IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/hal/journl/hal-05298833.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Green Astroturfing Unpacked: The Moral Judgment of Direct and Indirect Tactics

Author

Listed:
  • Safaa Adil

    (ESSCA Research Lab - ESSCA - ESSCA – École supérieure des sciences commerciales d'Angers = ESSCA Business School)

  • Gilles Grolleau

    (ESSCA - ESSCA – École supérieure des sciences commerciales d'Angers = ESSCA Business School)

  • Naoufel Mzoughi

    (ECODEVELOPPEMENT - Ecodéveloppement - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement)

Abstract

Some companies use deceptive tactics to persuade people that a particular position or recommendation has widespread support and originates from grassroots movements-a phenomenon referred to as astroturfing. We demonstrate that astroturfing exploits basic human heuristics to advance the sponsor's interests, often undermining genuine efforts to address environmental challenges. Moreover, we examine the moral seriousness of green astroturfing in a business-related context and test experimentally whether individuals perceive it differently when it originates directly from the company vs. through an intermediary. We find that moral judgment and recommended punishment for green astroturfing are significantly higher when the company outsources it.

Suggested Citation

  • Safaa Adil & Gilles Grolleau & Naoufel Mzoughi, 2025. "Green Astroturfing Unpacked: The Moral Judgment of Direct and Indirect Tactics," Post-Print hal-05298833, HAL.
    • Handle: RePEc:hal:journl:hal-05298833
    Note: View the original document on HAL open archive server: https://hal.inrae.fr/hal-05298833v1
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://hal.inrae.fr/hal-05298833v1/document
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Lloveras, Javier & Marshall, Adam P. & Warnaby, Gary & Kalandides, Ares, 2021. "Mobilising Sense of Place for Degrowth? Lessons From Lancashire's Anti-fracking Activism," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 183(C).
    2. Daniel Kahneman & Amos Tversky, 2013. "Prospect Theory: An Analysis of Decision Under Risk," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Leonard C MacLean & William T Ziemba (ed.), HANDBOOK OF THE FUNDAMENTALS OF FINANCIAL DECISION MAKING Part I, chapter 6, pages 99-127, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    3. Weber, James, 1992. "Scenarios in Business Ethics Research: Review, Critical Assessment, and Recommendations," Business Ethics Quarterly, Cambridge University Press, vol. 2(2), pages 137-160, April.
    4. Jenifer Skiba & Ross D. Petty & Les Carlson, 2019. "Beyond Deception: Potential Unfair Consumer Injury from Various Types of Covert Marketing," Journal of Consumer Affairs, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 53(4), pages 1573-1601, December.
    5. Healy, Paul M. & Palepu, Krishna G., 2001. "Information asymmetry, corporate disclosure, and the capital markets: A review of the empirical disclosure literature," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 31(1-3), pages 405-440, September.
    6. Mullinix, Kevin J. & Leeper, Thomas J. & Druckman, James N. & Freese, Jeremy, 2015. "The Generalizability of Survey Experiments," Journal of Experimental Political Science, Cambridge University Press, vol. 2(2), pages 109-138, January.
    7. Farrow, Katherine & Grolleau, Gilles & Mzoughi, Naoufel, 2021. "‘Let's call a spade a spade, not a gardening tool’: How euphemisms shape moral judgement in corporate social responsibility domains," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 131(C), pages 254-267.
    8. Charlotte Wagnsson & Albin Östervall & Anton Angwald, 2025. "Naming the enemy: how to fortify society against foreign disinformation while avoiding excessive vigilance to reliable media," Humanities and Social Sciences Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 12(1), pages 1-12, December.
    9. Dimitri Kelly & Logan Vidal & Barry C. Burden, 2017. "A Convenient Truth: University Employees as Heterogeneous and Inexpensive Experimental Samples," Social Science Quarterly, Southwestern Social Science Association, vol. 98(5), pages 1339-1351, November.
    10. Clot, Sophie & Grolleau, Gilles & Ibanez, Lisette, 2022. "Projection bias in environmental beliefs and behavioural intentions - An application to solar panels and eco-friendly transport," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 160(C).
    11. Grolleau, Gilles & Mzoughi, Naoufel & Peterson, Deborah & Tendero, Marjorie, 2022. "Changing the world with words? Euphemisms in climate change issues," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 193(C).
    12. Alice Falchi & Gilles Grolleau & Naoufel Mzoughi, 2022. "Why companies might under‐communicate their efforts for sustainable development and what can be done?," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 31(5), pages 1938-1946, July.
    13. Jauernig, Johanna & Uhl, Matthias & Valentinov, Vladislav, 2021. "The ethics of corporate hypocrisy: An experimental approach," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 131.
    14. Leiser, David & Azar, Ofer H. & Hadar, Liat, 2008. "Psychological construal of economic behavior," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 29(5), pages 762-776, November.
    15. Elaheh Roozbahani & Reza Salehzadeh & Seyed Mehdi Mirmehdi, 2022. "Evaluating the effects of corporate social irresponsibility on brand hate and its behavioural outcomes," International Journal of Business Governance and Ethics, Inderscience Enterprises Ltd, vol. 16(2), pages 158-175.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Grolleau, Gilles & Mungan, Murat C. & Mzoughi, Naoufel, 2022. "Seemingly irrelevant information? The impact of legal team size on third party perceptions," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 71(C).
    2. Wu, Xihao & Shen, Yuezhe & Sun, Yani, 2024. "Can the registration system reform improve the disclosure quality?——Evidence from the ChiNext board," Journal of Contemporary Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 20(2).
    3. Sun, Maogang & Li, Zhengyu & Yang, Lu, 2025. "Inconsistency across short-term and long-term oriented signals: Effect on investor reactions," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 189(C).
    4. Kuehnhanss, Colin R. & Heyndels, Bruno, 2018. "All’s fair in taxation: A framing experiment with local politicians," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 65(C), pages 26-40.
    5. Dib-Slamani, Hind & Grolleau, Gilles & Mzoughi, Naoufel, 2022. "Robbing a robber is not robbing," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 85(C), pages 1-7.
    6. Schwaiger, Rene & Hueber, Laura, 2021. "Do MTurkers exhibit myopic loss aversion?," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 209(C).
    7. Machado, André & Lima, Fabiano Guasti, 2021. "Sell-side analyst reports and decision-maker reactions: Role of heuristics," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Finance, Elsevier, vol. 32(C).
    8. Yu, Xiaohong & Tsang, Albert & Wu, Yujun & Leng, Zhou, 2024. "Stock exchange oversight and investor quotes: Evidence from initial public offering comment letters in China," The British Accounting Review, Elsevier, vol. 56(5).
    9. Garcia, M.M. & Machado Pereira, A.C. & Acebal, J.L. & Bosco de Magalhães, A.R., 2020. "Forecast model for financial time series: An approach based on harmonic oscillators," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 549(C).
    10. Marc Badia & Miguel Duro & Bjorn N. Jorgensen & Gaizka Ormazabal & Hans B. Christensen, 2020. "The Informational Effects of Tightening Oil and Gas Disclosure Rules," Contemporary Accounting Research, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 37(3), pages 1720-1755, September.
    11. Stavros Degiannakis & George Giannopoulos & Salma Ibrahim & Ivana Rozic, 2019. "Earnings management to avoid losses and earnings declines in Croatia," International Journal of Computational Economics and Econometrics, Inderscience Enterprises Ltd, vol. 9(3), pages 219-238.
    12. Crusius, Jan & van Horen, Femke & Mussweiler, Thomas, 2012. "Why process matters: A social cognition perspective on economic behavior," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 33(3), pages 677-685.
    13. Guragai, Binod & Attachot, Weerapat & Peabody, S. Drew, 2020. "Financial statement presentation of discontinued operations: Determinants and consequences," Advances in accounting, Elsevier, vol. 49(C).
    14. Lakomaa, Erik, 2009. "The Municipal Takeover of the School System," SSE/EFI Working Paper Series in Business Administration 2011:2, Stockholm School of Economics, revised 08 May 2011.
    15. Hind Dib-Slamani & Gilles Grolleau & Naoufel Mzoughi, 2023. "Does a company’s origin matter in moral judgment?," Post-Print hal-03134106, HAL.
    16. Jani Saastamoinen & Hannu Ojala & Kati Pajunen & Pontus Troberg, 2018. "Analyst Characteristics and the Level of Critical Perception of Goodwill Accounting," Australian Accounting Review, CPA Australia, vol. 28(4), pages 538-555, December.
    17. Ping Chen & Li Deng, 2023. "Does venture capital Quan Zi affect stock mispricing: Evidence from Chinese listed companies," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 18(4), pages 1-33, April.
    18. Vinay Goyal & Subrata K. Mitra, 2022. "Is the asymmetric impact of aggregate revenue and aggregate earnings on the stock index in accordance with the prospect theory?," International Review of Finance, International Review of Finance Ltd., vol. 22(1), pages 200-222, March.
    19. Sung, Hao-Chang & Ho, Shirley J., 2023. "Disclosure strategies for management earnings forecasts: The role of managerial compensation structures, overoptimism, and effort," Journal of Contemporary Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 19(1).
    20. Parker Hevron, 2018. "Judicialization and Its Effects: Experiments as a Way Forward," Laws, MDPI, vol. 7(2), pages 1-21, May.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:hal:journl:hal-05298833. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: CCSD (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.