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The Process Model of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) Communication: CSR Communication and its Relationship with Consumers’ CSR Knowledge, Trust, and Corporate Reputation Perception

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Abstract

Using a national survey of US consumers, this study demonstrates the positive effects of corporate social responsibility (CSR) communication factors on consumers’ CSR knowledge, trust, and perceptions of corporate reputation. The study also examines the role of a stakeholder-specific factor of consumer–company identification in the process of CSR communication. The findings suggest that the positive effects of CSR informativeness are enduring and independent of consumers’ identification levels with a company, whereas the positive consequences of the personal relevance, transparency, and factual tone of CSR communication intensify as the identification levels increase. Although CSR communication in which a self-promotional tone is adopted has a negative relationship with consumer trust and corporate reputation, such negative effects are not evident among consumers with very high identification levels with a company. Such CSR communication in fact improves consumers’ CSR knowledge and, in turn, has a positive effect on corporate reputation.

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Notes

  1. For CSR informativeness, five items are provided as a refined measurement in Kim and Ferguson’s research (Kim and Ferguson 2014, 2016), but this study added one more item that measures the presence of third-party endorsement to the CSR informativeness measurement: I believe the company has been actively providing “information about whether third-party organizations (non-profit or government) endorse the company’s CSR activities.” (see Table 1).

  2. Twenty-seven CSR companies were provided: Amazon.com, Anheuser-Busch InBev, Avon Products, Ben and Jerry’s, BMO Harris Bank, Clorox, Coca-Cola, Dell, FedEx, Goodyear, Google, Intel, Johnson and Johnson, Kraft Foods, Kellogg’s, Lowe’s Home Improvement, McDonald’s, Microsoft, PepsiCo., Proctor and Gamble, Publix Super Markets, Southwest Airlines, Starbucks, State Farm, Target, The Walt Disney Company, and TOMS.

  3. The composite reliabilities for all the constructs were higher than .70. Discriminant validity was assessed by comparing the square root of average variance extracted (AVE) with the correlations between the construct and each of the other constructs. The AVE for each construct was greater than the square of the correlation, maximum shared variances (MSVs), and average shared variances (ASVs) for all the constructs (see Table 2). Convergent validity for each construct was examined based on the four criteria: (a) The factor loadings for all measures were >.70 and significant (p < .001), (b) the composite reliability for each construct was >.70, (c) the AVE for each construct was >.50, and (d) the composite reliability >AVE (Hair, et al. 2006).

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Acknowledgement

This work was supported by a Page Legacy Scholar Grant from the Arthur W. Page Center at the Penn State College of Communications under Page Legacy Scholar Grant. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Pennsylvania State University [N.1303CSR].

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  1. School of Journalism and Communication, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, 101 Humanities Bldg., Shatin, N.T., Hong Kong

    Sora Kim

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All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki Declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.

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Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.

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This research project is funded by Arthur W. Page Center at the Penn State University (#1303).

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Kim, S. The Process Model of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) Communication: CSR Communication and its Relationship with Consumers’ CSR Knowledge, Trust, and Corporate Reputation Perception. J Bus Ethics 154, 1143–1159 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-017-3433-6

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