Examining the role of individuals’ perceptions of likelihood of sustained commitment in corporate-nonprofit partnership CSR advertisements

Abstract

Effective corporate social responsibility (CSR) advertising depends on the nature of the partnership and how it is communicated in messages about CSR initiatives. Guided by the Symbolic Sustainability Model (SSM), this study investigates the effects of communication about CSR initiatives comparing differing CSR approaches through a 2 × 2 between-subjects factorial experiment. After viewing a hypothetical CSR-based advertisement, participants (N = 433) rated their perceptions of initiative effectiveness and attitudes toward the initiative. Compared to a donation-based initiative, a CSR partnership had an indirect, positive effect on audience evaluations, which was mediated by perceptions of the likelihood of the corporation’s sustained commitment to the partnership. The advertising that emphasized a partnership outperformed a donation-focused CSR initiative because participants perceived that the sponsoring corporation was invested in helping the cause for an extended period. The findings indicate that audiences are likely to perceive partnerships and donations positively; however, partnership initiatives may have stronger positive, indirect effects because they may be more likely to signal sustained commitment. The findings support the Symbiotic Sustainability Model (SSM) and demonstrate the efficacy of the SSM for CSR advertising. For practitioners, the findings point to strategies that may be helpful amidst the proliferation of CSR advertising.

Keywords:

• Corporate social responsibility
• symbiotic sustainability model
• advertising
• involvement
• sustained commitment

Disclosure statement

This declaration is to acknowledge there are not any financial interests or benefits that have arisen in this research.

Appendix A. Stimuli messages per condition

CONDITION 1 HP: HIGH INVOLVEMENT PARTNERSHIP

CONDITION 2 LP: LOW-INVOLVEMENT PARTNERSHIP

CONDITION 3 HC: HIGH-INVOLVEMENT CORPORATE DONATION

CONDITION 4 LC: LOW-INVOLVEMENT CORPORATE DONATION

Appendix B. Questionnaire

Q1. Please give your impressions of the advertisement’s CSR initiative on each of the questions below. If you have no feeling one way or the other, please choose 4 as a neutral option.

For Partnership conditions (HP), (LP):

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For cause-related donation conditions (HC), (LC):

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Q2. Please evaluate how you feel about the corporation’s environmental CSR policies AND the statement provided by the corporation. Please circle the number that best indicates your agreement with each item. The index is ordered Strongly Disagree (1), Neutral (4) and Strongly Agree (7).

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Q3. Please answer the following questions based on what you saw within the message.

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Demographic Information:

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Please note that this partnership is a hypothetical example of a Corporate Social Responsibility campaign and does not actually exist. It has been used as a representation of the forms of corporate CSR that exist today. This study is in no way affiliated with any particular corporation or nonprofit organization, nor does it seek to promote either party in any way other than the educational purposes of this research. [End of Posttest]