Luxury brands and corporate social responsibility (CSR): exploring the differences between traditional and new luxury

Abstract

Purpose

This study aims to comprehend luxury brands' corporate social responsibility (CSR) strategies. In addition to facing a demand for new CSR strategies (consumer-centric CSR), changes in CSR discourse among luxury brands are observed. This study examines how CSR-related and luxury-related agendas relate in the news media, especially concerning the difference between traditional and new luxury brands.

Design/methodology/approach

A total of 117,171 fashion-related news articles were collected from January 2016 to December 2020. The word2vec method was used to determine the relationship between CSR and luxury agendas.

Findings

The results indicate that company-centric CSR is more prominent with traditional luxury brands, while consumer-centric CSR is more relevant for new luxury brands. In addition, specific CSR attributes and luxury-related attributes are associated with media discourse, which means that CSR and luxury are compatible.

Originality/value

Studies on CSR in the luxury industry are not extensive in the literature. This study addresses this gap through a unique framework that combines agenda-setting theory and existing CSR literature and applies them to the luxury industry. Specifically, this study captures the development of each construct (company-centric CSR to consumer-centric CSR and traditional luxury to new luxury) and identifies the specific relationships between them. This result provides a novel view of the luxury industry indicating that it has evolved to encompass CSR-related values. The empirical results also offer practical implications for luxury marketing.

Citation

Kwon, J.E., Kim, J. and Kim, S.-H. (2024), "Luxury brands and corporate social responsibility (CSR): exploring the differences between traditional and new luxury", Asia Pacific Journal of Marketing and Logistics, Vol. 36 No. 1, pp. 1-25. https://doi.org/10.1108/APJML-11-2022-0931