مقاله سال ۲۰۱۶

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) has, over the last decade, become a salient issue for the corporate sector. Bansal (2002) argued that CSR (or sustainability) has three important principles: the environment principle (i.e., to protect and responsibly use environmental resources), the social-equity principle (i.e., to treat everyone fairly), and the economic principle (i.e.,to generate profits which then sustain corporate environmental and social initiatives for the betterment of society). Various positive outcomes of CSR practice have been identified in the literature, such as gaining a license to operate, improving financial performance, securing competitive advantage, enhancing corporate reputation, and cultivating stakeholder relationships by meeting their demands (Brønn & Vidaver-Cohen, 2009). Effective communication of CSR initiatives and purposes via traditional and social media is essential in getting stakeholders’ support for the practice (Kesavan, Bernacchi, & Mascarenhas, 2013; Morsing & Schultz, 2006). Since trust in an organization derives from its integrity, dependability, and competence (Hon & Grunig, 1999), we hypothesized that CSR communication via effective communication channels and media enhances public trust in corporations, which in turn fosters public engagement with them. Furthermore, given that individuals’ perception of CSR can be influenced by publicity utilizing various media types, the impact of media use on perceived CSR should be examined.

While much previous research has focused on the general public’s response to CSR initiatives, this study looked at informed (i.e., elite) respondents in the United States (US), China, and Germany. The three countries were selected for two reasons. First, they represent the largest markets in, respectively, North America, the Asia-Pacific region and the European Union. Second and more importantly, corporations in Germany face high demand for corporate sustainability as regulated by guidelines or official recommendations, such as the GRI Guidelines (Global Reporting Initiative, 2002) and the EC recommendations for the integration of sustainability issues in corporate annual reports (European Commission, 2003). China is at the far end of the continuum because listed corporations in the nation are not required to adopt any standards or guidelines, and the US is somewhere in-between.

With the analyses of data from the selected countries, this study aimed to: (1) explore the impact of media preference on individuals’ CSR perception,(2) examine the role of CSR in building trustin business and the trust effect on pubic engagement with the business, and (3) test whether the above relationship between CSR and trust in business is moderated by media preference.