Communicating Corporate Responsibility To Fit Consumer Perceptions

Scheinbaum, Angeline Close; Lacey, Russell; Liang, Ming-Ching

doi:10.2501/jar-2017-049

Cited by 26 publications

(22 citation statements)

References 55 publications

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“…Other more recent studies seem to replicate a similar format correlating consumers' perception of CSR activities in particular contexts and industries with, e.g. sponsor-sincerity (Scheinbaum et al, 2017), or CSR pricing with perceived CSR sacrifice by consumers (Sungsook, 2015).…”

Section: Perception Impact and Promotion Studiesmentioning

confidence: 78%

Reviewing corporate social responsibility communication: a legitimacy perspective

Nielsen

Thomsen

2018

CCIJ

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Purpose -The purpose of this paper is to answer the call for CSR communication research to develop and substantiate outcomes that may better explain CSR communication strategies and practices. The paper takes the research a step further, exploring the role of legitimacy in CSR communication research. Design/methodology/approach -A literature collection methodology, combined with directed content analysis, was used to identify central themes in the literature. Findings -The following categories of studies were identified: perception, impact and promotion studies; image and reputation studies; performance studies; and conceptual/rhetorical studies. Addressed from a legitimacy perspective, the study found that the most important types of legitimizing communicative practices articulated in the four types of studies were related to: seeking knowledge about stakeholders through perception, impact and promotion activities; monitoring and controlling the environment through image and reputation activities; creating stakeholder value through collaboration and engagement; and persuading and convincing stakeholders through rhetorics, CSR models and concepts. The study also found that practices and activities related to perceiving stakeholders' expectations, needs and requirements are assumed to be most effective for corporations aiming at building or maintaining legitimacy. Originality/value -The key contribution of the paper lies in exploring how corporate legitimacy is anticipated and extrapolated in the CSR communication literature, including which pinpointed CSR communication strategies and practices are assumed to be more effective than others in bridging stakeholders' perceptions of corporations' social and environmental actions. Until date, no reviews exist of the role of legitimacy in CSR communication research.

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Section: Perception Impact and Promotion Studiesmentioning

confidence: 78%

Reviewing corporate social responsibility communication: a legitimacy perspective

Nielsen

Thomsen

2018

CCIJ

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

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“…Third, there are additional dimensions that are not yet included in most of the existing scales. For instance, many studies examined whether employees or stakeholders perceived a firm's CSR initiatives as sincere and found that whether CSR was perceived to be sincere versus insincere led to drastically different outcomes (Scheinbaum, Lacey, & Liang, ; Scholder et al., ; Yoon et al., ). Thus, a scale that integrates perceptions of motives would be useful (e.g., “This organization sincerely engages in activities that protect the natural environment”) given that a majority of researchers and practitioners are interested in employees’ reactions to genuine CSR activities (Akremi et al., ).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Employee perceptions of corporate social responsibility: Effects on pride, embeddedness, and turnover

Yam

Aguinis

2018

Personnel Psychology

204

194

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We examined socioemotional microfoundations of perceived corporate social responsibility (CSR) and posited that employees’ perceived CSR triggers a perception‐emotion‐attitude‐behavior sequence. Drawing from appraisal theory of emotion, we hypothesized that perceived CSR relates to emotions (i.e., organizational pride), which relate to job attitudes (i.e., organizational embeddedness) that in turn relate to job behaviors (i.e., decreased turnover). To test this model, we conducted a multistudy investigation involving different samples, designs, and data‐analytic methods. In Study 1, we conducted an experiment and found that participants who envisioned working in a firm that was active regarding CSR activities reported greater pride and organizational embeddedness. We then conducted two field studies using a nonmanagerial sample (Study 2) and a managerial sample (Study 3) and found that participants’ perceived CSR was positively related to their pride, which in turn was related to stronger organizational embeddedness. Stronger organizational embeddedness was related to lower turnover 6 months later in Study 2 but not in Study 3. In Study 4, we conducted a longitudinal four‐wave 14‐month study to test the proposed relationships from a within‐person conceptualization, and the results were also supportive. Thus, the proposed perception‐emotion‐attitude‐behavior framework received broad support and illustrated that stronger microfoundations of CSR research could be constructed through understanding employees’ emotional, attitudinal, and behavioral reactions to their perceptions of their employers’ CSR.

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“…Despite firms’ substantial investments in sponsorship, evidence indicates that corporate sponsorship campaigns do not always deliver positive outcomes to the sponsor (Javalgi et al , 1994; Luo and Bhattacharya, 2006). A variety of factors influence the relationship between corporate sponsorship and consumer response, such as consumers’ personal support of the social cause (Sen and Bhattacharya, 2001), consumers’ previous attitude towards the firm (Javalgi et al , 1994), consumers’ inferences of the firm’s motivation to conduct corporate sponsorship (Barone et al , 2007; Scheinbaum et al , 2017), the cause type (Lafferty and Edmondson, 2014) and the cause acuteness (Ellen et al , 2000). Among them, perceived fit between the social cause and the sponsoring brand has received wide attention and is regarded as one of the key moderating factors (Lafferty, 2007; Simmons and Becker-Olsen, 2006).…”

Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Fit between a brand and the recipient is high when the two are perceived as similar, whether the similarity is derived from mission, products, markets, technologies, attributes, brand concepts or any other key associations (Rifon et al , 2004). Sponsorships with high fit increases sponsor recall or recognition accuracy (Cornwell et al , 2006), enhance positive brand attitude (Jensen and Cornwell, 2017), induce favorable consumer purchase intention (Pappu and Cornwell, 2014; Scheinbaum et al , 2017) and increase brand equity (Simmons and Becker-Olsen, 2006). Conversely, sponsorships with low fit can harm the brand equity of the sponsor (Pappu and Cornwell, 2014; Simmons and Becker-Olsen, 2006).…”

Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Applied to the context of sponsorship, it suggests that high-fit sponsorship could pay off because it is consistent with what consumers expect from the brand. However, low-fit sponsorship could increase elaboration because unexpected events trigger thoughts, which induce consumers to conduct an attributional search to understand the underlying motives of the event (Scheinbaum et al , 2017; Skarmeas and Leonidou, 2013). In most cases, this elaboration process makes consumers attribute the corporate sponsorship to an egoistic motive rather than the altruistic motive (Jensen and Cornwell, 2017; Wagner et al , 2009), thereby leading to less favorable consumer response.…”

Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Doing well when doing good: the fit between corporate sponsorship and brand concept

Zhu

Liao

2018

JCM

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Purpose Firms are now investing heavily in sponsorship, yet much of this sponsorship fails to deliver the expected positive outcomes to firms. This paper aims to address this problem by taking into consideration the nature of corporate sponsorship and the fit between brand image developed by corporate sponsorship and established brand concept. Design/methodology/approach Two separate studies were conducted. Study 1 aimed to test the main effect of two types of corporate sponsorship on consumer responses to the brand and the mediating role of brand image perception. Study 2 used a different design to test the moderating effect of brand concept. Data collected from two distinct samples were analyzed using MANCOVA and regression analysis. Findings The results from two studies indicated that two types of corporate sponsorship commercial and philanthropic influenced consumer response through varied mechanisms. Specifically, commercial sponsorship increased the competence perception of sponsors and thereby enhances purchase intention, while philanthropic sponsorship promoted brand attitude through strengthening the warmth perception of sponsors. Moreover, the fit between established brand concept and brand image perceptions is critical for consumer responses. That is, warmth perception was more congruent with the self-transcendence brand concept, while competence perception fitted better with the self-enhancement brand concept in increasing consumer responses. Originality/value This paper divides corporate sponsorship into commercial and philanthropic sponsorship and investigates the process of achieving fit when conducting corporate sponsorship. More important, this paper adds to the literature by investigating the interaction between brand image produced by corporate sponsorship and original brand concept, which helps to reveal how fit occurs when conducting sponsorship.

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Communicating Corporate Responsibility To Fit Consumer Perceptions

Cited by 26 publications

References 55 publications

Reviewing corporate social responsibility communication: a legitimacy perspective

Reviewing corporate social responsibility communication: a legitimacy perspective

Employee perceptions of corporate social responsibility: Effects on pride, embeddedness, and turnover

Doing well when doing good: the fit between corporate sponsorship and brand concept

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