Practicing Public Diplomacy by Doing Good: Examining the Effects of Corporate Social Responsibility on Country Reputation

Abstract

ABSTRACT This investigation examines whether and how multinational corporations’ corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities fulfill the function of public diplomacy by boosting home country reputation in the minds of international publics. Two experimental studies were used to empirically test a theoretical model that examines nuanced effects of CSR messages on publics’ perceptions of home country reputation using a 2 (presence vs. absence of CSR information) × 2 (high corporation-country association vs. low association) between-subjects factorial design (Study 1 n = 137; Study 2 n = 134). Research findings across both studies showed that simply including CSR information in the corporate messages did not directly impact country reputation. Rather, perceived corporate social responsibility mediated the effects of the presence of CSR information on country reputation. Moreover, publics’ perceived association between corporation and home country, as influenced by information within the corporate messages, also impacted their perceptions of country reputation. This investigation offers practitioners implications on strategically promoting corporate CSR efforts overseas to achieve desirable public diplomacy outcomes.