Effects of the type of CSR discourse for utilitarian and hedonic services

ABSTRACT: In a context of corporate social responsibility (CSR) communication, we explore whether the use of expositive versus narrative discourses interacts with the type of service commercialized by the company (utilitarian vs. hedonic) to determine consumer perceptions and responses to corporate...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores: Pérez Ruiz, Andrea|||0000-0003-3521-1783, García de los Salmones, María del Mar|||0000-0001-5217-4553, Baraibar Diez, Elisa Pilar|||0000-0003-4677-3255
Tipo de recurso: artículo
Fecha de publicación:2020
País:España
Institución:Universidad de Cantabria (UC)
Repositorio:UCrea Repositorio Abierto de la Universidad de Cantabria
Idioma:inglés
OAI Identifier:oai:repositorio.unican.es:10902/18987
Acceso en línea:http://hdl.handle.net/10902/18987
Access Level:acceso abierto
Palabra clave:CSR
Communication
Discourse
Exposition
Narrative
Storytelling
Banking
Catering
Utilitarian service
Hedonic service
Descripción
Sumario:ABSTRACT: In a context of corporate social responsibility (CSR) communication, we explore whether the use of expositive versus narrative discourses interacts with the type of service commercialized by the company (utilitarian vs. hedonic) to determine consumer perceptions and responses to corporate communication. Our main proposal is that, as representative examples of utilitarian services, banking companies would benefit significantly from communicating their CSR efforts with expositive discourses, whereas narrative discourses would be more adequate for hedonic services (e.g., catering). To test the research hypotheses, we use a 2 expositive/narrative discourse) x 2 (utilitarian/hedonic service) between-subjects experimental design where we expose 302 consumers to different combinations of CSR messages and we evaluate changes in their message attributions and internal and external responses to them. The findings show that the interaction effect is significant and it works in the expected direction for issue importance, CSR fit, and CSR attributions. However, for CSR impact, attitude, trust, purchase, and advocacy intentions, the findings suggest that narrative discourses work better than expositive discourses both for utilitarian and hedonic services. No significant differences between types of discourses are observed for CSR motives, CSR commitment, and C-C identification and the interaction effect is also not significant for these variables.