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The Impact of Interactive Corporate Social Responsibility Communication on Corporate Reputation

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Abstract

Companies increasingly communicate about corporate social responsibility (CSR) through interactive online media. We examine whether using such media is beneficial to a company’s reputation. We conducted an online experiment to examine the impacts of interactivity in CSR messages on corporate reputation and word-of-mouth intentions. Our findings suggest that an increase in perceived interactivity leads to higher message credibility and stronger feelings of identification with the company, which also boost corporate reputation and word-of-mouth. This result implies that using interactive channels to communicate about CSR can improve corporate reputation. Our results also show that the detrimental impacts of negative user evaluations on corporate reputation are much higher than the favorable impacts of positive evaluations. This finding suggests that, despite the effectiveness of interactive communication channels, firms need to carefully monitor these channels.

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Notes

  1. A Chi square test reveals no significant differences of gender distribution among the five groups (χ² = 3.01, df = 4, p = .56), nor any significant differences in the distribution of the 117 western and 88 non-western respondents (χ² = 1.19, df = 4, p = .88). However, differences were found in education level among the five groups (χ² = 15.78, df = 4, p = .05). However, since five cells have an expected count less than five, the results might not be meaningful. Indeed, by excluding the respondents with only a high school diploma, the Chi square test shows no more disparities (χ² = 3.06, df = 4, p = .55). Nevertheless, we conducted further analyses both with and without these seven respondents to check whether there were significant differences between the two data sets. As no significant differences could be found, it is thus assumed that the distribution of education among the five groups is about equal. The mean age of all participants is 24.98 years. An ANOVA test shows that there are no significant differences in the mean age across the five groups (F = 0.67, p = .61).

  2. The means on all of these variables are also not significantly different across the five groups (for familiarity with the Internet, F 4,199 = 0.37, p = .83; for liking of social media, F 4,196 = 1.16, p = .33; for use of networking sites, F 4,200 = 0.56, p = .69; and for using social media for information about companies, F 4,199 = 1.15, p = .34).

  3. The reason for this choice is that the online survey system did not allow for the respondent’s own comment to be ‘published’ immediately.

  4. We also tested the significance of the differences between the non-interactive condition (Condition 1) and the interactive ones using dummy coding with Condition 1 as the references category. The results show that the condition with mostly negative comments (Condition 5) scores significantly lower than the non-interactive condition on all dimensions except word-of-mouth (see the significance levels provided in Table 4). In addition, the condition with balanced negative and positive comments scores significantly lower than the non-interactive condition on message credibility and reputation.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Im Kugelfang 50, 4102, Binningen, Switzerland

    David Eberle

  2. T11-46, Department of Business-Society Management, Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University, Burgemeester Oudlaan 50, 3062 PA, Rotterdam, The Netherlands

    Guido Berens

  3. T09-14, Department of Decision and Information Science, Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University, Burgemeester Oudlaan 50, 3062 PA, Rotterdam, The Netherlands

    Ting Li

Authors
  1. David Eberle
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  2. Guido Berens
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  3. Ting Li
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to David Eberle.

Appendices

Appendix 1: Experimental materials

Appendix 2

Measurement of constructs

Construct

Measurement

Source

Message credibility

HappyBev makes truthful claims

Newell and Goldsmith (2001)

HappyBev is honest

I trust HappyBev

I do not believe what HappyBev tells me

Identification

I have a sense of connection with HappyBev

Einwiller et al. (2006)

HappyBev are probably similar to me

I consider myself as belonging to the group of people who are in favor of HappyBev

I feel associated with HappyBev

Employees of HappyBev are probably similar to me

Corporate reputation

HappyBev is an environmentally responsible company

Fombrun et al. (2000)

HappyBev has a responsible approach to water management

Word-of-mouth

I will invite friends to learn more about HappyBev online

Maxham (2001)

I will recommend HappyBev to my friends

I will talk about HappyBev on blogs and social networking sites

I will talk positively about HappyBev

Perceived interactivity

The interactivity of HappyBev’s website is: not interactive at all: very interactive

Self-developed

Perceived interactivity (manipulation check study)

The website is effective in gathering visitors’ feedback

Liu (2003)

The website facilitates two-way communication between the visitors and the site

It is difficult to offer feedback to the website

The website makes me feel it wants to listen to its visitors

The website does not at all encourage visitors to talk back

The website gives visitors the opportunity to talk back

Valence of user evaluations (manipulation check study)

There are substantially more positive comments than negative comments

Self-developed

There are slightly more positive comments than negative comments

There are about equal numbers of positive comments and negative comments

There are slightly more negative comments than positive comments

There are substantially more negative comments than positive comments

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Eberle, D., Berens, G. & Li, T. The Impact of Interactive Corporate Social Responsibility Communication on Corporate Reputation. J Bus Ethics 118, 731–746 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-013-1957-y

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