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The purpose of this study was to shed light on how effective environmental corporate social responsibility (CSR) communication can be achieved through persuasive communication strategies using message framing.

This study conducted an online experimental study with a 2 (narrative: narrative or non-narrative) × 2 (framing: gain or loss) between-subjects design.

The findings showed that environmental CSR communication using narrative framing messages is most effective in creating strong CSR associations between a company and the environmental CSR domain and sharing the company's CSR information on supportive communication and advocating for the environmental campaign.

This study highlights the importance of a company's environmental CSR communication efforts using the right message format (narrative style) to increase its persuasive sequence from CSR evaluation to supportive behaviors, contributing to theoretical development in the research of environmental CSR communication. This study suggests that environmental CSR campaign managers should first formalize the company's environmental responsiveness by clearly establishing policies and practicing CSR performance that could result in a strong CSR association before asking their target publics to engage in pro-environmental activities.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the effects of corporate ability (CA) and corporate social responsibility (CSR) on perceptions of CSR motives, attitudes, and behavioral intentions toward a company.

These effects were tested using a 2 (CA: good vs poor)×2 (CSR: continuous vs one-time) between-subjects experiment. The company with good CA was depicted as a top 20 Fortune 500 company, but in the poor CA condition, it faced disappointing financial outcomes due to the failure of its new product. To manipulate the different levels of CSR, the company’s charitable giving and community involvement was described as a continuous commitment or one-time donation.

Continuous CSR commitment significantly increased consumers’ positive attitudes, purchase intention, and willingness to support an organization. These positive effects become particularly more powerful for a company with poor business performance. Participants attributed more sincere and less image-promotion motives of CSR to a company with poor CA than to that with good CA. For the company with poor CA, both types of CSR motives mediated the relationship between CSR and the outcomes, while only sincere motives served as a mediator for the company with good CA.

The findings suggest the possibility that CSR initiatives pursued by unprofitable companies may be more recognized and appreciated than those by business giants. Thus, a company should maintain its CSR activities as a long-term strategy, especially when the company is not an industry leader.

This research suggests that the mediating role of perceived CSR motives can be contingent upon CA.

As the focal point of both academic studies and business practices, the theme strategy of corporate social responsibility (CSR) arouses wide attention. However, extant studies concentrate more on the selection of the theme of CSR activities, such as the fitness between CSR activities and the core business, thus largely neglecting the consistency of the theme. The purpose of this paper is to determine whether the enterprise should adopt a consistent theme strategy or should participate in different social programs, and how do customers response to the lack of studies in different theme-consistent strategies.

In this paper, two progressive experiments are performed. The purpose of study 1 is to examine the influence of theme consistency on consumers’ CSR association and how consumers’ attribution to corporation motivation mediates such impacts. The purpose for study 2 is to examine whether information dissemination channels and cooperation with public organization could affect the influence of theme consistency strategy.

The significant influences of theme consistency on consumer CSR association was demonstrated, and consumer’s perceived motivation of CSR was found to play the mediation role. Moreover, the moderation effect of the communication channel of CSR information was found to be important to strengthen the influence of the theme-consistent strategy.

This paper not only demonstrates the influence of theme consistency, but also explains how theme consistency influences consumers’ attitude and behavior. It enriches the study on the antecedent variables of consumers’ attribution to corporate motivation.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the impact of cultural factors on environmental CSR attitudes and purchase intentions among publics in a developed (USA) country and a developing (India) country.

Using a 2 (location of the company: India vs USA) × 2 (location of the CSR activity: India vs USA) between-subjects experimental design, the study examines individuals’ attitudes and behavioral intentions toward a company’s environmental CSR activities in each respective country.

Two structural equation models were created for US publics and Indian publics. Results indicated that cultural factors, specifically the uncertainty avoidance dimension, play an important role among both Indian and US residents’ attitudes toward a company’s environmental CSR efforts and their intention to purchase its products/services. Among Indians, the power distance dimension acted as a mediating factor.

This study is novel in its examination of the impact of cultural factors among residents in India and the USA. This information can be utilized by multinational companies to implement effective CSR activities and enhancing their global CSR communication efforts.

The purpose of this paper is to study the usage of ethical business strategies, in particular those using the corporate social responsibility (CSR) approach, of Egyptian businesses. The authors primarily focus on one facet of CSR strategy – cause-related marketing (CRM) – which has been increasingly used by marketing practitioners in recent times.

In the context of Egyptian household goods business, the authors investigate the factors that motivate/hinder consumer participation in their CRM campaigns using a sample of 261 respondents in a mixed research design.

Results show that motivational attribution significantly predicts consumers’ responses toward CRM, with moral judgment playing a partial mediating role in such relationship. In addition, several variables such as altruism and religiosity among personality characteristics are found to arouse consumers’ positive motivational attribution, whereas skepticism was negatively associated with CRM responses.

The findings of this research have both practical and social implications for academics and practitioners alike. Successful campaigns should include the factors inducing motivational attribution, which, in turn, enhances consumers’ attitude toward a company and their purchase intentions. Personal characteristics also impact consumer responses and should be paid attention to.

In a world characterized by fast-changing pace of globalization, it has become critical to study an important phenomenon like CRM in the Middle East, and this original research provides insights into how effective CRM campaigns can be developed there. This will strengthen our cross-cultural understanding of the similarities and differences in consumer viewpoints between developed and developing countries.

The goal of this paper is twofold: (1) to investigate how relatedness-supportive corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives influence brand happiness among retail bank customers through a mediating mechanism of customer participation in brand CSR movements; and (2) to analyze how relatedness-supportive CSR initiatives’ effect may be moderated by cause choice and customer-brand goal congruence.

Data were collected from 379 retail bank customers via a paper-and-pencil survey. The hypothesized moderated-mediation effects were tested using Hayes’ (2013) PROCESS (Model 3, Model 4 and Model 7).

Results show that relatedness-supportive CSR initiatives increase brand happiness among retail bank customers through increasing their participation in brand CSR movements. Furthermore, the use of customer determination in the choice of cause enhances the positive effect of relatedness-supportive CSR initiatives on customer participation in brand CSR movements. Similarly, when customers choose the cause and the customer-brand goal is congruent, the effect of relatedness-supportive CSR initiatives on brand happiness is stronger than when the customer-brand goal is incongruent and cause choice is not aligned.

This research is grounded on the relationship motivation theory (RMT), basic psychological needs theory and self-congruity theory to unpack the relationship between relatedness-supportive CSR programs on brand happiness. Integrating three research streams (i.e. CSR, brand management and retail banking), this study proposes customer participation in brand CSR movements as a novel mechanism and sheds light on how relatedness-supportive CSR interplays with cause choice/customer-brand goal congruence to affect brand happiness among retail bank customers in emerging markets.

While the segmentation approach has been frequently employed to explore individuals' environment-friendly behaviors, the investigation of environmental corporate social responsibility (CSR) communication by using such a method is limited. Given that the importance of the role of public segmentation is well documented in both public relations and environmental management literatures, the present study attempts to fill the gap by exploring whether consumers can be segmented on the basis of attitudinal factors, and, if so, how this segmentation informs communication efforts aimed at promoting companies' environmental CSR programs.

This segmentation approach is examined based on a survey of 470 participants. Results of a k-means cluster analysis identified three subgroups: active publics, aware publics and latent publics.

Survey results provide empirical support evidence on how different public segmentation approaches can be used to predict individual communication behaviors on environmental CSR issues. Segmentation approach that considered individuals' attitudes on environmental issues and their perceptions on company environmental CSR practices helps identify three subgroups. Significant differences regarding communicative action and supporting behaviors among the three groups are identified and discussed.

This study provides key insights about public segmentation and different publics' communicative action, and supportive behaviors provide direction for future research investigations that will strengthen theoretical arguments and best practices in public relations.

From an internal perspective, the purpose of this study is to understand employees' responses to chief executive officer (CEO) activism, a phenomenon wherein a company's CEO expresses his/her own opinions and ideas on controversial sociopolitical issues. Integrating corporate social responsibility (CSR), public relations and leadership literature, this study examines the effects of employees' expectations toward CEOs and transformational CEO leadership on the perceived morality of CEO activism and its attitudinal and behavioral outcomes.

An online survey was conducted with 417 full-time employees in the US whose CEO has been engaging in sociopolitical issues.

The results showed that employees' ethical expectations toward their CEOs and transformational CEO leadership were positively associated with perceived morality of CEO activism, whereas economic expectations toward CEOs had no significant relationship with it. In turn, perceived morality of CEO activism contributed to employees' positive attitudes and supportive behaviors for their CEOs and their companies.

This study is among the first attempts to examine the effectiveness of CEO activism from an internal perspective, drawing from CSR, public relations and leadership literature.

The purpose of this paper is to examine how corporate reputation interacts with corporate social responsibility (CSR) fit and affects stakeholders’ skeptical attribution (SA) of CSR motives, as well as their attitudes, supportive communication intent and purchase intent. This study proposes that a high-fit CSR program does not necessarily engender more favorable outcomes, nor does it stimulate SA. The study proposes the effects of CSR fit differ by corporate reputation. For bad-reputation companies, low-fit is anticipated to generate more desirable CSR outcomes than high-fit initiatives.

Two experiments were conducted. The first experiment employed a randomized 2 (CSR fit: high fit vs low fit) × 2 (good reputation vs bad reputation) × 2 (Industry: food retailing and insurance) full factorial design to examine the suggested hypotheses. The second study employed a randomized 2 (CSR fit: high fit vs low fit) × 2 (good reputation vs bad reputation) full factorial design with consumer samples to replicate the conceptual relationships among variables in the first study.

While reputation plays a dominant role in influencing stakeholders’ CSR-related responses across both CSR fit situations, a SA partially mediates the relationship between reputation and stakeholder reactions. CSR fit interacts with reputation, and influences the partial mediation process through SA; under a bad reputation condition, low-fit CSR engenders less SA and results in better stakeholder reactions. A similar tendency was found with supportive communication intent and purchase intent. High-fit CSR initiatives by a negative reputation company engendered the weakest supportive intent and purchase intent. For a reputable company, across both CSR fits, respondents displayed generally very positive attitudes toward, greater intent to support, and intent to purchase from the company.

The study findings provide useful and empirically supported logical explanations of why high-fit CSR programs sometimes cause backlash effects, despite the general consensus that such initiatives generate positive outcomes. This study offers an alternative and more relevant perspective to conceptualize the complexity of anticipating CSR outcomes.

The purpose of this paper is to examine how stakeholders perceive the motives behind fast food companies’ public health-related corporate social responsibility (CSR) and general social issue-related CSR initiatives, and their responses toward CSR in terms of supportive communication intent, investment intent, and purchase intent. The authors further examine the impact of perceived CSR motives on intent and whether a healthier chain image has an effect on stakeholder responses.

An online experiment was conducted. This study employed a randomized 2 (CSR type: health-related CSR vs generic social issue-related CSR)×2 (chain image: healthier chain vs general fast-food chain) full factorial design using general stakeholder samples.

For an ordinary fast food restaurant, generic social issue-related CSR programs elicited significantly more positive perceptions of CSR motives, supportive communication intent and investment intent, than public-health related CSR. When a company has a healthier image, stakeholders do not distinguish between CSR types. Stakeholders perceive both CSR types as stemming from mutually beneficial motives and show neutral to slightly positive reactions to both CSR. A positively perceived CSR motive plays a determinant role in anticipating communication, investment, and purchase intents.

This is the first study that examines stakeholder perception of motives behind and responses toward fast food chains’ health-related vs generic social issue-related CSR initiatives, in light of corporate image. The study findings help public relations practitioners, public health professionals, parent groups, and legislators understand stakeholders’ reactions toward CSR initiatives in the fast food industry and help them monitor practices for improvements.