• Asia Marketing Journal
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• v.17 no.4
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• pp.105-123
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• 2016

Do corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives lead to positive outcomes for companies? Although it is commonly accepted that CSR is a necessary component of modern marketing communication, the empirical evidence shows that that is not always the case. If CSR is sometimes not conducive to better marketing, it behooves firms to determine the right conditions that foster more effective CSR. It is in that vein that this study aims to add to the growing body of marketing and CSR literature through a series of experiments that examines the dynamics between prior attitude toward the company, the fit between the company and the CSR cause, and consumers' accessible thoughts. This study finds that the prior corporate reputation has an impact on how consumers evaluate the CSR activities of companies. Moreover, we show that the degree of accessible thoughts and their valence can change the moderating effect of the fit between the company and the CSR cause. This is because negative information is perceived as being more diagnostic than positive information in an evaluation situation. We demonstrate that companies that have lower prior public reputations can improve the evaluation of their CSR activities in two major ways: (1) by finding CSR causes that have a lower fit with their business, or (2) by providing information that allow consumers to access more positive thoughts about the CSR activity.

• Korean journal of communication and information
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• v.32
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• pp.75-111
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• 2006

The purpose of this study is to investigate the dependency level of news attributes on the government source and to measure up the impact of news negativity, press ideology, and the conflict level on the forementioned relationship in the context of the prime definer role of the government. The prime definer means that the official source such as the government may dominate media access and create media dependency on the issue and issue attributes. To test the research questions, the content analyses of both the government briefing materials and newspapers were conducted. Textual arguments regarding the new administrative capital were chosen for the analysis. The results showed that the government source played a prime definer role in framing issue attributes of news reporting. This prime definer role was not diminished even among the negative coverage about the chosen topic. However, press ideology and the conflict level influenced the relationship between news attributes and the government-released information in some extent.