Determinants of corporate sustainability message sharing on social media: A configuration approach

Abstract

With an increasing number of consumers receiving information on social media, companies have adopted these channels to communicate their sustainability efforts. Digital channels enable reaching large audiences in a short period of time, and engaging consumers in message sharing activities to reap those rewards has its own challenges. Companies need to understand what increases sharing of their sustainability messages, but they must be mindful of not overstating their sustainability efforts which may be perceived as greenwashing. The Information Adoption Model is used to assess how message information quality and source credibility affect sharing of corporate sustainability messages. A fuzzy‐set Qualitative Comparative Analysis is conducted on a survey of UK social media users (n = 527). Results show that dimensions of information quality and source credibility act in combination to influence sustainability message sharing. The study informs managers what to stress in social media message planning to facilitate effective sustainability communications.

Greenfluencers as agents of social change: the effectiveness of sponsored messages in driving sustainable consumption

“…This results in a proximal view of the product and its sustainability value (Reczek et al , 2018). Moreover, objective and contextualized sustainability information in a concrete appeal can effectively demonstrate the expertise of the greenfluencer, which is considered to be a critical heuristic cue that influences the acceptance of sustainability messages (Knight et al , 2022).…”

Understanding transgender persons' careers to advance sustainable development: The case of Trans for Career Thailand

“…Delivered through platforms such as Facebook (Lee, 2017) and Twitter (Guo & Saxton, 2018), social media is particularly important in terms of its affordances and brings with it considerable potential for sustainable development (Chin & Jacobsson, 2016; ElAlfy et al, 2020). The literature has provided different examples of how companies utilize social media to demonstrate their social responsibility (Khanal et al, 2021; Pizzi et al, 2021) and how different stakeholders employ their social media profiles in order to realize social change (Gomez‐Carrasco & Michelon, 2017; Knight et al, 2022). There is, in particular, a growing interest in how advocacy groups use social media to solve social issues.…”

Sustainability in the digital age: Intended and unintended consequences of digital technologies for sustainable development

“…While the first two articles study direct effects, the remaining articles show that indirect effects are at play, too, when digital technologies are adopted, which create unintended consequences (Point 3) or new paths (Point 4). Knight et al (2021) examine how firms use social media to communicate their sustainability efforts. While firms adopt social media with the intention to brush up their sustainability profile, their qualitative comparative analysis reveals that information quality and credibility of sources affect whether messages are indeed shared and, more importantly, whether they are perceived as greenwashing, an unintended consequence.…”