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PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to investigate the link between individuals' expectations of corporate social responsibility (CSR) and their readiness to support the socially responsible behaviour of companies in light of the expectational relationship a company has with its stakeholders, as defined in the corporate marketing model.Design/methodology/approachThe data were collected using an online survey of 354 respondents from different backgrounds. The sample was 57 per cent female and 43 per cent male with 66 per cent of respondents aged between 20 and 40 years. The authors conducted descriptive statistics, a factor analysis, and structural equation modelling.FindingsThe results show that expectations of ethical‐philanthropic CSR tend to have a significant positive influence on both types of intended CSR support by customers.Research limitations/implicationsThe limitation of the research is the limited scope of the model. For more insight into the relevance of CSR for corporate marketing, it would be interesting to include other relevant variables from this field, such as identification with a corporate brand and corporate reputation.Practical implicationsThe model suggests that ethical‐philanthropic responsibilities seem to lead to a competitive advantage which is based on a desired customer response and reward. This is in line with the main focus of corporate marketing, which is the meeting of stakeholder and societal needs.Originality/valueThe paper empirically considers and challenges the acknowledged Carroll's classification of CSR, and links it with the readiness to support socially responsible behaviour of companies in general. In addition, it links the notion of CSR with that of corporate marketing, which strives to develop meaningful relationships with customers and other stakeholders.

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PurposeThis paper aims to introduce the special issue on CSR communication attached to the First International CSR Communication Conference held in Amsterdam in October 2011. The aim of the introduction is also to review CSR communication papers published in scholarly journals in order to make a summary of the state of CSR communication knowledge.Design/methodology/approachThe existing literature on CSR communication was approached via systematic review. with a combination of conventional and summative qualitative content analysis. The final dataset contained 90 papers from two main business and management databases, i.e. EBSCOhost and ProQuest.FindingsPapers were coded into three main categories. The results show that the majority of the papers are concerned with disclosure themes. Considerably less salient are papers that fall under process‐oriented themes and the outcomes/consequences of CSR communications. The most important outlets for CSR communication‐related topics are Journal of Business Ethics and Corporate Communications: An International Journal.Originality/valueThis paper represents the first attempt to perform a systematic and comprehensive overview of CSR communication papers in scholarly journals. Its value is in making this rather vast and heterogeneous literature more visible and accessible to all CSR communication scholars.

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