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Linking Informative and Factual CSR Communication to Reputation: Understanding CSR Motives and Organizational Identification

Author

Listed:
  • Yi Luo

    (School of Communication and Media, Montclair State University, Montclair, NJ 07043, USA
    These authors contributed equally to this work.)

  • Hua Jiang

    (S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications, Syracuse University, Syracuse, NY 13244, USA
    These authors contributed equally to this work.)

  • Linzhi Zeng

    (School of Finance, Taxation and Public Administration, Shanghai Lixin University of Accounting and Finance, Shanghai 201620, China)

Abstract

The way corporate social responsibility (CSR) communication relates to corporate reputation has attracted an increasing amount of attention from communication and business researchers and practitioners. To place our study in the context of CSR and employee communication, we proposed a CSR communication—motives—organizational identification—corporate reputation model. Data collected from an online Qualtrics survey (n = 811) supported all the proposed hypotheses linking informativeness and factual tone in CSR communication, employee-perceived intrinsic/other-serving motives of their organizations’ CSR activities, organizational identification, and corporate reputation. Specifically, informativeness and a factual tone in CSR communication were positively related to employee-perceived intrinsic/other-serving motives of their organizations’ CSR activities. Employee-perceived intrinsic/other-serving motives of their organizations’ CSR activities were positively associated with employee organizational identification. Employee organizational identification was positively related to corporate reputation. In addition, employee-perceived intrinsic/other-serving motives of their organizations’ CSR activities and employee organizational identification turned out to be two significant mediators in the proposed model between CSR communication and corporate reputation. We conducted a two-step structural equation modeling (SEM) analysis to analyze the collected data. The theoretical and practical implications of the study were discussed.

Suggested Citation

  • Yi Luo & Hua Jiang & Linzhi Zeng, 2023. "Linking Informative and Factual CSR Communication to Reputation: Understanding CSR Motives and Organizational Identification," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(6), pages 1-22, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:15:y:2023:i:6:p:5136-:d:1096896
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    References listed on IDEAS

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