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Despite corporate social advocacy (CSA) has become a popular phenomenon, less is known about the potential negative public responses to corporations' CSA involvement and promotion. This paper aims to investigate the main and conditional effects of a new concept, CSA stance-action consistency, on consumers' negative responses to CSA communication.

The study employed a 4 (four types of CSA stance-action consistency) × 2 (CSA record: long vs short) between-subject experimental design. Social issue activism was measured as a continuous variable and treated as a moderator. An online experiment was conducted with participants recruited from MTurk (n = 224).

CSA stance-action consistency significantly predicted negative word-of-mouth and boycott intention. Participants' social issue activism moderated the effects. However, CSA record was not a significant predictor of consumers' negative responses to CSA communication.

This study advances CSA and corporate communication literature by proposing a new concept, CSA stance-action consistency and providing empirical evidence on its effects on consumer responses. Practical implications to CSA promotion were discussed.

The purpose of this experimental study is to examine the effects of climate change corporate social responsibility (CSR) and corporate social advocacy (CSA) messages on public perceptions of companies and collective action intentions.

This study employs a 2 (message type: CSA vs CSR) × 2 (environmental issue: single-use plastics vs renewable energy) × 2 (company: Target vs Walmart) plus control online experimental design.

There were no main effects of message type on outcomes; however, green consumer identity moderated the relationship between message type and green purchase intention as well as negative word-of-mouth.

This study responds to calls by scholars to empirically compare the effects of CSR and CSA messages. Additionally, we consider group-level processes, like ingroup identity, in influencing strategic communication outcomes.

Employing cognitive dissonance theory, this study examines how consumers’ preexisting attitudes toward an issue, value involvement with the issue and consumer-company identification (CCI) influence their reactions to corporate social advocacy (CSA) through cognitive dissonance.

Study 1 conducted a 2 (CSA position: pro vs anti) × 3 (preexisting issue attitude: pro vs neutral vs anti) online quasi-experiment. The CSA messages were created in the context of same-sex marriage(s). Study 2 tested the hypotheses using an online survey in the context of gun control.

The results indicated that a conflict between consumers’ preexisting attitudes and a corporation’s stance on a controversial issue led to cognitive dissonance, which further led to consumers’ perceptions of the corporation being biased in both studies. Study 1 and Study 2 suggested a mixed effect of cognitive dissonance on participants’ inclination to disidentify with the corporation. Preexisting CCI appeared to have a direct negative influence on cognitive dissonance; however, value involvement and preexisting CCI were not found to significantly enhance the influence of consumers’ attitudes toward CSA on cognitive dissonance.

The study first extended the theoretical discussion of cognitive dissonance to a trendy strategic communication context. The results help public relations practitioners to better understand the segmented public groups and the risk of taking a stance on controversial issues.

Corporations are confronted with growing demands to take a stand on socio-political issues, i.e. corporate social advocacy (CSA), which affects their reputation in the public. Companies use different CSA message strategies, including calling the public to support and act on the issue they advocate. Using reactance theory, the authors investigate the impact of CSA messages with a call to action on corporate reputation in the case of a company's gender equality initiative.

A one-factorial (CSA message with or without a call to action) between-subjects experiment was conducted by surveying 172 individuals living in Switzerland. The CSA messages were created in the context of gender equality.

The authors' study indicates that CSA messages with a call to action compared to those without overall harmed corporate reputation due to individuals' reactance, which is higher for CSA messages with a call to action, negatively affecting corporate reputation. The impact of the CSA message strategy with a call to action on corporate reputation remains significant after controlling for issue alignment and political leaning.

Communicating about socio-political issues, especially taking a stand, is a significant challenge for corporations in an increasingly polarized society and has often led to backlash, boycotts and damage to corporate reputation. This study shows that the possible adverse effects of advocating for socio-political issues can be related to reactance. It emphasizes that companies advocating for contested issues must be more cautious about the message strategy than the issue itself.