This study investigates the effect of corporate brand dominance-that is, the visibility of a company's corporate brand in product communications-on the relationship between corporate associations and product evaluations. The results show that corporate brand dominance determines the degree to which associations with the company's corporate ability and corporate social responsibility influence product attitudes, as well as the nature of the moderating effects of fit and involvement.

Companies increasingly communicate about corporate social responsibility (CSR) through interactive online media. We examine whether using such media is beneficial to a company's reputation. We conducted an online experiment to examine the impacts of interactivity in CSR communication on corporate reputation and word-of-mouth intentions. Our findings suggest that an increase in perceived interactivity leads to higher message credibility and stronger feelings of identification with the company, which also boost corporate reputation and word-of-mouth. This result implies that using interactive channels to communicate about CSR can improve corporate reputation. Our results also show that the detrimental impacts of negative user evaluations on corporate reputation are much higher than the favorable impacts of positive evaluations. This finding suggests that, despite the effectiveness of interactive communication channels, firms need to carefully monitor these channels.Keywords: Corporate reputation, corporate social responsibility, electronic word-of-mouth, interactivity, message credibility, social media. IntroductionCompanies are increasingly communicating about their efforts in the realm of corporate social responsibility (CSR), that is, efforts to "integrate social, environmental, ethical, human rights and consumer issues into their business operations and core strategy" (European Commission 2011 p. 6). A major goal of such communication is to achieve or protect organizational legitimacy (Arvidsson, 2010). Furthermore, companies are embracing interactive online media to communicate about CSR. For example, Kim et al. (2010) showed that 71% of the Fortune Global 500 firms devoted a separate section of their website to environmental responsibility and 75% of these environmental sections gave users the opportunity to respond to the information provided. It is unclear, however, whether using such interactive media adds This paper investigates whether allowing stakeholders to post comments on CSR messages (and to read comments posted by others) affects the credibility of messages and stakeholders' feeling of identification with the company. Furthermore, we examine the effects of improved message credibility and identification on the reputation of the company and positive word-ofmouth intentions. We also analyze the effects of user evaluations, testing the conventional wisdom that messages having mostly positive comments have a higher credibility than messages having no user comments, while the reverse holds for messages having mostly negative comments. Our findings suggest that an increase in perceived (but not actual) interactivity leads to higher message credibility and stronger feelings of identification with the company, which also boost corporate reputation and word-of-mouth. This result implies that using more interactive channels to communicate CSR could improve corporate reputation. Our results also show that the detrimental impacts of negative comments on corporate reputation are much higher than the...

ABSTRACT. This paper investigates under what conditions a good corporate social responsibility (CSR) can compensate for a relatively poor corporate ability (CA) (quality), and vice versa. The authors conducted an experiment among business administration students, in which information about a financial services companyÕs CA and CSR was provided. Participants indicated their preferences for the companyÕs products, stocks, and jobs. The results show that for stock and job preferences, a poor CA can be compensated by a good CSR. For product preferences, a poor CA could not be compensated by a good CSR, at least when people thought that CA is personally relevant to them. Furthermore, a poor CSR could be compensated by a good CA for product, stocks, and job preferences.

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The goal of this paper was to investigate whether and how a firm that engages in different kinds of corporate social performance (CSP) can create a favorable corporate reputation among its stakeholders, and as a result achieve a good financial performance. Building on stakeholder theory, we distinguish two types of reputationreputation among public stakeholders and reputation among financial stakeholders. We argue that CSP activities affect these two reputations differently. In addition, we empirically test the relationship among different types of CSP, reputation among public and financial stakeholders, and financial performance. Our results suggest that (1) Carroll's four types of CSP (i.e., economic, legal, ethical, and philanthropic) affect financial performance differently, and (2) their effects are mediated by reputation among public and financial stakeholders. Our findings provide guidelines for managers on choosing to emphasize certain CSP aspects in their communication, depending on the specific stakeholder group they are targeting.

Past research focuses predominantly on self-enhancement as a motive underlying organizational identification even though there have been several calls for examining multiple motives of identification. Our research explores the interplay of the self-enhancement and the uncertainty reduction motives in shaping identification during a major organizational change: a merger of a business unit with its parent corporation. Based on analysis of survey responses collected from 751 employees of the merging business unit, we find that the self-enhancement motive, measured via attractiveness of perceived organizational identity and perceived external prestige, continues to influence identification during this merger. However, its effects are diminished when considering the effect of the uncertainty reduction motive. In particular, in addition to affecting identification directly, this latter motive, measured via agreement with projected identity of the business unit and identification with a distal target (i.e., the parent corporation), decreases the effect of perceived external prestige on business unit identification. Our research answers longstanding calls for understanding organizational identification motives beyond self-enhancement, and shows how multiple identification motives work during a major organizational change: a time when identification is strongly needed, yet hard to garner.

This article examines firm communication on a corporate Twitter channel and its effects on corporate reputation. We identify the importance of user engagement and informedness in explaining corporate reputation, and examine three design factors that likely affect user engagement in a corporate Twitter channel. We conduct an exploratory 2 × 2 × 2 experiment among Twitter users to collect data. We find that the depth of the relationship among users, the level of corporate involvement, and the purpose of the channel interactively influence user engagement. Our findings suggest that deeper relationships among users of a corporate Twitter channel lead to higher user engagement when the level of corporate involvement with the channel is high and when the channel has a specific purpose, but not when the level of corporate involvement is high and the channel has a generic purpose. Surprisingly, when the channel has a generic purpose, a high degree of corporate involvement actually decreases user engagement. This finding implies that, under certain circumstances, a lower degree of corporate involvement in a social media channel may be more desirable. We also find that channel credibility positively influences user informedness. This is the first study that examines the dynamics of communication through a corporate Twitter channel. It contributes to the previous research related to social media by identifying engagement and informedness as two major factors that influence firms' reputation. Our research can help marketing and social media managers to decide on channel design aspects such as whether to require users to register with an identity or to allow anonymous participation, whether to allocate dedicated employees to respond to user requests, and whether to set up different channels for different purposes.

International audienceThis study seeks to determine when communicating about corporate social responsibility (CSR) is likely to buffer against subsequent allegations of irresponsible behavior (in a different domain) or instead aggravate the effect of such allegations. In contrast with prior investigations of pre- or post-allegation effects in isolation, this study focuses on the interaction between CSR communication and allegations to discern conditions in which a buffering or aggravating effect is most likely. The authors identify an important contingency factor: the independence of the source in which the CSR communication appears. Aggravating effects tend to emerge when the CSR communication comes from a third-party source, whereas a buffering effect occurs when the CSR communication appears in a company-controlled source. Persuasion knowledge mediates these aggravating and buffering effects