Generational Perceptions of Corporate Social Responsibility: Comparing Youth and Adult Attitudes Toward Ethical Business Practices

This study focuses on comparing how youth and adults perceive corporate social responsibility with respect to trust. The significance of the CSR perception and its influence on purchasing decisions. The total number of participants in this study was 102, who were divided into a youth and an adult group. Methods applied in the statistical analysis include Welch’s unpaired t-test and Cohen’s d.

The differences in the answers between youth and adult participants’ answers were not as great as one could expect. Adults had greater results concerning the trust in CSR and its influence on an adult's purchasing decisions, but all the gaps were not statistically significant, and the effect size values indicated a negligible impact on CSR. Both age groups gave relatively equal responses to questions about CSR importance, meaning that the issue of sustainability is equally important to everyone.

Moreover, the current research has revealed some differences in how young individuals and adults perceive information related to CSR. According to the findings, young people get their opinions about CSR from social media, whereas adults have the possibility to verify the information and have a firsthand experience of CSR efforts.