Does Culture Matter? Measuring Cross-Country Perceptions of CSR Communication Campaigns about COVID-19

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic has brought several challenges to businesses and societies. In response, many corporations have supported local communities and authorities in the management of the pandemic. Although these initiatives, which can be considered forms of corporate social responsibility (CSR), were highly coupled with explicit CSR communication campaigns, little is known about whether these campaigns were effective. Previous research indicates that culture can shape people’s perceptions of CSR initiatives and communications, suggesting that businesses pay attention to careful consideration of cultural norms for effective CSR communication. However, the COVID-19 pandemic as a new CSR setting may challenge earlier findings. This study empirically investigates whether three cultural factors (individualism/collectivism, uncertainty avoidance, and power distance) affect public perceptions measured as recall of and favorability towards corporate COVID-19 response initiatives across six countries. Findings from a representative survey of adults across these countries show that respondents in individualistic and collectivistic countries recall these CSR communication campaigns about these corporate COVID-19 response initiatives quite differently, and these are related to differences in power distance and uncertainty avoidance. However, no difference was found in overall corporate favorability, indicating that cultural factors did not affect levels of favorability towards such initiatives. This, we argue, can be explained by the global dimension of the COVID-19 pandemic, which is the context of these CSR initiatives. This study contributes to CSR communication literature with empirical findings from a global pandemic setting. It offers businesses and managers empirical grounds to understand the communicative impact of COVID-19 response initiatives, which can inform future CSR actions.

European Governments’ Responses to the COVID-19 Pandemic during the First Wave: Resetting Governance Systems to Cope More Effectively with Future Shocks

“…This last aspect refers to the constant cooperation that would be required between the bodies working in the field of health and governments which, as it was found during this health crisis, have the responsibility to inform the public, on a large scale, about the policies that need to be applied in the context of the occurrence and application of COVID-19 vaccines. With regard to the way in which informal institutions shape the receptivity to the messages of the authorities in the fight against COVID-19, it was noted that culture plays a crucial role (Airhihenbuwa et al, 2020 ; Colleoni et al, 2022 ). Belonging to certain values influences the behavior of individuals, including the degree of acceptance of government measures for combating COVID-19 and, for this reason, the ex-communist regime can be cited as a cause of disparities created between Eastern and Western Europe.…”

How Motivation to Reduce Uncertainty Predicts COVID-19 Behavioral Responses: Strategic Health Communication Insights for Managing an Ongoing Pandemic

“…The subset used for this study was a portion of the large dataset collected as an effort to grasp the public’s cognitive, affective, and behavioral responses toward COVID-19 in different continents over the world, other parts of which were present in other publications ( Choi et al, 2022 ; Colleoni et al, 2022 ). We conducted an online survey of U.S. adults from October through November 2020.…”

Changes in Management Trends in 100 Global Companies before and after COVID-19: A Topic Modeling Approach

“…It has been observed that the majority of studies conducted during COVID-19 focused on the perspectives of employees and customers in relation to reporting and CSR communication [40]. Specifically, financial reports were used to examine their correlation with fraud in financial statements, changes in profitability, and other factors [36].…”