Impact of Consumers’ Self-Construal, Empathy, and Moral Identity on Purchase Intention toward Cause-Related Marketing Goods: A Perspective of the Moderated Mediation Model

Abstract

This study examined whether the impact of consumers' self-construal on purchase intention toward cause-related marketing (CRM) goods was indi-rectly affected by empathy and moral identity. A total of 524 valid samples were collected, after which the moderated mediation hypotheses were tested using Process software. The research data were segmented into three score groups to compare the differences between the high score and low score groups. The empirical results revealed the following findings. 1) Moral identi-ty internalization and symbolization resulted in positive moderation effects on the direct impact of interdependent self-construal on purchase intention to-ward CRM products. However, under the mediating effect of empathy, the " low/low " and " high/high " groups from moral identity internalization and symbolization each produced positive and negative moderation effects. 2) Re-garding the direct impact of moral identity internalization and symbolization on independent self-construal toward purchase intention toward CRM prod-ucts, the " low/low " and " low/high " groups from internalization and symboli-zation produced positive moderation effects. However, under the mediating effect of empathy, only the " low/low " groups from internalization and symbo-lization produced significant positive mediating effects. Within the consum-ers' self-construal and its impact on purchase intention toward CRM prod-ucts, the mediation role of empathy and moderated mediation role of the two moral identity dimensions in the influence relationship were constructed. In terms of practical aspects, companies are recommended to conduct market segmentation based on consumers' moral identities and develop distinct