This study examines frontline employee responses to corporate social responsibility (CSR) using a multisourced data set at a Global 500 financial services company. The authors find that frontline employees identify with the organization (i.e., organizational identification) and with customers (i.e., employee–customer identification) as a function of how much the employees perceive management and customers (respectively) to support the company's CSR activities. However, these respective effects are stronger among employees for whom CSR is already tied to their sense of self (i.e., CSR importance to the employee). In addition, both organizational identification and employee–customer identification are related to supervisor-rated job performance; however, only the effect of employee–customer identification is mediated by customer orientation, suggesting that these two targets of identification manifest through distinct mechanisms. The research empirically addresses the open questions of whether and when CSR can yield observable changes in employee behavior and alerts researchers to a novel target of identification for frontline employees.

Many firms capitalize on their customers’ social networks to improve the success rate of their new products. In this article, the authors analyze the dynamic effects of social influence and direct marketing on the adoption of a new high-technology product. Social influence is likely to play a role because the decision to adopt a high-involvement product requires extensive information gathering from various sources. The authors use call detail records to construct ego networks for a large sample of customers of a Dutch mobile telecommunications operator. Using a fractional polynomial hazard approach to model adoption timing and multiple social influence variables, they provide a fine-grained analysis of social influence. They show that the effect of social influence from cumulative adoptions in a customer's network decreases from the product introduction onward, whereas the influence of recent adoptions remains constant. The effect of direct marketing is also positive and decreases from the product introduction onward. This study provides new insights into the adoption of high-technology products by analyzing dynamic effects of social influence and direct marketing simultaneously.

In response to a top ten global consumer trend, firms are increasingly introducing environmentally sustainable (“green”) new products. Firms allocate significant resources to this area; thus, the authors consider the brand-level implications by investigating how the introduction of green new products changes attitude toward the brand. In examining this relationship, they draw from social identity and framing theories to investigate drivers of green new product introductions as well as the moderating effects of message framing, source credibility, and product type. Estimating a three-stage least squares model based on new product introductions from 75 brands across a four-year time period (2009–2012), the authors find that green new product introductions can indeed improve brand attitude and that both the brand and category's positioning influence the introduction of green new products. They also find that the quantity of green messages, the product type, and their source credibility influence the extent to which green new products change brand attitude. The authors use these findings to provide guidance for managers as they attempt to effectively link their green innovation efforts to improve consumer attitudes toward their brands.