사회적 기업에 대한 선한 의지는 어디까지 가능한가?

Although social enterprises still have a small impact on the overall economy, they are becoming an alternative to solving various social problems. This study investigated the conditions under which social enterprise products lead to consumer purchase and repurchase through comparison with general enterprise products. In Study 1, we examined how purchase intentions differ when general companies and social enterprises sell original products or copycats. The results of Study 1 showed that copycat sales by general companies and social enterprises lowered perceived fairness and had a negative impact on quality perception, but purchase intention was lowered only in general companies. Unlike general businesses, social enterprises have a moral license, so even if they sell copycats, purchase intention does not decrease. In Study 2, we looked at whether there was a difference in purchase intention when social enterprises manufactured copycats rather than simply selling them, and when they sold them at a high price. There was no difference in sales and manufacturing, but in the case of high prices, perceived corporate legitimacy and purchase intention for social enterprises decreased. In particular, consumers with a favorable attitude toward social enterprises perceived corporate legitimacy as low, which mediated the effect of high price on purchase intention. In Study 3, we investigated how consumers react to product failures by social enterprises compared to by general companies, and classified product failures into quality failures and eco-friendly failures. Overall, reactions to product failures in general companies appeared to be more negative. Consumers who highly perceive corporate legitimacy had lower purchase intentions towards eco-friendly failures in the case of general companies, while their purchase intentions were lowered towards quality failures in the case of social enterprises. It was found that moral license applies to failures of social enterprises’ good attributes, but not to failures of quality.
Finally, the implications and limitations of the above results were discussed.