Perceived CSR initiatives and intention to purchase game items: The motivational mechanism of self-esteem and compassion

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effect of perceived corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives moderated by a user characteristic (heavy users) on game-item purchase intention and uniquely propose that this moderation is serially mediated by self-esteem and compassion.

A 2 (CSR initiatives: high vs low) by 2 (user characteristic: heavy vs non-heavy users) experimental design was employed to test the propositions in the context of an online mobile game.

The results demonstrate that heavy users with high-perceived CSR initiatives have a higher intention to purchase game items. The results also show that self-esteem and compassion fully and serially mediate the effect of moderation on the intention to purchase game items.

This serial mediation mechanism has rarely been proposed and tested in previous studies and may contribute to extending the literature.