What makes communication of corporate social responsibility (CSR) credible, from the consumers’ point of view? : an analysis of responses to corporate message channels

摘要

This research question of this master thesis was: what makes communication of corporatesocial responsibility, through corporate message channels credible, from the consumers’ pointof view? In this research, 25 in person and in-depth interviews have been done, through aninductive, unstructured, and exploratory interview research design. The responses from theinterviews were then categorized into factors that answered the research question. Under eachof the seven factors, the many responses were accumulated into fewer responses, whichexplain the factor, and answer the research question of this master thesis.The factors with its responses were analyzed and compared with existing theory in theanalysis, to look for confirmations and new theory. In the last discussion part, the theoreticalimplications, managerial implications and limitations and further research are discussed. Fromthe interviews, the master thesis found the following seven factors and adjectives; endorsed,consistent, altruistic, personal, linked, noble and transparent. The seven factors confirmexisting theory on the field. This means that no clear and new theory is discovered in thismaster thesis. Although, no clear and new theory is discovered, the master thesis is an originalresearch study. The study confirms and labels existing theory into factor names, which areadjectives.The ranking of the factors from 7.3, with the number of times responses under each factor wasmentioned in parenthesis, was as follows: Altruistic (124), Consistent (92), Transparent (78),Endorsed (64), Linked (48), Personal (46), and Noble (12). These results give us an indicationof what the respondents placed emphasis on in the interviews.The seven factors can be used as a check list, before launching CSR-initiatives. If the CSRinitiativecontains the factors, the CSR-initiative will be credibly perceived by the consumers,and successful, based on the results from the interviews in this master thesis.