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Journal of Business Ethics

Erschienen in:

01.12.2013

The Impact of Interactive Corporate Social Responsibility Communication on Corporate Reputation

verfasst von: David Eberle, Guido Berens, Ting Li

Erschienen in: Journal of Business Ethics | Ausgabe 4/2013

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Abstract

Companies increasingly communicate about corporate social responsibility (CSR) through interactive online media. We examine whether using such media is beneficial to a company’s reputation. We conducted an online experiment to examine the impacts of interactivity in CSR messages on corporate reputation and word-of-mouth intentions. Our findings suggest that an increase in perceived interactivity leads to higher message credibility and stronger feelings of identification with the company, which also boost corporate reputation and word-of-mouth. This result implies that using interactive channels to communicate about CSR can improve corporate reputation. Our results also show that the detrimental impacts of negative user evaluations on corporate reputation are much higher than the favorable impacts of positive evaluations. This finding suggests that, despite the effectiveness of interactive communication channels, firms need to carefully monitor these channels.

Vorheriger Artikel A Web of Watchdogs: Stakeholder Media Networks and Agenda-Setting in Response to Corporate Initiatives

Nächster Artikel Tweetjacked: The Impact of Social Media on Corporate Greenwash

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A Chi square test reveals no significant differences of gender distribution among the five groups (χ² = 3.01, df = 4, p = .56), nor any significant differences in the distribution of the 117 western and 88 non-western respondents (χ² = 1.19, df = 4, p = .88). However, differences were found in education level among the five groups (χ² = 15.78, df = 4, p = .05). However, since five cells have an expected count less than five, the results might not be meaningful. Indeed, by excluding the respondents with only a high school diploma, the Chi square test shows no more disparities (χ² = 3.06, df = 4, p = .55). Nevertheless, we conducted further analyses both with and without these seven respondents to check whether there were significant differences between the two data sets. As no significant differences could be found, it is thus assumed that the distribution of education among the five groups is about equal. The mean age of all participants is 24.98 years. An ANOVA test shows that there are no significant differences in the mean age across the five groups (F = 0.67, p = .61).

The means on all of these variables are also not significantly different across the five groups (for familiarity with the Internet, F _4,199 = 0.37, p = .83; for liking of social media, F _4,196 = 1.16, p = .33; for use of networking sites, F _4,200 = 0.56, p = .69; and for using social media for information about companies, F _4,199 = 1.15, p = .34).

The reason for this choice is that the online survey system did not allow for the respondent’s own comment to be ‘published’ immediately.

We also tested the significance of the differences between the non-interactive condition (Condition 1) and the interactive ones using dummy coding with Condition 1 as the references category. The results show that the condition with mostly negative comments (Condition 5) scores significantly lower than the non-interactive condition on all dimensions except word-of-mouth (see the significance levels provided in Table 4). In addition, the condition with balanced negative and positive comments scores significantly lower than the non-interactive condition on message credibility and reputation.

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Titel: The Impact of Interactive Corporate Social Responsibility Communication on Corporate Reputation
verfasst von: David Eberle
Guido Berens
Ting Li
Publikationsdatum: 01.12.2013
Verlag: Springer Netherlands
Erschienen in: Journal of Business Ethics / Ausgabe 4/2013
Print ISSN: 0167-4544
Elektronische ISSN: 1573-0697
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-013-1957-y

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