Abstract
Companies’ communications about Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) have become increasingly prevalent yet psychological
reasons for why those communications might lead to positive reactions of the general public are not fully
understood. Building on theories on impression formation and social evaluation, we assess how CSR communications
affect perceived morality and competence of a company. We theorize that the organization’s CSR activities would positively
impact on perceived organizational morality rather than on perceived organizational competence and that this
increase in perceived organizational morality leads to an increase in stakeholders’ support. Two experimental design
studies show support for our theorizing. We cross-validated the robustness and generality of the prediction in two
countries with different business practices (UK (N = 203), Russia (N = 96)). We demonstrated that while the general
perceptions of companies and CSR differ between the UK and Russia, the underlying psychological mechanisms
work in a similar fashion. By testing our predictions in western, educated, industrialized, rich, and democratic (WEIRD)
and in non- WEIRD countries, we also extend current socio-psychological insights on the social evaluation of others.
We discuss theoretical and practical implications.
reasons for why those communications might lead to positive reactions of the general public are not fully
understood. Building on theories on impression formation and social evaluation, we assess how CSR communications
affect perceived morality and competence of a company. We theorize that the organization’s CSR activities would positively
impact on perceived organizational morality rather than on perceived organizational competence and that this
increase in perceived organizational morality leads to an increase in stakeholders’ support. Two experimental design
studies show support for our theorizing. We cross-validated the robustness and generality of the prediction in two
countries with different business practices (UK (N = 203), Russia (N = 96)). We demonstrated that while the general
perceptions of companies and CSR differ between the UK and Russia, the underlying psychological mechanisms
work in a similar fashion. By testing our predictions in western, educated, industrialized, rich, and democratic (WEIRD)
and in non- WEIRD countries, we also extend current socio-psychological insights on the social evaluation of others.
We discuss theoretical and practical implications.
Original language | English |
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Article number | 10 |
Journal | International Journal of Corporate Social Responsibility |
Volume | 9 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - 4 Jun 2024 |
Keywords
- CSR
- Impression formation
- Social evaluation
- Morality
- Experiment
- WEIRD and non-WEIRD countries
- Russia
- UK
- Stakeholders
- Corporate communications