The ongoing refugee crisis presents a plethora of challenges and requires systematic contributions from public and private entities—e.g., governments, non-governmental organizations, community organizations and businesses. Relative to the other three, (explicit) business efforts toward refugee (economic) integration are yet sporadic, limited to a few large organizations. While acknowledging that integration encompasses multiple spheres and is complicated by national and local variations across EU member states, this conceptual article treats business support of refugee (economic) integration as a manifestation of corporate social responsibility (CSR) and contends that such efforts may enhance employee-organizational identification. Drawing on scholarship from CSR and organization–employee identification, we develop a conceptual model including propositions about mediating and moderating mechanisms of the relationship among refugee integration, CSR communication and employee-organizational identification. Our study offers a conceptual bridge between what is known about the importance, barriers and enablers of refugee labor market integration with the lesser-known organizational, specifically employee, perspectives on the issue. Leveraging on this conceptual framework, further research may focus on testing the relationship empirically through collecting field data from business firms which have made an explicit claim on refugee support.

While engaging in corporate social responsibility (CSR) has gradually become mainstream in the business context, the investigation of CSR communication and its effectiveness remains limited. This study examines how environmental CSR communication affects consumer perception and behavior through an experiment design. We distinguish three CSR communication factors—message content (climate responsibility vs. sustainable use of natural resources), message style (greenhushing vs. uniform vs. greenwashing) and praise tactics (consumer praise vs. company praise)—and assess their impacts on consumer trust, purchase intention and consumer advocacy, respectively. We also investigate the moderating role of attributed intrinsic and extrinsic corporate motives on engaging in environmental CSR. An online experiment (N = 304) revealed that a uniform message style outperforms the other two styles, whereas greenwashing is found to be least effective. In addition, attributed intrinsic corporate motives moderate the impacts of environmental CSR communication on consumer trust, purchase intention and consumer advocacy, respectively. No moderation effect was found for attributed extrinsic corporate motives. The findings provide important implications for effective environmental CSR communication with respect to specific message styles and attributed corporate motives.

PurposeCorporate-NGO partnerships are gaining increasing importance as part of a company's CSR effort. This study aims to understand which communication tactics (CSR motive, CSR message frame, CSR fit) lead to more positive consumer outcomes in the context of corporate-NGO partnerships, and whether consumer skepticism and consumer trust mediate the proposed relationships.Design/methodology/approachAn online experiment was conducted (N = 298) to examine the theoretical predictions, involving a 2 (CSR motive: firm-serving/public-serving) x 2 (CSR message frame: narrative/expositive) x 2 (CSR fit: high/low) between-subjects design.FindingsThe results confirmed that consumer attitudes and electronic Word-of-Mouth (eWOM) can be affected by CSR motives and CSR fit. Also, CSR skepticism and consumer trust both mediate the relationship of CSR motives and consumer outcomes.Practical implicationsThe results of this study make a strong case for expressing public-serving CSR motives and refraining from firm-serving CSR motives when communicating about a corporate-NGO partnership to consumers.Originality/valueFocusing on the communication tactics of corporate-NGO partnerships extends existing literature by uncovering whether and how the factors driving effective communication in other CSR activities can be applied to the context of corporate-NGO partnerships.

The literature has produced relevant theoretical insights into pedagogical frameworks, tools and competences that would be best suited to teach sustainability at higher education (HE). This article contributes to such a discussion using a course on sustainability developed by us as a case study. Two research questions are tackled in this article: (1) How to empower students to address urban sustainability challenges through the inclusion of transformative, interdisciplinary and intercultural learning into the current HE system? (2) Which pedagogical tools can be used to develop students’ sustainability-oriented competences? To address the research questions, the case study consists of two parts. First, by reflecting on the course design, this article aims to shed light on the benefits and challenges of transformative pedagogy and of an interdisciplinary and intercultural framework. Second, by analyzing students’ learning diaries (N = 36) using thematic analysis, this article offers insights into some of the students’ learning process, allowing us to assess the strengths and weaknesses of the course design as well as draw implications to improve and renew courses on sustainability in HE. The findings from the learning diaries indicate the students’ thirst for formal knowledge on sustainability, which they connected to their professional development and yearning for action. The learning diaries also suggest students’ increasing awareness of sustainability as a systemic and structural issue during the course, which aligns with the transformative learning framework used. Finally, this study emphasizes the need for structural support to meaningfully integrate sustainability in HE curricula and teaching practices.

When companies take a stance on sociopolitical issues, it is considered corporate social advocacy (CSA). This article examines to what extent perceived corporate motives of engaging in CSA affect consumer skepticism and brand equity. It is one of the few published studies of consumer attitudes toward companies’ CSA involvement. An online survey was conducted ( N = 375). It provides evidence that consumer assessments of the motives that inspire CSA are similar to the better-researched motives that inspire CSR. The findings imply that companies need to develop a good understanding of the consumers’ attributions when engaging in CSA.