Linking CSR Communication to Corporate Reputation: Understanding Hypocrisy, Employees’ Social Media Engagement and CSR-Related Work Engagement

Hua Jiang,Wei Zhu,Yang Cheng,Keonyoung Park

doi:10.3390/su14042359

Abstract

Based on the social exchange theory and the signaling theory, we proposed a conceptual model of effective CSR communication and corporate reputation integrating employees’ hypocrisy toward their employers’ corporate behavior, employees’ CSR-related social media engagement and work engagement. We tested our proposed model based on an employee survey (n = 811). Structural equational modeling (SEM) analyses were conducted while controlling variables that could exert confounding effects on our proposed model. All the hypotheses were supported by our collected data. Effective CSR communication factors turned out to be significant predictors for hypocrisy, employees’ social media engagement and CSR-related work engagement, and corporate reputation. Hypocrisy and engagement were also significant mediators in our proposed model. The key findings of the study made theoretical contributions to CSR and employee communication scholarship. Practical implications of the findings of this study were also discussed.

Highlights

Received: 7 January 2022Going beyond merely taking responsibility for their own business actions, companies are expected to display philanthropic, ethical, and legal accountability to address the needs of both internal and external stakeholders [1]
This study proposes and tests a conceptual model that addresses the influence of effective Corporate social responsibility (CSR) communication on corporate reputation via employees’
confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) results indicate that all the measures of effective CSR communication, CSR-related social media engagement, work engagement, corporate hypocrisy and reputation were valid and reliable

Summary

Introduction

Going beyond merely taking responsibility for their own business actions, companies are expected to display philanthropic, ethical, and legal accountability to address the needs of both internal and external stakeholders [1]. As cited in Kim [5], the extant CSR research, from both instrumental and political-normative ethical approaches, either examined communication as a strategic tool for improving corporate reputation [6]. Emphasized the political role that companies play in establishing social norms and corporate moral legitimacy through conceptual literature reviews [7,8]. Previous research provides meaningful implications to understanding CSR, more empirical evidence is needed to investigate CSR communication as a focal concept in CSR research, in particular, how effective CSR communication is associated with stakeholders’ perceptions of corporate reputation [5]

Methods

Results

Conclusion