Corporate social responsibility communication on social media antecedents, processes, and outcomes

Resumen

Companies increasingly communicate their CSR involvement on social media, but research has shownthat consumer engagement with CSR posts is still underwhelming because companies are notsuccessfully tapping into the inherent social media potential for interactivity and co-creation concerningtheir CSR initiatives. The overall aim of this dissertation is to develop and test an integrative frameworkof the CSR social media communication process that focuses on its particular characteristics. The specificresearch objectives are to i) identify and analyze the effects of CSR message- and Social Media-basedantecedents of the effectiveness of CSR social media communication on CSR effectiveness in terms ofCSR associations, corporate/brand attitude and purchase behavior, and on the propagation of the CSRpost on the social network, ii) provide process explanations for the observed effects through the analysesof the mediating influences of CSR credibility and motive attribution, psychological consumerempowerment, moral emotions, as well as social identity and norm activation, and iii) analyze themoderating influences of contingency factors such as self-construal and virtual community identification.The findings of this dissertation are based on three quantitative and one qualitative study. Results showthat CSR tweets featuring emotional claims evoke more favorable attitudinal responses in recipients interms of the valence of the replies to the tweet and the selection of the tweet as like, mediated by thevalence of replies and that this effect was positively moderated by CSR fit. Also, empowering CSRSocial Media posts have more favorable attitudinal responses, which in turn results in a more positiveattitude towards the tweet. Further findings show that the endorsement of a CSR message by the broadSocial Media community contributes to the viral propagation of the message, and provided a processexplanation for the observed effect based on the activation of descriptive norms, injunctive norms andsocial identity motives. Several moderators were identified that affect this process.Our findings contribute to theory development in both CSR management and Social Media and havepractical implications for marketing managers in CSR and Social Media communication.