CORPORATE DIGITAL RESPONSIBILITY – EXTENDED CONCEPTUALIZATION AND EMPIRICAL ASSESSMENT
Cristina Mihale-Wilson, Jan Zibuschka, K. Valerie Carl, Oliver Hinz
Abstract
The digital economy holds new chances for value creation but also risks for both companies and customers alike. Within this context, the Corporate Digital Responsibility (CDR) movement gains traction. Building on the well-established Corporate Social Responsibility paradigm, CDR entails a set of rules through which it seeks to ensure an ethical and responsible development, deployment, and use of digital technologies. To date, the scholarly conceptualization of CDR is still in its infancy. This study pursues two main objectives: Firstly, this study seeks to contribute to CDR theory by providing a more in-depth conceptualization of the concept. Secondly, this study provides guidance for the implementation of CDR in practice, based on an empirical foundation. To this end, we conduct a series of Best-Worst Scaling studies with 515 German-speaking participants and examine consumers' perspectives on various ethical guidelines from CDR.