Feeling Connected to the Cause: The Role of Perceived Social Distance on Cause Involvement and Consumer Response to CSR Communication

Despite the importance of companies’ corporate social responsibility (CSR) efforts to support the issue of empowering women, little is known about which communication strategies are effective for a successful CSR initiative. This research investigated how CSR messages influences consumer evaluations of a CSR activity supporting women’s empowerment via consumers’ cause involvement by conducting two experimental studies. In Study 1, a 2 (CSR message type: in-group vs. out-group) × 2 (gender: female vs. male) online factorial experiment (n = 140) was employed. The results indicate that consumers evaluated the CSR activity more positively when they were exposed to an in-group message than an out-group message. To increase the validity and explain the process by which CSR message types influence consumer evaluations of a CSR activity, Study 2 was conducted. Psychological distance manipulated by CSR campaign messages increased an individual’s level of cause involvement, which in turn influenced the individuals’ response to the CSR activities. Implications are discussed.

Yujin Heo et al, Feeling Connected to the Cause: The Role of Perceived Social Distance on Cause Involvement and Consumer Response to CSR Communication, Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly (99, 1) pp. . Copyright © 2022. DOI: 10.1177/10776990211041546. Users who receive access to an article through a repository are reminded that the article is protected by copyright and reuse is restricted to non-commercial and no derivative uses. Users may also download and save a local copy of an article accessed in an institutional repository for the user's personal reference. For permission to reuse an article, please follow our Process for Requesting Permission.

Files

Metadata

Work Title Feeling Connected to the Cause: The Role of Perceived Social Distance on Cause Involvement and Consumer Response to CSR Communication
Access
Open Access
Creators
  1. Yujin Heo
  2. Chang Won Choi
  3. Holly Overton
  4. Joon K. Kim
  5. Nanlan Zhang
License In Copyright (Rights Reserved)
Work Type Article
Publisher
  1. Journalism and Mass Communication Quarterly
Publication Date March 1, 2022
Publisher Identifier (DOI)
  1. https://doi.org/10.1177/10776990211041546
Deposited January 05, 2023

Versions

Analytics

Collections

This resource is currently not in any collection.

Work History

Version 1
published

  • Created
  • Added JMCQ-OA-20-0397.R1_Proof_hi.pdf
  • Added Creator Yujin Heo
  • Added Creator Chang Won Choi
  • Added Creator Holly Overton
  • Added Creator Joon K. Kim
  • Added Creator Nanlan Zhang
  • Published
  • Updated