Search results

This study provides real-world evidence for the relationship between strategic communication from a global/multinational perspective and the effectiveness of corporate message strategies in the context of environment risk communication. Among sustainability issues, particulate matter (PM) air pollution has threatened the health and social wellbeing of citizens in many countries. The purpose of this paper is to apply the message framing and attribution theories in the context of sustainability communication to determine the effects of risk message characteristics on publics’ risk responses.

Using a 2 (message frame: gain vs loss) × 2 (attribution type: internal vs external) × 2 (country: China vs South Korea) between-subjects experimental design, the study examines the message framing strategies' on publics' risk responses (i.e. risk perception, risk responsibility attribution held toward another country and sustainable behavioral intention for risk prevention).

Findings include (1) main effects of message characteristics on participants’ risk responses; (2) the impact of country difference on participants’ differential risk responses and (3) three-way interactions on how risk message framing, risk threats type and country difference jointly affect not only participants’ risk perception and risk responsibility attribution but also their sustainable behavioral intention to prevent PM.

Although this study used young–adult samples in China and South Korea, the study advances the theory building in strategic environmental risk communication by emphasizing a global/multinational perspective in investigating differences among at-risk publics threatened by large-scale environmental risks.

The study's findings provide evidence-based implications such as how government agencies can enhance the environmental risk message strategy so that it induces more desired risk communication outcomes among at-risk publics. Insights from our study offer practical recommendations on which message feature is relatively more impactful in increasing intention for prosocial behavioral changes.

This study on all measured risk responses reveals important differences between at-risk young publics in China and South Korea and how they respond differently to a shared environmental risk such as PM. The study's findings provide new evidence that media coverage of global environmental issues needs to be studied at the national level, and cross-cultural comparisons are imperative to understand publics’ responses to different news strategies. Thus, this study offers implications for practitioners to understand and apply appropriate strategies to publics in a social way across different countries so as to tailor risk communication messaging.

This study offers new insights to help connect message framing effects with communication management practice at the multi-national level, providing recommendations for government communication practitioners regarding which PM message features are more likely to be effective in forming proper risk perception and motivate sustainable actions among at-risk publics in different countries.

The purpose of this study was to shed light on how effective environmental corporate social responsibility (CSR) communication can be achieved through persuasive communication strategies using message framing.

This study conducted an online experimental study with a 2 (narrative: narrative or non-narrative) × 2 (framing: gain or loss) between-subjects design.

The findings showed that environmental CSR communication using narrative framing messages is most effective in creating strong CSR associations between a company and the environmental CSR domain and sharing the company's CSR information on supportive communication and advocating for the environmental campaign.

This study highlights the importance of a company's environmental CSR communication efforts using the right message format (narrative style) to increase its persuasive sequence from CSR evaluation to supportive behaviors, contributing to theoretical development in the research of environmental CSR communication. This study suggests that environmental CSR campaign managers should first formalize the company's environmental responsiveness by clearly establishing policies and practicing CSR performance that could result in a strong CSR association before asking their target publics to engage in pro-environmental activities.

The paper aims to understand what kinds of internal messages concerning a company's environment‐related corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities would be most effective in engaging employees in implementing an organization's environmental strategy. Furthermore, the paper explores how environmentally active employees could be utilized as internal communicators to spread environmental activity internally.

The paper reports on findings from interviews (n=12) conducted within a multinational case company that has recently adopted an active approach to communicating its environmental policy internally.

Employees whose work does not have a clear environmental impact can find corporate environmental policies distant, and would rather see simple, practical messages about what they can do for the environment in their jobs. Furthermore, employees might ignore environmental considerations if they are too busy at work. To encourage environmentally active employees to share their ideas, it might be useful to assign clear environmental contact persons to each department, because employees may be unwilling to approach colleagues directly with environment‐related suggestions.

At a time when most companies are striving to be greener, the findings help organizations understand how they can communicate effectively to encourage all employees to consider the environment in their jobs. In addition, the results point to how organizations can better utilize environmentally active employees for internal promotion of environmental strategies.

The paper extends research on CSR communication to consider internal communication within an organization. In addition, it adopts the perspective of employees to bring new insight into their role in CSR‐related activities.

This study seeks the views of environmental and communication managers in three mining companies on the use of the world wide web for environmental communication.

Interviews were utilised to gather data for this research.

Prior literature on web‐based environmental communication has a primary emphasis on the content of environmental disclosure on web sites. It is highlighted in this paper that one must move beyond merely analysing web sites for environmental information in order to gain an in‐depth understanding of the practice of web‐based environmental communication.

Very few studies to date have sought the opinions of corporate executives on the web‐based environmental communication practice of their companies and this study addresses this gap in the literature.

This study obtains “first hand knowledge” of web‐based environmental communication in Australia's minerals industry through its interviews.

The study provides an in‐depth understanding of current web‐based environmental communication practices in an environmentally sensitive industry and suggests that both technical and socio‐political factors impact current practices. This has implications for the choice of theoretical perspectives for analysing web‐based environmental communication practices.

In this article, we try to extend previous research on socially responsible practices by investigating the effectiveness of the environmental communication of an organization. The work is mostly based on the results of a qualitative research about the environmental efforts of a supermarket chain, particularly through its replacement strategy of nylon bags by biodegradable ones. There are many studies in the marketing literature on corporate environmentalism emphasizing the advantages of communicating the socially responsible practices (Detchessahar, 2001; Gabriel, 2003; Kolk, 2000; Krogh and Roos, 1995) but there are also risks related to communication strategy. Therefore, it is very crucial to know the possible impacts of this kind of communication in order to be successful in the market (Brown and Dacin, 1997; Creyer and Ross, 1997; Sen and Bhattacharya, 2001). The impact of this communication has to be analyzed by different points of view such as the consumers, the employees and the managers. The results of this study will provide various managerial insights and recommendations for companies willing to succeed in their socially responsible actions as the responsible business practices can build sales, develop the workforce, boost enthusiasm, and enhance trust in to the company by increasing its reputation.

With the growing concern for environmental and sustainability issues, especially in the aftermath of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, organizations feel compelled to pursue green sustainability in their operations. In this regard, the active involvement of employees in pro-environmental behaviors (PEBs) is crucial for achieving organizational environmental sustainability goals (Saeed et al., 2019). To shed light on this important issue, this study aims to investigate the impact of interacting/engaging environmental corporate social responsibility (CSR) communication strategy on employees' PEBs through the mediating effects of communal relationship and employee empowerment.

A total of 443 full-time USA employees working across various industries participated in an online survey.

The interacting/engaging environmental CSR communication strategy fosters employees' perceived communal relationship with their organizations and empowers them to support their organization's environmental initiatives, which, in turn, positively influences employees' PEBs at work.

This study advances CSR and internal communication literature through the lens of relationship management and self-determination theories. The findings theoretically suggest the effectiveness of the interacting/engaging environmental CSR communication strategy in nurturing favorable employee–organization relationships (EORs), employee empowerment and PEBs at work. The practical implications of CSR communication are also elaborated.

Using Keller's brand equity framework, the purpose of this paper is to investigate the impact of the firm's environmental communication on brand equity, and specifically its impact on brand image, through the strength and favourability of brand environmental associations.

A between‐subjects experimental design tests the hypotheses with a generalisable sample of 165 French consumers.

Environmental communication positively influences the strength and favourability of brand environmental associations, therefore improving brand equity. Two moderators reinforce the impact of environmental communication on brand equity through the strength of brand environmental associations: the perceived congruence between the brand and the cause, and the perceived credibility of the claim.

In the context of greater consumer pressure regarding business ethics, managers should favour environmental arguments in their corporate communication to improve brand image through societal associations. Doing so, they should focus their communication on causes that are congruent with their brands to facilitate brand equity building, and ensure they are credible when proclaiming these arguments.

Despite existing research on corporate social responsibility (CSR), no studies focus on the specific impact of CSR communication on brand equity. The paper provides initial empirical evidence about the positive effect of environmental claims on customer‐based brand equity.

New York is the third top wine producing state in America. Competitive wine production across the United States has challenged New York winemakers to secure a place in the domestic market in order to support the long-term viability of the local economy. As businesses of agriculture become increasingly disrupted by the changing natural environment and consumer demand for sustainable products grows, vintners may distinguish themselves through the production and promotion of strategic initiatives on wine bottle labels.

Fueled by the distinct fields of green marketing and environmental communication, this research investigates the promotion of sustainable practices on wine bottle labels. Through the methodology of content analysis, this project examines all 13 wineries on the Shawangunk Wine Trail located in the Hudson River Region of New York.

The findings from this study show that less than half of wineries in the sample selection employ environmental marketing as a communication strategy.

This research carries practical, business and social implications for the local Hudson River Region, the larger New York wine industry, and any organization looking to remain viable in a competitive marketplace.

This paper reveals the potential for the Hudson River Region wine industry to promote its “distinctive” and “innovative” environmental philosophy of “terroir driven and sustainably produced” winemaking on wine bottle labels to differentiate themselves in a crowded and expanding marketplace and build a Basis of Legitimacy with consumers.

This paper aims to investigate the level of environmental communication and the predominant themes of environmental initiatives and technologies used in India.

In this exploratory study, a manual content analysis was conducted using print and website data related to corporate environmental communication of 60 Indian companies listed in the Bombay Stock Exchange, representing the top thirty from manufacturing and information technology (IT) sector each.

The authors classified the level of importance based on seven attributes, distinguished between hard and soft disclosure and identified the prevalent environmental practices and technologies in each sector. The authors found that the environmental communication of the IT sector is technology-based than the manufacturing sector, but both are weak in acknowledging climate change.

Managers, across the two sectors, can make their organizations environmentally responsible by learning and applying the current practices/technologies and reap benefits by mimetic isomorphism or create competitive advantage.

Building on the theoretical and practical works in corporate sustainability and corporate social responsibility communication literature, the authors contribute to the stakeholder theory and voluntary disclosure theory. The findings of the study provide the much-needed base for future research that links the engineering and management community to take the scholarship further to prevent the climate crisis.

This study investigated whether there are differences in the effects of green traditional media communication (GTMC) and green social media communication on consumers' intention to cocreate green value (ICGV) in post-COVID-19 China. The authors further tested the chain mediating role of cocreation efficacy and cocreation outcome expectation and the moderating role of perceived CSR image.

Using a survey, we collected a dataset of 683 consumers through stratified random sampling in main shopping malls in four Chinese cities. Structural equation modeling (SEM) was used to test the conceptual framework and hypotheses, and bootstrapping was used to estimate the mediated standardized regression coefficients. Multiple linear regression analysis was used to test the moderating effect.

GTMC, firm-created content (FCC), and user-generated content (UGC) all had positive effects on ICGV. Cocreation efficacy and cocreation outcome expectation had a chain mediation effect in GTMC and ICGV, UGC, and ICGV. Perceived CSR image positively moderated the effects of both GTMC and FCC on ICGV. However, perceived CSR image did not significantly moderate the relationship between UGC and ICGV.

This study contributes to our understanding of the effect of green media communication on consumers' ICGV in post-COVID-19 China. It also develops the concepts of cocreation efficacy and cocreation outcome expectation. Moreover, analyzing the chain mediating role of cocreation efficacy and cocreation outcome expectation in green media communication and ICGV extends social cognitive theory to the context of green value cocreation. Finally, examining the moderating role of perceived CSR image provides a basis for understanding the boundary conditions of green media communication's effect on ICGV.