WSJ.com: Does Being Ethical Pay?

Companies spend huge amounts of money to be ’socially responsible.’ Do consumers reward them for it? And how much?

We recommend this article, written by Remi Trudel and June Cotte of University of Western Ontario’s Ivey School of Business, and published in both the Wall Street Journal, and the MITSloan Management Review, and its related podcast.

In the study, the researchers set out to determine how much consumers were willing to pay for a commodity (in this case, coffee and t-shirts), when presented with the ethical track record of the company behind the product. They found that while consumers will pay a premium to a company with at least some socially responsible practices (25% organic cotton, for instance), they wouldn’t pay much more for a company using 100% organic cotton. On the flip side, researchers discovered that consumers punished clearly un-ethical companies (i.e. lacking ethnic diversity, hurting the environment, sweatshop labor), only buying their products at a steep discount.

The findings set up an interesting tension between the economics of the business (invest only enough in ethical practice to change perception and benefit from higher margins), and the values and principles of the company (operate in a socially-responsible manner in every way we can, within our business model). Nonetheless, the conclusion is that the consumer will reward socially responsible behavior and punish unethical behavior through their buying choices.

How do your customers rate your company?

- illustration: Rob Shepperson, wsj.com