can substan-
tially affect observer inferences and judgments
that underlie corporate social irresponsibility
attributions. For example, attribution theorists
have considered how putative causal agents (or
interested third parties) may attempt to use ac-
counts or apologies to influence observers’ attri-
butions (Wood & Mitchell, 1981). Accounts may
influence attributions by emphasizing how cer-
tain personal or situational factors led to the
observed outcome. Accounts comprise both ex-
cuses—whereby the actor is defended on the
grounds that the behavior was out of his or her
control—and justifications—whereby the be-
havior is defended on the grounds that its value
outweighs its negative consequences (Wood &
Mitchell, 1981). Whereas accounts may influence
both inferences of causality and judgments of
moral responsibility, apologies actively ac-
knowledge the actor’s causality. Apologies
therefore are directed more at attempting to in-
fluence judgments of moral responsibility, and
they do so in part by attempting to decouple the
actor from the intent behind the action. Apolo-

gies, including expressions of remorse, can in-
dicate that the actor believes in the rule that
was violated and is motivated to achieve the
required standards going forward (Wood &
Mitchell, 1981). The actor’s self-castigation can
reduce the degree to which an observer holds
the actor in contempt (Wood & Mitchell, 1981).
Accordingly, an implicated corporation in our
model could offer up alternative causal expla-
nations or moral justifications for its behavior,
claim a lack of moral cognizance, or attempt to
distance itself from the moral intent underlying
its behavior by expressing remorse, all of which
could affect observer inferences of causality
and/or judgments of moral responsibility. These
attempts at impression management, because
they represent the deliberate shaping, packag-
ing, and presentation of information in such a
way as to influence perceptions of that informa-
tion, fall into the broader category of frames
(Benford & Snow, 2000; Goffman, 1974). Frames in
our model would include not only the accounts
and apologies offered by the firm and its advo-
cates but also third-party (e.g., media, politi-
cians, social issue stakeholders) story lines or
narratives about the issue (Gamson, Croteau,
Hoynes, & Sasson, 1992).
A frame relevant to social irresponsibility at-
tributions would include the core elements of

our model: a culpable organization, an undesir-
able effect, and a noncomplicit affected party.
Snow and Benford call this “diagnostic fram-
ing,” meaning that the frame involves the “iden-
tification of a problem and the attribution of
causality and blame” (1988: 200). Depending on
the information presented in the frame, the ef-
fect may appear more or less negative, the firm
more or less culpable, and the affected party
more or less complicit. For example, an observer
might read a press report alleging that a firm,
“Privacy Matters 123,” was “draining the bank
account” needed to pay medical bills for an
eighteen-year old cancer patient (Sandoval,
2009). This press report constitutes a frame in-
volving a culpable firm (Privacy Matters 123), a
negative effect (draining the bank account), and
a noncomplicit affected party (eighteen-year-old
cancer patient). This frame will be likely to sup-
port corporate social irresponsibility attribu-
tions, since it emphasizes each of the three core
factors underlying such attributions.
Frames can be especially influential on social
irresponsibility attributions when information
regarding the firm’s culpability is ambiguous or
difficult to perceive. Culpability is determined
in part by judgments of causality, but causality
often is not obvious. Effective frames can make
it seem more so. Consider that some negative
effects, given their nature, are difficult to link
back to a particular causal agent. In situations
where there are few cues to causality, issue
advocates may attempt to frame the available
information in such a way as to overcome the
paucity of such cues (Shultz, 1982). Such a frame

would provide a credible cause-and-effect rela-
tionship in which well-known parties (i.e., the
firm and its leaders) were identified as culpable
(Spector & Kitsuse, 2001).
This kind of frame is evident in the way Audi
AG was associated with accident fatalities in
high-profile media reports. In particular, in 1986
the CBS program 60 Minutes aired an emotional
testimonial from a mother who had run over and
killed her six-year-old child. Even though she
had earlier reported to police that her foot had
slipped off the brake onto the gas pedal, the TV
program presented the mother as claiming that
the accident was caused by unintended accel-
eration and that the car was to blame for the
death of her son. This causal claim was sup-
ported by the TV program’s simulation of an
alleged Audi defect underlying unintended ac-
celeration (Heinrich, 2010). In other words, in the
absence of evidence of causality, the frame con-
stituted this evidence. Subsequent investiga-
tions suggested that perhaps there was no Audi
product defect resulting in unintended acceler-
ation, but the damage to Audi’s sales and repu-
tation had been done (Heinrich, 2010). In this
case the influence of the media’s frame on cor-
porate social irresponsibility attributions was
dramatic.
Frames can also support observer perceptions
of effect undesirability. Above we described
how unexpectedness and concentration in time
and space can bring attention to a negative ef-
fect and emphasize for observers the threat,

moral violation, or norm infringement implied
by the effect. Frames provided by parties such
as issue advocates, scientists, and media repre-
sentatives can also make the effect salient for
observers and emphasize the effect’s undesir-
able features (Callon, 1998). As a result, frames
can bring to the foreground effects that are
seemingly commonplace (not unexpected), and
they can cognitively aggregate effects that are
dispersed (not concentrated in time and space).
Consider how the deleterious effects of smoking
on human health are not readily observable be-
cause they tend to develop only after long expo-
sure to the tobacco product. However, starting in
the 1950s, a series of studies linking smoking to
lung cancer helped to cognitively compile the
effects of smoking so that they were more imme-
diately evident to the public (e.g., Doll & Hill,
1950). In this case frames based on scientific
research brought attention and meaning to to-
bacco’s negative health effects.
By emphasizing different aspects of the effect,
characteristics of the firm, and even observers’
identification with the affected party or the firm,
frames can exert an influence on any given el-
ement affecting corporate social irresponsibility
attributions in our model. For example, we de-
scribed earlier how a firm’s perceived disposi-
tion for social irresponsibility can enhance ob-
server assessments of corporate culpability.
Shortly after BP’s 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill,
press reports emphasized BP’s prior accidents—
including a 2005 refinery explosion that killed
fifteen workers. The frame of BP as having a
disposition for bad behavior may very well have

supported perceptions of BP’s culpability with
respect to the Gulf spill. As another example,
consider how frames can emphasize affected
party characteristics in a way that increases
observer identification with the affected party.
Rather than just providing statistics on the num-
ber of individuals harmed, media reports may
provide personal details about the victims that
cause observers to see similarities between the
affected party and themselves, thus fostering
social identification and eliciting sympathy
(Kogut & Ritov, 2005; Nordgren & Morris McDon-
nell, 2011). Or, as was the case with the BP oil
spill, media accounts sometimes emphasize the
non-U.S. nationality of the implicated corpora-
tion, thus possibly fostering disidentification of
U.S. observers for the company and supporting
stronger assessments of corporate culpability.
In sum, frames can directly influence observer
assessments of the three primary factors in our
model (effect undesirability, corporate culpabil-
ity, and affected party noncomplicity). Frames
can also influence those factors by affecting the
way observers perceive effect and firm charac-
teristics, as well as by affecting observer social
identification with the affected party or impli-
cated corporation. Further, frames can appeal to
an observer’s cognitive schema of corporate so-
cial irresponsibility by providing a story line
that links a culpable corporation with an unde-

sirable effect as inflicted on innocent victims.
Although these arguments suggest multiple
propositions regarding the influence of frames
on each aspect of the model, for the sake of
parsimony, we offer one general proposition
about the ultimate effect of frames.
Proposition 9: Observer awareness of
frames that position the corporation
as causal and morally responsible
with respect to a harmful effect on
noncomplicit victims is positively re-
lated to corporate social irresponsibil-
ity attributions.
DISCUSSION
In this article we used attribution theory to
describe how corporate social irresponsibility
attributions are rooted in an array of subjective
assessments made by the individual observer—
assessments that the effect was undesirable,
that the corporation was culpable for the unde-
sirable effect, and that the affected party had a
low level of complicity in the undesirable effect.
We described how those assessments can affect
each other and how they are further influenced
by the observer’s perceptions of effect and firm
characteristics, as well as by the observer’s so-
cial identification with the affected party or with
the implicated corporation. We concluded by de-
scribing how frames play an important role in
the corporate social irresponsibility attribu-
tion model.

The theory we presented here, although fo-
cused on attributions related to the dark side of
organizational behavior, contributes to the
larger body of research on the concept of CSR—
the idea of voluntary firm behavior, not driven
by the firm’s explicit transactional interests and
legal/regulatory obligations, which has some in-
tentional positive social effect (Godfrey, Merrill,
& Hansen, 2009; Margolis & Walsh, 2003; McWil-
liams & Siegel, 2001). Much CSR research is
rooted in the broader research tradition attempt-
ing to understand both the firm’s adaptation to
its environment and environmental responses to
firm action. In that vein, studies seeking to con-
firm a link between socially responsible behav-
ior and firm performance often investigate mar-
ket reactions or accounting performance
changes hypothesized to occur because socially
responsible actions satisfy expectations in the
firm’s environment, thereby giving the firm re-
source and institutional advantages (for a re-
view see Margolis & Walsh, 2003). Similarly,
studies that look at social responsibility as a
firm-level outcome variable often consider envi-
ronmental antecedents, such as the specific de-
mands of external stakeholders, rewards avail-
able owing to enhanced corporate reputation,
and various mechanisms of institutional diffu-
sion (for reviews see Basu & Palazzo, 2008, and
Campbell, 2007). A commonality of the majority
of CSR studies is that their approach to environ-
mental expectations for CSR emphasizes broad
social structures, such as value systems, institu-
tions, and stakeholder relations. In contrast, the
model we presented here suggests that respon-
sibility and irresponsibility are social construc-

tions with their roots in the knowledge, interpre-
tations, and perceptions of the firm’s observers.
Our focus on individual-level knowledge, in-
terpretation, and perception is consistent with
theories in the organization literature that high-
light individual agency within social construc-
tivist frameworks. For instance, our approach is
compatible with the view not only that institu-
tions or social structures constrain and enable
human behavior but also that they are pro-
duced, reproduced, and changed as a result of
the knowledgeable behavior of human agents
(Barley & Tolbert, 1997; Battilana, 2006; Emir-
bayer & Mische, 1998; Giddens, 1984). Our ap-
proach is also compatible with the view that
individuals simultaneously react to and shape
the environments they perceive as constituting
social reality (Berger & Luckman, 1967; Weick,
1979). Basu and Palazzo (2008) recently employed
this view to explore how organization decision
makers go about making sense of the organiza-
tion’s relationship with its stakeholders and
with the world at large, thereby constructing
and defining the organization’s CSR character.
We join Basu and Palazzo in challenging the
idea that environmental pressures on the firm
for socially responsible behavior are best under-
stood as objective facts. However, our emphasis
is on the attributions made by the firm’s observ-
ers, rather than on the sensemaking of firm

insiders.
An important implication of our model, which
should be relevant both to researchers and prac-
titioners, is that expectations and evaluations
for social responsibility do not exist as an objec-
tive reality in the firm’s environment but, rather,
are subjective and changeable, being the prod-
uct of a confluence of influences affecting indi-
vidual perceptions. Consider, for example, that
perceptions of effect undesirability are subject
to developments in measurement techniques
and emerging causal theories. As was the case
historically with cigarettes and the developing
science linking them with cancer, new methods
of measurement emerge that bring effects to ob-
servers’ attention and consideration. As nega-
tive effects become evident, the search for
causal agents intensifies, and associated firms
appear increasingly culpable. Yet as the haz-
ards of smoking have become widely known
and smoking is seen as an active choice, smok-
ers’ perceived complicity in their fate may make
the associated firms appear less culpable.
Indeed, observer assessments of affected
party complicity and corporate culpability with
respect to a negative effect are also not static.
For example, as we argued earlier, each will be
sensitive to the degree to which the observer
identifies with the affected party or the firm.
Identification entails an abstracted understand-
ing of what the affected party or firm is—that is,
its identity—along with the observer’s affinity
for that identity (Ashforth, Harrison, & Corley,

2008). An observer’s abstracted understanding of
the affected party or firm develops and changes
over time. Affinity with that identify will ebb
and flow. Therefore, identification is a state that
can strengthen and weaken with experience.
Even societal changes that increasingly empha-
size the interconnectedness of observers with
victims of undesirable effects might cause ob-
servers to expand their self-definition to include
others. As observer perceptions of ingroup and
outgroup boundaries evolve, assessments of af-
fected party complicity and corporate culpabil-
ity with respect to a negative effect are likely to
be influenced accordingly.
Our focus in this article has been on subjec-
tive understandings of firm behavior in terms of
appropriateness and responsibility as those un-
derstandings form at the level of the individual
perceiver. An implication for the firm is that
those individual-level perceptions, including at-
tributions of corporate social irresponsibility,
constitute the real-world environment in which
the firm exists and with which the firm must
interact. This suggests that individual-level
knowledge, interpretations, and perceptions ag-
gregate across individuals in ways that become
visible to organizations and relevant to organi-
zational outcomes. A subject for future research
is to consider theoretically and explore empiri-
cally how individual-level attributions for social
responsibility or irresponsibility that correlate
across individuals may underlie the structural
influences often studied in CSR research, in-
cluding institutional and stakeholder pressures
on the firm.

Another subject for future research is the em-
pirical examination of our model of corporate
social irresponsibility attributions. In spite of
containing a wide array of predicted influences
on social irresponsibility attributions, and there-
fore an apparent complexity that would seem to
preclude straightforward empirical testing, the
model in fact lends itself well to testing. The
model entails individual-level perceptions and
does not encompass process in terms of se-
quence or interactions of influences over time.
Combined with these aspects, the important role
of frames in the model suggests an avenue for
empirical exploration in an experimental set-
ting. Because frames can be highly influential
on each of the elements in the corporate social
irresponsibility attribution model, various parts
of the model could be manipulated in a lab
study using scenarios as frames. The researcher
could devise different versions of a scenario in-
volving a fictional firm and event to make the
effect appear more or less negative, the firm
more or less culpable, the affected party more or
less complicit, and the affected party or firm as
easier or harder for the experimental subject to
socially identify with. The researcher could then
measure perceptions among experimental sub-
jects to check the manipulations of those factors.
For example, one version of the scenario could

include descriptive information about the af-
fected party that emphasizes lack of foresight or
power, whereas a different version could omit
this information. In this way the researcher
would be able to assess the impact of percep-
tions of affected party power and foresight on
observer assessments of affected party noncom-
plicity. The researcher could then test the de-
gree to which factors such as the subject’s as-
sessment of affected party noncomplicity
contribute to a measure of the subject’s attribu-
tions of corporate social irresponsibility for the
focal firm. Because real-world attributions of
corporate social irresponsibility are often influ-
enced by the reading or hearing of a story about
a firm and a negative event, having experimen-
tal subjects read, listen to, or watch a scenario
about a company would be a very natural way
for observers to form corporate social irrespon-
sibility attributions. We therefore expect that a
scenario-based lab study would provide rich in-
formation regarding the formation of these attri-
butions in a manner that would allow for high
external validity.
A possible limitation of the model presented
in this article is that it simplifies some of the
real-world nuances in terms of individual differ-
ences among observers, among events, among
corporations, and among frames. The explora-
tion of those nuances represents an opportunity
for future theoretical development and empiri-
cal research. Consider, for instance, the individ-
ual observer differences that we modeled with
respect to perceptions of threat, moral impulses,
and interpretations of norms and the degree to

which the observer socially identifies with the
implicated firm or affected party. These differ-
ences help explain how perceptions of corporate
social irresponsibility might vary across observ-
ers. Future research can explore other sources of
variance in observer perceptions that affect the
way the observer assesses effect undesirability,
corporate culpability, and affected party non-
complicity. Chief among those sources of vari-
ance likely will be the individual’s shared inter-
ests with other observers—shared interests that
may not necessarily relate to the individual’s
social identification with the firm or affected
party. One way of understanding such shared
interests is in terms of whether and how the
individual is a stakeholder of the focal organi-
zation (Freeman, 1984). Different types of stake-
holders, by virtue of their different types of rela-
tionships with the firm, will have different sets
of interests, making stakeholder analysis a po-
tentially useful avenue for extending the theo-
retical model presented here. We would expect
that an analysis of stakeholder interests, be-
cause those interests may naturally diverge and
can even compete among different stakeholder
groups, would add a layer of complexity that
would complement and deepen the understand-
ing of individual-level corporate social irrespon-
sibility attributions we have introduced.
Future research could also extend the model
provided here by considering nuances among
events. We modeled events as primarily differ-
ing in terms of the subjective perceptions of dif-
ferent observers. This approach helps explain

how two events apparently representing similar
levels of social harm can differentially contrib-
ute to corporate social irresponsibility attribu-
tions. However, there may be important differ-
ences among events that facilitate or impede
those attributions. For instance, it would be
valuable to explore how events may differ in
terms of the dimensions of the firm’s legitimacy
(e.g., “pragmatic,” “moral,” or “cognitive” legiti-
macy, as per Suchman, 1995: 571) that the events
potentially undermine. Events that differ in the
way they harm the firm’s legitimacy might also
differ in the way they contribute to observer
perceptions of corporate culpability. We would
expect that, relative to other types of legitimacy
damage, moral legitimacy damage would be
most consistent with observer assessments of
corporate culpability for undesirable social
outcomes.
Another potential avenue of exploration is
how events differ in terms of ambiguity, which
Frisch and Baron describe as “the subjective
experience of missing information relevant to a
prediction” (1988: 152). We would expect that,
across observers, events higher in ambiguity
would have higher variance in corporate social
irresponsibility attributions, since the subjective
influences on attributions modeled here would
be more operative.

UNDERSTANDING ATTRIBUTIONS OFCORPORATE SOCIAL IRRESPONSIBILI.docx

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