Currently, many companies have been developing social actions considering that society assigns them a role that goes beyond ethical and legal behavior, which may be valued by their target audiences and may even help them regain lost preference for their products. This work aimed to verify the importance of those actions in purchasing decisions of consumers. Therefore, in addition to the literature review of issues relevant to the topic, we conducted a descriptive conclusive research, with probability sampling, with 60 graduate students of a university located in São Paulo state, between the months of June and July 2009. The results show that social actions are less important than other factors considered in the investigation of purchasing decision factors. The findings also indicate that only a small portion of the population was aware of the social actions to which the companies and their products were linked. These results deserve further reflection on the return that companies actually have from those actions, as well as the dissemination of corporate social action projects.
Corporate social actions; Purchase decision; Consumer behavior
