In the modern world, consumers increasingly value companies that actively carry out socially responsible activities and are oriented towards sustainable development that brings benefits to both the company and the entire society. In this regard, consumers evaluate their relationship with different companies based on the perception of the equivalence of their relationship, which is based on a respectful and fair exchange process. In order to maintain and strengthen long-term partnerships with trustworthy companies, consumers are willing to invest more effort and devote more time to active cooperation with these companies. Since gratitude is one of the important emotions that, due to its moral component and prosocial nature, encourages consumers to reward companies for their good cooperation, the purpose of the doctoral dissertation is to examine the meaning and explain the role of consumer gratitude in the context of socially responsible companies. To this end, in the doctoral dissertation, we paid special attention to the literature review and the examination of the concept of gratitude within the social exchange, with a special emphasis on researching the factors and consequences that arise from showing gratitude in a business context. We empirically investigated the hypothesized influences using a combination of qualitative and quantitative methods. Since the concept of gratitude is rarely researched in the marketing literature and does not yet have its own unified measurement instrument, we initially investigated how Slovenian consumers understand this concept using focus groups, and then designed a measurement instrument based on the results obtained. In the next phase, we verified the hypothesized influences between the concepts by aconducting two survey questionnaires to a total of 470 respondents. From the data analysis, we found that the perception of the activities of socially responsible companies and the perception of relationship equivalence influence the emergence of grateful consumers. The results also show that gratitude acts as a motivational element that promotes trust and affective commitment of consumers and motivates consumers to express their opinions. The dissertation significantly contributes to the understanding of the concept of grateful consumers within the marketing profession and offers practical guidelines that can serve as a basis for promoting and strengthening relationships between companies and their consumers.
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