Elsevier

Public Relations Review

Volume 40, Issue 5, December 2014, Pages 838-840
Public Relations Review

Research in Brief
Strategic communication of corporate social responsibility (CSR): Effects of stated motives and corporate reputation on stakeholder responses

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pubrev.2014.07.005Get rights and content

Abstract

This study examined stakeholder responses toward two communication strategies of CSR motives: stating both self- and society-serving motives or only society-serving motives. How the effect of stated motives differs by corporate reputation was studied as well. The study found that acknowledging a self-serving motive reduces skeptical attribution and enhances stakeholders’ favorable intent to support, seek employment with, invest in, and purchase from the company. Possible backlash effects were detected when companies with poor reputations emphasize only society-serving motives and omit self-serving motives.

Introduction

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) has been regarded as a strong public relations tool to enhance mutually beneficial relationships with stakeholders (Kim & Choi, 2012). Although communicating CSR efforts is as important as CSR implementation, most corporations face difficulties regarding what and how to intelligently communicate their CSR efforts to stakeholders (Morsing, Schultz, & Nielsen, 2008). Companies often describe the purpose of CSR programs as for the public good, without mentioning possible self-serving motives.

Organizational transparency literature emphasizes that trustworthy, open corporate communication improves stakeholders’ understanding and perception of corporate actions (Albu & Wehmeier, 2014). Stakeholders can understand the strategic characteristics of corporate behaviors and demand that businesses shoulder responsibility as product providers and profit generators, in addition to displaying ethical behavior. This study argues that acknowledging self-serving motives is part of transparent stakeholder communication and helps form a positive perception of CSR motives, attitudes and intentions. The first set of hypotheses expects that, compared to stating only a society-serving motive, acknowledgment of both self- and society-serving motives leads to less skeptical attribution, more positive attitudes and intentions to support, work, invest and purchase from the company.

In addition, this study hypothesizes that the effects of stated motives differ by corporate reputation. Corporate reputation refers a public's collective assessment of corporate behaviors and its abilities to provide valued outcomes to stakeholders (Hong & Yang, 2009). Reputation reflects corporate performance, including CSR initiatives, and publics use reputation as an ethical benchmark to evaluate CSR programs. When a company has a poor reputation, individuals may assume its CSR initiatives are publicity stunts for profit generation. For those companies, emphasizing society-serving motives may ignite skeptical perceptions and cause a backlash effect, while acknowledging self-serving motives can reduce negative responses. Two-sided persuasion studies say that including opposing arguments can enhance persuasiveness (Crowley & Hoyer, 1994). Thus, the second set of hypotheses proposes that under a good reputation condition, the negative impact of acknowledgment of self-serving motives is smaller.

Section snippets

Method

A 2 × 2 full factorial design was employed. To control for pre-established attitudes toward business sectors, the full factorial design was examined in two business sectors. Food and insurance were chosen as the two sectors because of their role in daily life and significance to the American economy. News articles with fictitious companies were created as stimuli. Fictional companies were purposely used to control for subjects’ attitudes toward and perceived corporate abilities of real companies.

Results

Hypothesis 1-1 examines the effects of stated CSR motives on skeptical attribution of CSR programs. An analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) test was performed, controlling for the effects of demographic variables. Participants who were exposed to both motives showed significantly less skeptical attribution than those under a single motive condition (M = 2.9 vs. 3.2, F(1, 461) = 8.6, p < .005, ηp2=0.02). Thus, H1-1 was supported. For hypothesis 1-2, an ANCOVA examined the influences of stated motives on

Discussion

The findings indicate that acknowledging a self-serving motive along with a society-serving motive reduces stakeholder skeptical attribution of CSR programs. This supports Forehand and Grier (2003)’s findings that a disclosure of self-interest motives behind pro-social initiatives can inhibit attribution-based skepticism. Although stakeholders’ attitudes were not greatly influenced by the communication strategies, their intentions were. That indicates direct influences of communication

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    When is honesty the best policy? The effect of stated company intent on consumer skepticism

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There are more references available in the full text version of this article.

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