Consumers Continue To Participate In The Evolution Of The Motivation Of Virtual CSR Co-creation

With the rapid development of economy,the public pays more and more attention to corporate ethics,which inevitably leads to the pressure of corporate social responsibility(CSR).Traditional CSR is regarded as an enterprise led activity,but it ignores the value creation of consumers.The rise of social media makes it possible for consumers to take the initiative to participate in CSR activities,and the form of CSR activities has gradually changed from offline mode to online mode,attracting the public to participate in social responsibility projects initiated by enterprises,which is academically known as "virtual CSR co-creation".So far,some companies have established a good social image through virtual CSR co-creation and cultivated a group of loyal consumers.However,some companies’ virtual CSR co-creation soon died out.The fundamental reason is whether it can stimulate consumers’ motivation of continuous participation,trigger continuous participation behavior and realize long-term social responsibility value co creation.Based on this,this paper takes "virtual CSR co-creation" as the research object,and uses the qualitative research method of grounded theory to explore the evolution of consumers’ motivation in the process of continuous participation in virtual CSR co-creation.Firstly,literature review was conducted on the research on virtual CSR co-creation,consumers’ continuous participation in CSR and CSR value co-creation motivation to further clarify the research topic.Secondly,under the guidance of grounded theoretical research methods,taking the "ant forest" virtual CSR co-creation project as a typical case,through in-depth interviews and literature analysis method to collect data,and using Nvivo11 software on the collected data category of three-level coding and refining category,and finally build a motivational evolution model for consumers’ continued participation in virtual CSR co-creation.At last,organismic integration theory and basic psychological needs theory are used to explain the motivation evolution of consumers’ continuous participation in virtual CSR co-creation.Through research and analysis,this paper finds that consumers’ motivation to participate in virtual CSR co-creation is not static,but the extrinsic motivation is constantly internalized with the continuous participation: in the initial stage of participation,consumers are mainly driven by extrinsic motivation such as instrumentalmotivation and reward motivation to join the project and begin to participate;under the influence of such situational factors as platform factors,social atmosphere and group reference,the extrinsic motivation of consumers’ participation has been introjected regulation,and gradually transformed into the motivation of stay participation mainly based on social reinforcement motivation,social connection motivation and loss avoidance motivation,which makes consumers willing to stay in the project activities for a short time;in the deeper and more lasting participation,the satisfaction of consumers’ basic psychological needs promotes their external motivation of identified regulation,such as emotional fit,social contribution motivation,community attachment.At the same time,social responsibility motivation runs through continuous participation and is constantly strengthened.In addition,these motives are the result of a combination of social norms and individual consciousness.In the process of continuous participation in virtual CSR co-creation,the degree of self-determination and self-integration of consumers is constantly improving,and the internal driving force is stronger,which makes consumers willing to spend more time and energy to maintain participation,improves the value of virtual CSR co-creation,and creates a good corporate image.