CSR and Organizational Attractiveness: The Impacts of Crisis and Crisis Response

Abstract

This study explores whether different sources of CSR information (i.e., the organization itself vs. the third party) and CSR reputation (i.e., leading vs. backward) affect job applicants’ attraction to organizations. This study demonstrates the interaction effects of sources of CSR information and CSR reputation on organizational attractiveness and contributes to the literature by identifying the impact of crisis and crisis management strategies of the organization on its organizational attractiveness. From a Situational Crisis Communication Theory (SCCT), we examined the impacts of the crisis on organizations and what the crisis response strategies (i.e., excusing, apology, and scapegoating) organizations applied influence their organizational attractiveness. A fictitious food company was created for the experimental study. In total, 345 undergraduate business students at a university in central Taiwan were randomly assigned to 13 groups in different experimental settings. ANOVA and paired-sample t-tests were used to test the hypothesis. We found that (1) significant impacts made by the interaction effects of CSR reputations and the sources of CSR information of organizational attractiveness; (2) crisis events decreased organizational attraction dramatically regardless of the interaction of the sources of CSR information and CSR reputations; and (3) crisis management strategies effectively reduced the damages of crises on organizational attractiveness.