Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) activities substantially impact a company’s reputation. As companies increasingly embrace social media to communicate CSR activities, they face the challenge of selecting the appropriate message source. In this context, this paper examines the role of message source in the relationship between CSR communication and corporate reputation.

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) communication is generally regarded as good and necessary to inform stakeholders of a company’s CSR deeds. However, research has recently uncovered the practice of “greenhushing” within the context of the hospitality industry (Coles, Warren, Borden, & Dinan, 2017; Font, Elgammal, & Lamond, 2017). Greenhushing means that companies de-emphasize green credentials and CSR activities. Going on holidays is an indulgent act that might result from people feeling they have earned some luxury, including behaving lavishly in terms of resource consumption and responsible behavior. Thus, curtailing this indulgent, irresponsible guest behavior without compromising a guest’s holiday experience is a key challenge for hotels. This paper explores whether the assumption that customers do not want to hear about CSR communication while on holiday is true from the customers’ side and what type of communication achieves to curtail unethical behavioral intentions. Based on 594 usable responses from an online survey, we undertake a moderation analysis with a multi-categorical antecedent variable (different communication stimuli), pro-environmental identity as a moderator and behavioral intentions for “unethical” behavior as a dependent variable using PROCESS 3.0 for SPSS (Hayes, 2018). The results provide partial support for our theoretical predictions.

Drawing from signaling theory (Rynes, 1991) and social identity theory (Ashforth & Mael, 1989), this investigation examines how a company´s CSR communication, especially the liking of the company’s CSR advertisements, their message credibility, as well as their cause-company-fit, influences employees´ evaluation of the perceived organizational CSR engagement, and how the evaluation of the perceived organizational CSR engagement relates to employees´ job satisfaction, organizational pride, and word-of-mouth. An experimental study was carried out with the employees (n = 432) of a large European energy provider in order to test the model assumptions. To illustrate comprehensively the CSR engagement of the company four collages were developed including either customer-oriented CSR appeals, employee-oriented CSR appeals, environmental-oriented CSR appeals or philanthropic-oriented CSR appeals. Empirical findings suggest that the developed model is largely confirmed. Interestingly, results show that the liking of the CSR advertisements is not found to be a significant determinant of employees´ CSR evaluation. Instead, findings reveal that message credibility and perceived cause-company-fit are significant determinants of employees´ CSR evaluation. In addition, results indicate that the more employees perceive their organization as socially responsible, the more likely they feel satisfied to work for their company, the more likely they feel proud of being a member of this company and the more likely is their willingness to praise their company. This study contributes to the advancement of CSR research in several ways: First, the conceptualized model can be used to explain how CSR communication influences employees´ evaluation of the perceived organizational CSR engagement and how this relates to employees´ attitudes and behavior at the workplace. Second, by drawing on signaling theory (Rynes, 1991) and social identity theory (Ashforth & Mael, 1989) in order to explain CSR communication effects, this investigation adds theoretical foundation to CSR communication research. Third, the investigation demonstrates that CSR communication effects may go well beyond traditional effects such as fostering customers´ purchase. A company´s CSR communication is also able to influence favorable employees´ outcomes.

최근 조직의 커뮤니케이션에서 공중들이 중요하게 인식 및 평가하고 있는 진정성은 다양한 분야에서 연구들이 급증하고 있으나 서로 다른 개념적 정의와 측정으로 인하여 진정성 개념의 타당성과 다차원성에서 이론적 한계를 지니고 있다. 이에 본 연구는 보편적으로 사용가능한 커뮤니케이션 진정성의 측정을 위한 다차원적 개념의 표준 척도를 개발하고 대표적인 PR 활동인 CSR과 위기관리 분야에서의 차이를 살펴보고자 하였다. 기존 연구들을 바탕으로 도출한 21개의 측정항목들을 가지고 탐색적 요인분석을 한 결과에서 진정성은 이성적(진실성), 감성적(진심성), 그리고 행동적(실천성) 3가지 차원으로 구성됨을 확인하였다. 그리고 사전적 성향의 PR 활동인 CSR의 경우는 행동적 진정성이, 사후적 PR 활동인 위기관리 커뮤니케이션에서는 감성적 진정성이 다른 차원들보다 더욱 크게 공중의 커뮤니케이션 진정성 인식에 영향을 주는 것임을 알 수 있었다. 결국 커뮤니케이션 진정성은 진심, 진실, 실천의 의미를 포함하는 이성적, 감성적, 행동적 차원으로 구성된 다차원적 구성개념이라는 것이 확인되었다.