  We examine whether a company's corporate reputation gained from their CSR
activities and a company leader's reputation, one that is unrelated to his or
her business acumen, can impact economic action fairness appraisals. We provide
experimental evidence that good corporate reputation causally buffers
individuals' negative fairness judgment following the firm's decision to
profiteer from an increase in the demand. Bad corporate reputation does not
make the decision to profiteer as any less acceptable. However, there is
evidence that individuals judge as more unfair an ill-reputed firm's decision
to raise their product's price to protect against losses. Thus, our results
highlight the importance of a good reputation in protecting a firm against
severe negative judgments from making an economic decision that the public
deems unfair.
