The Positive Effect of adding a Story to CSR Communication:
How Storytelling on Social Media leads to higher Values of Organizational Legitimacy
Master’s Thesis
Graduate School of Communication Master’s program Communication Science
Anne Myrthe Korvinus 10200983
Supervised by Dr. James Slevin Date of completion: February 3rd 2017
Abstract
Stakeholders are becoming more interested in organizational Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) practices. The problem organizations are facing in regard of their CSR communication, that is increasingly communicated online, is that their efforts can be
misinterpreted. As a consequence, organizational legitimacy is threatened. Entities strive for future existence by getting involved in CSR practices and communicating about these to their stakeholders. Due to skepticism and perceived feelings of advertising and marketing,
organizational motives are being questioned. The visibility of organizations on social media leads to opportunities to diminish stakeholder’s doubts by this manner. This study
investigated the role storytelling can play in CSR communication on social media. This survey experiment used a video to manipulate storytelling in order to analyze positive evaluations of organizational legitimacy. Support was found for the expectations that storytelling leads toward more engagement and positive emotions among stakeholders. This resulted in more positive evaluations of organizational legitimacy. Storytelling did not make the message seem more credible or less valued as a marketing tactic, in comparison to a non-storytelling message. In addition to the current CSR studies, this thesis provides new insights toward maintaining a relationship between an organization and their stakeholders trough social media.
Keywords: CSR, organizational legitimacy, storytelling, social media, credibility,
The Positive Effect of adding a Story to CSR Communication:
How Storytelling on Social Media leads to higher Values of Organizational Legitimacy The attention stakeholders pay to an organization’s Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) has increased in the past years, based on the expanded number of countries and organizations that are incorporated in KPMG’s annual responsibility reports (KPMG, 2015). There are several explanations for this growth. On the one hand, stakeholders expect that profitable organizations should share their benefit. On the other hand, stakeholders are more aware of environmental issues and demand that organizations participate in achieving global sustainability goals (Colleoni, 2013). The “economic, legal, ethical and discretionary
expectations that society has of organizations at a given point in time” (Carroll, 1979) is what defines CSR and of which stakeholders are more attentive. Organizations try to fulfill the expectations by transmitting them into actions and practices, but these do not automatically turn in to perceptions among stakeholders. Therefore, CSR communication is essential to make stakeholders aware of the CSR practices of organizations.
Besides informing stakeholders of CSR actions and efforts, CSR communication has other purposes. With the use of CSR communication organizations are justifying their
economic practices to the general public, but also legitimate their actions that improve society and the environment (Colleoni, 2013). In this way, CSR communication is used to gain organizational legitimacy, which means that an organization and their practices are perceived as “desirable, proper, or appropriate within some socially constructed system of norms, values, beliefs, and definitions” (Suchman, 1995, p.574). Obtaining organizational legitimacy by stakeholders is an important objective of organizations (Du & Vieira, 2012), because it can determine their future existence when stakeholders are supportive (Palazzo & Scherer, 2006). Stakeholders, associated with an organization and their practices, attribute
organizational legitimacy through values in society (Kostova & Zaheer, 1999). Therefore societal changes can affect stakeholders perception of legitimacy (Palazzo & Scherer, 2006). Also, when there is no alignment between what an organization is doing and what
stakeholders are expecting, future existence can be insecure because their legitimacy comes in danger (Dawkins, 2004).
Consequently, effective communication of CSR practices toward stakeholders
becomes an urgent and challenging issue (Dawkins, 2004). CSR communication can result in opposing understandings among stakeholders and subsequently, a contradictory situation arises. The paradoxical situation consists of beneficial organizational outcomes on the one hand, such as positive stakeholder evaluations which turn in to business returns that favor the organization (Du, Bhattacharya & Sen, 2010). But on the other hand, the detrimental side of CSR communication can also be a result of stakeholder’s interpretations if CSR
communication is perceived as a marketing strategy. When the motivations are questionable and actions seem dubious, this leads to skeptical and biased stakeholders who make negative attributions (Du et al., 2010). Primarily, the problem of CSR communication is the execution by the organization. CSR communication must be implemented, while attempting to stay a credible source and diminish stakeholder skepticism at the same time.
The emergence of social media is undeniable, but provides new opportunities and challenges for organizations and their CSR communication. Social media have the
characteristics that make the existence of a non-stop online flow of information about issues possible. Besides, social media allow people to be more active and encourage others to become more participatory and collaborative (Rim & Song, 2016). Furthermore as a platform, where people share issues that are important to them, online discourses about various societal issues are developed (Rim & Song, 2016). Stakeholders are aware of these opportunities and become active participants in discussions related to organizational issues
(Colleoni, 2013). The connectivity and interactivity stimulated by social media allows for two-way communication or dialogue to evolve between organizations and their stakeholders (Rim & Song, 2016). However, even though CSR communication is more accessible for stakeholders, this will not automatically benefit the legitimacy of organizations. Becoming ‘good corporate citizens’ and striving for lifelong commitment of stakeholders, who become a group of ambassadors that spread the word online asks for a strategy (Du et al., 2010). Nevertheless, such tactics used by organizations on social media can be perceived as marketing and advertising which diminishes the acceptance of the CSR activities (Du et al., 2010). Social media emphasize the complexity that comes along with communicating CSR while maintaining legitimacy (Schultz, Castelló & Morsing, 2013), leading to the following research question:
How can organizations engage in CSR communication on social media, while striving to
maintain their organizational legitimacy?
This study proposes that organizations should integrate storytelling in to their CSR communication on social media, since this might enhance positive evaluations and therefore legitimacy. The narrative form is constructed in a way that leaves room for imagination, which makes it possible for stakeholders to apply their own perspectives to it (Kearney, 2002; Sinclair, 2005 in: Gill, 2015). Storytelling on social media can promote the process of
sensemaking, constructing meaning while communicating with others (Morsing & Schultz, 2006). Social media can stimulate dialogue with storytelling, because stakeholders can become more active co-creators to organizational discourses (Dellarocas, 2003). Altogether, this can have implications for organizational legitimacy since it is socially constructed. Using storytelling as a CSR communication strategy might tackle problems, such as skepticism and negativity toward expressed motives of an organization. Storytelling as an informal tactic, with features that stimulate sensemaking, positive emotions and engagement among
stakeholders (Gill, 2015), needs to be investigated. In sum, this study examines whether organizations using storytelling as CSR communication on social media benefits the legitimacy stakeholders attribute to an organization.
The purpose of this study is twofold. First, providing a comprehensive interpretation of the relation between CSR communication and organizational legitimacy supplemented by the opportunities and challenges for social media connected to this relation. Second, outlining how storytelling can influence the connection between CSR communication on social media and organizational legitimacy. This will result into an advice for organizations about
integrating a narrative to CSR communication, which is expected to be an effective
communication strategy to express CSR practices toward stakeholders on social media. This study will be a contribution to the existing literature on CSR communication, which mainly focused on the way CSR is structured (Schultz et al., 2013) and the role CSR plays between organizations and their publics (Colleoni, 2013; Du et al., 2010; Rim & Song, 2016). Since social media can be a useful asset to CSR communication (Lee, Oh & Kim, 2013), it can be useful to further investigate the possibilities. Besides, if social media become more prevalent, the connection between stakeholders, CSR communication and legitimacy needs to be
deepened (Colleoni, 2013). Therefore, this study explores storytelling as a core principle of an effective CSR message and its adaptability to social media.
Theoretical background
CSR communication and challenges
Before illustrating the present CSR communication situation and explain the influence it has, a clear definition of CSR is needed. In the corporate communication literature, there are different studies about the emergence and evolution of CSR communication (Lee & Carroll, 2011) and the way it’s structured (Schultz et al., 2013). All studies slightly differ in
their definitions of CSR as a concept. As briefly mentioned before, CSR is a way for organization to show society that they are doing well (Bhattacharya & Sen, 2004). More specifically, it is an organization’s goal to do good for society, by using their resources and practices to create improvements in general well-being, and also follow up on stakeholder relationships (Bhattacharya & Sen, 2004; Du et al., 2010). Besides, moral behavior by organizations is used to achieve societal goals and organizational purposes at the same time (Jones, 1995). Taken together, this study uses the definition of Rim and Song (2016, p. 477) who define CSR as “the company’s voluntary investment of its resources to create mutually beneficial exchanges between an organization and its public”. This definition is used because it suits this research’s purposes by outlining the two-way directional relation between
organizations and stakeholders. Additionally, this provides the applicability of storytelling as a strategy that leads toward conversations.
Following this line of arguing, a good example is the ‘Sustainable Living Plan’ of Unilever, which was initiated in 2010 with the objective to decrease their waste by half and also grow as a business (Fortune, 2016). Organizations use money for a better world, but are aware that investing their resources gives them financial returns (Du et al.,2010) indicating that the beneficial factors are acknowledged by these organizations. In relation to CSR communication, informing this as the objective of doing good in society could influence stakeholders. Stakeholders are “any group or individual that can affect or is affected by the achievement of an organization's objectives” (Freeman, 1984 p.46). This insinuates the role of power for stakeholders based on the theory of stakeholder identification (Mitchell, Agle & Wood, 1997). Claims of stakeholders will not affect the organization when there is no power involved simply because a powerless stakeholder has no stake, which makes any claim by them irrelevant to an organization (Michell et al., 1997). But, if powerful stakeholders, such as employees or shareholders, consider organizational CSR motivations questionable and
express those concerns, it can change the relationship with the organization. From the perspective of the organization, involved in various stakeholders relations, the pressing issue of good CSR communication arises when the legitimacy of the organization itself and of their stakeholders are at stake. Thus, the potential advantage or disadvantage an organization experiences from their CSR activities can be a result of the communication about it (Du et al., 2010).
CSR communication is the information an organization is spreading about their CSR actions (Morsing & Schultz, 2006). On the one hand, stakeholders are appreciating the communication about the practices provided by the organization. Research has shown that stakeholders value good corporate citizens (Du et al., 2010). This can result in loyal customers that support the organization (Du, Bhattacharya & Sen, 2007) and diminish
negative comments online (Rim & Song, 2016). Therefore, this loyalty creates a fan base that resists negativity about the organizations and promotes good news. Furthermore, good
communication about the CSR efforts can result in favorable short term and long term effects. A good constructed message can immediately be followed by an increase in
purchases and investments, but also by more positive attitudes of different stakeholders (Du et al., 2010). On the long run, good communication can boost corporate image and the long term-relationship with stakeholders (Du et al., 2010). Altogether, organizations that are engaging in good CSR communication can have rewarding outcomes.
On the other hand, if stakeholders believe that the motivations of a company are not to be trusted, this can lead to negative judgments of the company (Yoon, Gurhan-Canli, & Schwarz, 2006). Especially, when organization primarily communicate extrinsic motives such as gaining more profit or other business advantages (Du et al.,2010). Those motives for pursuing CSR might be questioned, leading toward negative evaluations and skeptical reactions of stakeholders (Skarmeas & Leonidou, 2013). As a result, alternation of an
organization's CSR communication goal occurs (Rim & Song, 2016) since CSR
communication is also used a mean to maintain in contact with stakeholders (Ihlen, Bartlett & May, 2011). If messages come across as manipulative, stakeholders respond to it in a
negative manner (Forehand & Grier, 2003) which affect evaluations of the organization. Therefore, the challenge for organizations lies in reducing stakeholders skepticism or their bias toward doubt and astonishment (Obermiller & Spangenberg, 2001), while carrying out inherent motivations for their practices (Du et al., 2010).
CSR communication and legitimacy
Evaluations made by stakeholders are reflected into values of organizational
legitimacy. The most used definition of legitimacy in the corporate communication literature is that it is “a generalized perception or assumption that the actions of an entity are desirable, proper, or appropriate within some socially constructed system of norms, values, beliefs, and definitions” (Suchman, 1995, p. 574). The CSR practices of an organization must match societal values and norms, because alignment between actions and standards of society is a fundamental demand of an organizations right to exist (Colleoni, 2013). Also, organizational legitimacy can be subdivided in pragmatic, cognitive and moral legitimacy (Suchman, 1995). All three are obtained by stakeholders, where the first is based on their own agenda which is then mirrored to an organization’s transmissions and efforts (Suchman, 1995 in: Colleoni, 2013). The second form is obtained as a result of obvious presumptions made by stakeholders through societal values, and the third when organizations are considered acting sincere
(Zucker, 1987; Suchman, 1995 in: Colleoni, 2013). Being a legitimate organization is a general principle, since it determines the persistence of an organizations (Dawkins, 2004). As an organization, the importance of cultural values, beliefs, norms and rituals for society in general are reflected in the evaluations by stakeholders (Colleoni, 2013). Altogether, CSR communication is used as a mean to raise attention to societal issues whilst upholding
legitimacy (Colleoni, 2013). In other words, legitimacy as entity is gained by acceptance of others (Kostova & Zaheer, 1999 in: Certo & Hodge, 2007).
Communication departments are managing legitimacy by expressing their CSR actions (Du & Vieira, 2012). Managing legitimacy effectively is accomplished when the actions of the corporations are in accordance with stakeholder expectations (Massey, 2001). Gaining that alignment can be achieved by a strategy and there are two main strategies that execute CSR communication (Wagner, Lutz & Weitz, 2009). First, a reactive approach uses communication as a response toward circumstances or crisis that involve the organization (Van Staden & Hooks, 2007). Second, a proactive approach uses communication in a way to promote CSR behaviors in order to disqualify distrust in the organizational legitimacy (Berg & Sheehan, 2014). This latter tactic, which emphasizes the prevention of stakeholders doubting the motives of the organization or who have other negative reactions toward the CSR communication, is relevant to social media.
Social media and CSR communication
The use of social media is very widespread and engrained in modern everyday life, thereby implicating it as a valuable asset for businesses. Social media mainly serve as a platform for people to share issues that are important to them, resulting in two-way communication in the form of online discourses (Rim & Song, 2016). This means more online connections between consumers, knowledge sharing, and the possibility to start discussions (Heinonen, 2011). This dialogic characteristic is unprecedented for CSR
communication, because this contact form is more relational than managerial (Taylor, Kent & White, 2001). This gives stakeholders a better feeling about the communication of an
organization, because dialogue seems to make an organization more ethical (Lee et al., 2013). The meaning of social media can be divided into several branches. Fuchs (2013) uses social theory and philosophy to give a concrete definition of social media. Communication is
explained as the interchangeable process between two or more persons and it is a basic component of each society (Fuchs, 2013) and is related to media in general. Foremost, each kind of media is social because it assumes a transfer of interaction between humans and therefore some social relation (Fuchs, 2013). Looking at social media, this critically means “to engage with different forms of sociality on the Internet in the context of society” (Fuchs, 2013, p. 6). Social media in this way of reasoning are also tools that facilitate
communication, on blogs, wikis, social networking sites (SNS), microblogs, and other technicalities that are different from traditional communication forms (Treem & Leonardi, 2012).
The different platforms have their own characteristics that can be useful for CSR communication. In general, social media as a platform can serve as an advocate of CSR communication (Lee et al., 2013). Where the fast pace leads to more interaction of the conversations (Kent & Taylor, 1998). Also, social media provides opportunities for organizations to communicate in a direct manner with their stakeholders (Rim & Song, 2016). This flow of interaction online is less controlled, because there are no gatekeepers and users have the ability to do almost anything they want (Lee et al., 2013). However, the characteristics of social media can also lead to enhanced negativity through fast spreading comments and attitudes online (Rim & Song, 2016). This could harm an organization, since people tend to be more attentive toward negativity when making assumptions (Ahluwalia, 2002; Herr, Kardes, & Kim, 1991 in: Rim & Song, 2016). On the one hand, social media can generate a positive environment in which two-way communication and extension of proactive communication is possible. On the other hand, negative information can arise, which calls for a specific strategic approach. This study suggests, that in order to maximize social media to communicate CSR efforts, storytelling should be taken into account.
Storytelling as driving force of legitimacy
As previously mentioned legitimacy is vital for organizational persistence and stakeholders make assumptions among others based on organizational behavior. The CSR practices of an organization can provide the core elements for a story. Basically, a narrative is shaped by a starting point, followed by a middle and a finish (Dailey & Browning, 2014). As a result, storytelling has the ability to let stakeholders reflect to them in their own way (Dowling, 2006). As organizations are using social media to make direct connections with stakeholders, using a story to intensify this relationship (Gensler, Völckner, Liu-Thompkins & Wiertz, 2013) might promote interaction and participation. The story stimulates creation of new discourses between organizations and stakeholders, but also among each other (Gensler et al., 2013). Those new conversations can be referred to as part of a sensemaking process of creating meaning with others about the activity of organizations (Morsing & Schultz, 2006).
Communication on social media generated by organizations, gives an appeal of transparency to the conversations (Du & Vieira, 2012). This can provide a more open
dialogue with stakeholders, which can lead to less susceptibility toward the organization (Du & Vieira, 2012). A social media story can lead to more online conversations about the organization and its CSR efforts, which can turn in to favorable valuations of an
organizations’ existence. Needless to say, the story an organization is telling requires certain conditions to strive for legitimacy.
For instance, the success of organizational storytelling is studied mostly internally (Gill, 2015). In the case of organizational change, a good corporate story can lead to less resistance by creating a good organizational culture (Dailey & Browning, 2014). A story can have an impact by being persuasive (Gensler et al., 2013) and motivate employees to take action (Gill, 2015). The story an organization aims to transport an organizations’ origin and therefore persuades its audience (Singh & Sonnenburg, 2012). In the form of a plot leading
toward a climax, with characters portraying roles, an organizations strives for empathy (Schank, 1999; Singh and Sonnenburg, 2012; Woodside, 2010 in: Gensler et al., 2013).
On a critical note, storytelling is not a solution that can eliminate negativity at once. Essentially, organizations can use storytelling on social media as a mean to connect more with their stakeholders (Du & Vieira, 2012) to strive for legitimacy. A story can create consciousness of the organization, along with understanding and more attention, but most of all empathy (Singh & Sonnenburg, 2012). The narrative an organization uses, leaves room for stakeholders own perception and interpretation. An organization should try to provide the stakeholders with a story that steers toward positive evaluations, by giving sense to their story. Sensegiving is the process of an organization application of their ideas to a message (Gioia & Chittipeddi, 1991). In this matter, organizational aims are transmitted into the story to evoke a similar process of sensemaking among stakeholders. Altogether, this process can be considered as manufacturing shared perceptions (Morsing & Schultz, 2006). Hence, if the vision of organizational CSR actions are transferred into a story, this might determine the acceptance of an organization as legitimate. This leads to the following expectation:
H1:With the use of storytelling, CSR communication on social media has a positive
influence on organizational legitimacy.
Credibility
Effective communication can result in realization among stakeholders about the CSR practices and increase credibility (Du et al., 2010). Being credible is important for an
organization, because this can create goodwill (Du et al., 2010). If an organization uses a message that clearly outlines their motives, this increases the ability of positive outcomes (Du et al., 2010). Organizations can be perceived as sincere, because of stakeholder’s awareness of the objective of their CSR actions. CSR messages that are considered credible can result in a decrease of skepticism (Du et al., 2010). Creating a credible story that inspires all kinds of
stakeholders is a challenging endeavor. But, the attempt of an organization to aim for a credible story can be rewarding (Gill, 2015). Storytelling can be a way for organizations to make the information more memorable, but also more concrete (McLellan, 2006). Besides, stories can eliminate doubts through narrative transportation since the audience can identify more with a story (McLellan, 2006). Therefore it is suggested that:
H2: With the use of storytelling, CSR communication on social media has a positive
influence on organizational legitimacy, which is mediated by the credibility of the message.
Perceived marketing
However, messages perceived as an organization's marketing tactic to gain more favorable stakeholders evaluations can have the opposite effect. Stakeholders confronted with CSR communication on social media can make different conclusions. One way of looking at this is with the use of the Persuasion Knowledge model, developed by Friestad and Wright (1994). This model assumes that people interpret messages with self-constructed knowledge that recognizes persuasive attempts, which can lead to an alternative coping mechanism than is intended by the message. This theory assumes that individuals have agent knowledge, topic knowledge and general persuasion knowledge when it comes to advertising (Friestad & Wright, 1994). Since a vast majority of organizations are using CSR communication, a great amount of stakeholders is discovering the pervasiveness of the messages. But, if
organizations use storytelling on social media to emphasize on the connection with stakeholders, this might diminish feelings of advertising (Du & Vieira, 2012).
H3: With the use of storytelling, CSR communication on social media has a positive
influence on organizational legitimacy, which is mediated by the perceived marketing attempt
Engagement
The characteristics of social media allow people to be more active, encouraging people to become more participatory and collaborative (Rim & Song, 2016). People use online sharing as a way to communicate about their interests, which gives it the power to connect individuals (Berg & Sheehan, 2014). Storytelling can respond to the interactivity by creating engagement among stakeholders in a more sophisticated manner. Developing
engagement with CSR communication is becoming more challenging, since it asks for a more subtle approach (Morsing & Schultz, 2006). Engagement is the state of mind that is not per se related to a specific entity but it is continual and pervasive feeling and thought (Schaufeli & Bakker, 2004). A story that makes it possible for an individual to associate it to personal values is more successful (Fog, Budtz & Munch, 2010). The more suitable a message is to ones needs, the more engagement can be created (Sashi, 2012). Earlier studies toward the role of storytelling in creating engagement were mainly for internal organizational purposes (Gill, 2015). In one of them, it was found that an effective story created more engagement among employees, which made them more favorable toward the organization (Dowling, 2006). Creating more engagement among employees increases the possibility that employees will perform according to organizational purposes (Welch & Jackson, 2007). The association one has with an organization, in the form of engagement with the organization will lead to more favorable stakeholder evaluations. Transcending this information toward external relations with stakeholders, the following is expected:
H4: With the use of storytelling, CSR communication on social media will have a
positive influence on organizational legitimacy, which is mediated by engagement.
Emotional appeal
A story has an emotional aspect, because people have the tendency to apply their personal values which leads toward individual perceptions (Dailey & Browning, 2014). A
narrative that has an emotional appeal, which lets the audience connect emotionally (Marshall & Adamic, 2010), has an impact on the behavior of stakeholders. Also, a story with a human voice can generate empathy among stakeholders which can result in better recall of the story (Schank, 1999; Singh and Sonnenburg, 2012; Woodside, 2010 in: Gensler et al., 2013). Marshall and Adamic (2010) stated that a good organizational story contains purpose, allusion, people and appeal but the latter is the determining factor in effectiveness of the message. With the use of appeal a message can be more understood and better remembered and becomes part of the organizational story as a hole (Marshall & Adamic, 2010). Besides, emotion in general can be of impact on the manner stakeholders evaluate a message (Lee, 2010). Storytelling aims to make an organization more human, which might lead to more favorable stakeholder evaluations. This leads to the following expectations:
H5: With the use of storytelling, CSR communication on social media will have a
positive influence on organizational legitimacy, which is mediated by emotional appeal to the
organization.
Based on the above, feelings of engagement might also be considered as an emotional appeal. A story is considered to associate personal values, which enhances engagement which then evokes individual emotional perceptions (Dailey & Browning, 2014). Therefore a story might directly influence engagement, but at the same time other positive feelings among stakeholders. In sum, the following is expected, which together with the other expectations is summarized in Figure 1:
H6: With the use of storytelling, CSR communication on social media will have a positive effect on organizational legitimacy, which is mediated by engagement and emotional appeal.
Figure 1. Conceptual Model of using Storytelling as CSR Communication on social media
Methodology Design
In order to answer the research question (How can organizations engage in CSR
communication on social media, while striving to maintain their organizational legitimacy?)
and test the hypotheses, an online survey experiment with a 2x1 factorial between-subjects design was conducted. The participants were randomly assigned to one of the two conditions, the Storytelling condition (N = 50, 49.0%) or the Non-Storytelling condition (N = 52, 51%), which is further explained in the following section. After a stimulus of either one of the conditions, participants self-reported to questions about the variables of this study. It was possible to complete this survey online and with the use of a smartphone.
CSR social media using Storytelling Engagement (H4) Emotional appeal (H5) Organizational Legitimacy Credibility (H2) Perceived Marketing (H3) H1 H6
Sample
Through convenience sampling participants (N = 160) were enlisted by email, social media and personal contacts of the network of the researcher. Due to unfinished surveys, 53 participants were eliminated from the study (33.13%). These participants did not follow through after the stimulus and did not fill in any of the measures, therefore elimination from the data was necessary.
In order to test the hypotheses it is of importance that participants understood the condition they were in. With the use of two control questions at the end of the survey the manipulation was checked, participants (n = 5) who failed on both items were eliminated. The remaining sample of this study consisted of 102 participants of which 24 were male (23.5%) and 78 were female (76.5%), with an age ranging between 19 and 77 (M = 27.59, SD = 10.05). Most participants were highly educated (n = 82), since 42 of the participants had completed a Bachelor’s degree (41.2%) and 40 a Master’s degree (39.2%).
Stimuli
The stimuli used in this experiment consisted of a video, representing the Storytelling condition and a photo, representing the Non-Storytelling condition. The difference between the stimuli is the form of the message. In the Storytelling condition, the video (see link in Appendix A) was used because it has the strengthening characteristics of a story. The video had a plot, different characters and a climax, which altogether form a story that evokes sympathy and leaves room for an audience’s own perception (Schank, 1999; Singh and Sonnenburg, 2012; Woodside, 2010 in: Gensler et al., 2013). Also with the use of a human voice, the organization tries to persuade listeners by creating empathy which can result in better recall of the story (Schank, 1999; Singh and Sonnenburg, 2012; Woodside, 2010 in: Gensler et al., 2013). The photo (see Appendix A) did contain the same key message as the
video of the campaign ‘Together we can close the Loop’, but this photograph message was not surrounded by a story. Therefore this is the Non-Storytelling condition of CSR
communication on social media.
Participants were shown either one of these stimuli. The video and the photo were non-fictive, as in that they were part of the real-life campaign in 2015 called ‘Close the Loop’ from Swedish brand H&M. Therefore, the authenticity of the campaign is ensured which let the appearance of the stimuli seem more credible and reliable. Also, the campaign was considered successful with a reach of over 22 million people (Shelton, 2016) emphasizing on sustainability of clothing. Therefore, the stimuli can be perceived as CSR communication on social media, because the brand is spreading a message about their actions that benefit society and also themselves.
Measures
Storytelling. As previously described, storytelling was measured with the use of a stimulus in the form of a video. In order to use this as an independent measure for the analyses, a dichotomous variable was composed out of the two stimuli. Both items were recoded into one condition variable, which had two values indicating the Non-Storytelling condition (0) and the Storytelling condition (1). The message that preceded the video made the respondents attentive to the fact that this video would appear on their Facebook timelines. Facebook is used as representative of social media, since this is the most popular platform worldwide with more than 1 billion accounts of active users (Statista, 2017). Besides, this network is most common in encountering videos of organizations.
Credibility. To measure if participants found the storytelling video a credible message, the five item Credibility-scale of Meyer (in: West, 1994) was used. According to his confirmatory factor analytic model, credibility as a concept consists of five subdomains
(West, 1994) and those were used in this study. The items “Can be trusted”, “Is Accurate”, “Is Fair”, “Tells the Whole Story” and “Is Unbiased” form the scale, which participants answered on a 7-point Likert scale ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree). A factor analysis was conducted to explore whether the five subdomains also measure one construct in this study. The Principal Components Analysis, with varimax-rotation, shows that there is one factor with an eigenvalue higher than 1 (EV = 3.25) explaining 64.93% of the variance, which confirms that this scale measures only one construct. The five item
Credibility-scale has a very good internal reliability with a Cronbach’s alpha of .86 (M = 3.95, SD = 1.17). The scale contains mean scores ranging from 1.60 to 6.80, with higher scores indicating higher values of credibility of the message.
Perceived marketing. In order to measure to what extent participants experienced the message they were exposed as a marketing tactic, three items were used based on persuasion knowledge (Van Reijmersdal et al., 2016). The items “This video is advertising”, “This video
is commercial”, and “This video contains advertising” were answered on a 7-point Likert
scale, with a range from 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree). A factor analysis was used to test whether this items form a scale. The Principal Components Analysis, with varimax-rotation, confirmed that all three items load on one factor (EV = 2.38) that is
explaining 79.19% of the variance. The three item Perceived marketing-scale contains means scores ranging from 2.00 to 7.00, with higher scores indicating higher values of perceived marketing values. The scale has a good internal reliability with a Cronbach’s alpha of .87 (M = 6.15, SD = .99).
Engagement. In order to measure whether participants felt engaged by the message, an adapted version of the UWES Engagement (Schaufeli & Bakker, 2003) scale was used. The items from the original scale were formulated for employees working for a specific organization. In this study the target did not work for the organization they might got engaged
by, therefore the items in this study were adapted to fit the goals of this study. The 9 items were measured on a 7-point Likert scale, ranging from 1 (never) to 7 (always). Participants had to answer items such as “Watching this message, I feel bursting with energy”, “Watching
this message, I feel strong and vigorous” and “I am enthusiastic about this message”. A
factor analysis was used to test whether this nine items all measure one construct. The
Principal Components Analysis, with varimax-rotation, confirmed that all three items load on one factor (EV = 6.08) that is explaining 67.51% of the variance. The internal reliability of the nine item Engagement-scale is very high with a Cronbach’s alpha of .94 (M = 3.14, SD = 1.28). The scale contains of mean scores with a minimum of 1.00 and a maximum of 6.33, with higher scores indicating higher scores of engagement.
Emotional appeal. Participants had to answer on a 7-point scale how their attitude toward the message was. There were five items and each item contained two opposing feelings such as “Bad and Good”, “Dislike and Like”, “Not Interesting and Interesting”, “Irritating and Not Irritating”, and “Not Convincing and Convincing” (Muehling & McCann, 1999 in: Mattila, 2001). This bipolar Likert scale has a range from 1 (Completely
“Bad/Dislike/Not Interesting/Irritating/Not Convincing”) to 7 (Completely
“Good/Like/Interesting/Not Irritating/Convincing”). A factor analysis was used to analyze if these five items form one construct. The Principal Components Analysis, with varimax-rotation, was used indicating that all five items load on one factor (EV = 3.53) which is
explaining 70.59% of the variance. With a Cronbach’s alpha of .89 (M = 4.26, SD = 1.19), the internal reliability of this five item Emotional appeal-scale is good. The mean scores of the items form the scale ranging from 2.00 to 7.00, with higher scores indicating more positive feelings.
Organizational legitimacy. The measurement of this latent concept differs across a body of literature. The dependent variable of this study was measured in the same way as in
the study of Certo and Hodge (2007), who created four items measuring the concept based on theory by Kostova and Zaheer (1999). By their reasoning and in concordance with the
literature overview of this thesis, legitimacy is obtained by acceptance of others (Kostova & Zaheer, 1999 in: Certo & Hodge, 2007). This Organizational legitimacy-scale contains four items, “Customers highly value the products produced by H&M”, “Suppliers want to do
business with H&M”, “Employees are proud to tell others they work at H&M” and
“Competitors view H&M with respect”. All items were answered on a 7-point Likert scale ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree). A factor analysis was conducted to analyze if these four items all load to the same factor. The Principal Components Analysis, with varimax-rotation, was used showing that the four items have one component (EV = 2.06) which is explaining 51.39% of the variance. After the reliability analysis, which is showing a Cronbach’s alpha of .67 the first item was removed from the scale. After removing the item “Customers highly value the products produced by H&M”, which also had a relatively low factor loading (.56), the three items now explain 62.25% of the variance in scores on that scale (EV = 1.87) and the Cronbach’s alpha increased to .70 which is a good reliability (M = 4.84, SD = 1.08). The mean scores of the three items form the Organizational legitimacy-scale ranging from 2.00 to 7.00, with higher scores indicating higher values of organizational legitimacy.
Demographic variables. At the end of the survey participants were asked questions about their gender, age and education in order to see whether these values were normally distributed among the sample. In addition, participants were asked if they follow H&M on Facebook to check if this influenced the manipulation or one of the other measures. Procedure
An anonymous link provided participants access to the questionnaire, which led them straight to the foreword. The introduction consisted of a short instruction explaining how the
survey experiment would be expanded and an informed consent form, with the terms and conditions of the study. After accepting these, participants were exposed to either one of the stimuli and in this way randomly assigned to the Storytelling or Non-Storytelling condition. After the stimulus, participants answered questions about the credibility and the perceived marketing of the message. After those questions, participants answered questions about experienced feelings in relation to the message, regarding their engagement, emotional appeal and organizational legitimacy. The demographic questions followed after that and ultimately the manipulation of the stimuli was checked. At last participants were thanked for their contribution to the study.
Results
Randomization
A randomization check was used to check whether the demographic characteristics were divided equally among the conditions. An independent samples t-test was used for age and level of education and a Chi-square for gender. Although equal variances were not assumed, Levene’s Test F (100) = 4.74, p = .03, the mean age did not differ significantly between the Storytelling condition (M = 28.68, SD = 12.02) and the Non-Storytelling condition (M = 26.54, SD = 7.67), t (82.67) = -1.07, p = .289. The variances in the two conditions are assumed to be equal. This can also be assumed for education, since the difference in highest completed degree did not differ significantly, between the Storytelling condition (M = 5.08, SD = 1.20) and the Non-Storytelling condition (M = 4.98, SD = 1.20), t (100) = .41, p = .876. In the Storytelling condition (n = 50), there were 11 males (22.0%) and 39 females (78.0%). This was not statistically different from the Non-Storytelling condition (n = 52) which consisted of 13 males (25.0%) and 39 females (75.0%) , χ2 (1) = .13, p = .721.
(11.5%), which is not statistically different from the 11 in the Non-Storytelling condition (22.0%, n = 52), χ2 (1) = 2.01, p = .156. Altogether, all the variance of the demographic measures was equally divided between the two conditions.
Control variables
In order to test the conceptual model Process Macro1 was used (Hayes, 2013). First of all, a correlation analyses was used to see whether the demographic variables were related to the dependent variable of organizational legitimacy. The three demographic characteristics showed no correlation to outcome measure, this can be seen in Table 1. Therefore, the variables were not considered for further analysis. Also participants answered whether they follow H&M on Facebook, indicated with ‘Like’ in Table 1. This did not have influence on any of the mediators or the dependent variable (see Table 1), and therefore this characteristic was not used for follow up analysis. Besides, the Pearson Product correlation of the mediators was also analyzed in order to investigate whether the different mediators show inter
relatedness. This is the case for engagement and emotional appeal, which is of use in testing the hypotheses.
1
Table 1.
Correlation Matrix of control variables
Measures 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 1. Gender 2. Age -.07 3. Education .21* .10 4. Like -.12 .18 .10 5. Credibility -.11 -.02 -.01 .15 6. Marketing .04 -.04 -.10 -.15 -.11 7. Engagement .25* .02 -.06 .17 .64** -.12 8. Emotion .10 .03 .06 -.05 -.62** -.13 -.61** 9. Legitimacy -.07 .05 -.12 -.16 .15 .16 .26** -.28** Note. * = p < .05 ** p < .01 Hypotheses testing
A regression analysis was used to test whether using storytelling in CSR
communication on social media has a positive effect on organizational legitimacy. There was no significant effect between the independent and dependent variable, b = -.12, t = -.58, 95%
CI [-.55, .30], p = .57. Therefore, hypothesis 1 must be rejected.
Credibility. Hypothesis 2 expected that CSR communication using storytelling on social media would have a positive influence on organizational legitimacy, through mediation of the credibility of the message. Storytelling on social media had a significant positive effect on credibility, b = 1.21, t = 6.08, 95% CI [.81, 1.60], p < .01. In addition, the mediator
credibility had a significant positive influence on the dependent variable organization legitimacy, b = .22, t = 2.11, 95% CI [.01, .44], p < .05. There was no direct effect between storytelling on social media and organizational legitimacy, b = -.39, t = -1.60, 95% CI [-.88, .10], p = .11. Besides, the indirect effect, b = .27, 95% CI [-.01, .60], and the overall model were not significant, F (2.00, 99.00) = 2.40, p = .10. Therefore, the previously mentioned
regression analysis with the mediator were not accepted as significant effects indicating that credibility of the message is not a mediator and hypothesis 2 is not supported.
Perceived marketing. Hypothesis 3 anticipated that with the use of storytelling on social media, CSR communication would have a positive influence on organizational legitimacy, which is mediated by the perceived marketing attempt of the organization. The overall model was not significant, F (2.00, 99.00) = 1.51, p = .23. This means that there are no significant paths in this model and against the expectations, but hypothesis 3 is not supported.
Engagement. Hypothesis 4 expected that storytelling in CSR communication on social media would have a positive influence on organizational legitimacy, and that this is mediated by engagement. The overall model was significant, F (2.00, 99.00) = 6.34, p < .01, whereby the message containing storytelling on social media and the enlightened engagement explain 11 per cent of the variance in scores on organizational legitimacy (R² = .11). A direct negative effect was found between storytelling on social media and organizational legitimacy,
b = -.51, t = -2.21, 95% CI [-.97, -.05], p < .05. In support of the expectations, a positive
indirect effect of storytelling on organizational legitimacy trough engagement was found, b = .39, 95% CI [.16, .72]. Altogether, hypothesis 4 is supported. Figure 2 shows the
unstandardized path coefficients, which also shows the significant effects between the variables.
Figure 2. Unstandardized path coefficients of the mediator Engagement
Note. * = p < .05 ** p < .01, c = direct effect, c’ = total effect
Storytelling Engagement Legitimacy 1.22** c’ -.51* c -.12 .32**
Emotional appeal. Hypothesis 5 predicts that storytelling as CSR communication on social media will have a positive influence on organizational legitimacy, and that emotional appeal mediates this relation. The overall model was significant, F (2.00, 99.00) = 7.00, p < .01, whereby the storytelling on social media and the experienced emotions explain 12 per cent of the variance in scores on organizational legitimacy (R² = .12). A direct negative effect was found between storytelling on social media and organizational legitimacy, b = .51, t = -2.23, 95% CI [-.96, -.06], p < .05}. In support of the expectations, a positive indirect effect of storytelling on organizational legitimacy trough emotional appeal was found, b = .38, 95% CI [.17, .70]. Therefore hypothesis 5 is supported. Figure 3 shows the unstandardized path coefficients, which also shows the significant effects between the variables.
Figure 3. Unstandardized path coefficients of the mediator Engagement
Note. * = p < .05 ** p < .01, , c = direct effect, c’ = total effect
Engagement and emotional appeal. Hypothesis 6 expected that storytelling has a positive effect on both the mediators engagement and emotional appeal, and that together they have a positive influence on organizational legitimacy. The overall model was significant, F (3.00, 98.00) = 6.08, p < .001, which means that a storytelling message,
engagement and emotions experienced explain 16 per cent of the variance in scores on organizational legitimacy (R² = .16). A direct negative effect was found between storytelling on social media and organizational legitimacy, b = -.64, t = -2.73, 95% CI [-1.10, -.17], p < .01. In support of the expectations, a positive indirect effect of storytelling on organizational
Storytelling Emotion Appeal Legitimacy 1.09** c’ -.51* c -.12 .35**
legitimacy trough engagement (M1), b = .24, 95% CI [.00, .62], and a positive indirect effect of storytelling on organizational legitimacy trough emotional appeal (M2) was found, b = .12, 95% CI [.01, .37]. Besides, a positive indirect effect between storytelling and organizational legitimacy through engagement and emotional appeal was also found, b = .14, 95% CI [.03, .32]. This is in support of hypothesis 6.
Conclusion
The aim of this study was to examine the problem of CSR communication, which has consequences for stakeholder’s attribution of organizational legitimacy. Challenges and opportunities of CSR communication have increased due to the emerging importance of social media. Organizations face problems due to skepticism of stakeholders who might perceive feelings of marketing through CSR communication (Du et al., 2010). Also, social media call for a more proactive approach, which intensifies stakeholder relations (Morsing & Schultz, 2006). Therefore, this study proposed that organizations should embrace storytelling on social media to communicate their CSR practices in order to strive to maintain
organizational legitimacy. By doing so, the credibility and perceived marketing value of the message should mediate the relation between CSR and legitimacy. In addition, storytelling should invoke engagement and positive emotions toward the message among stakeholders.
The results of this study did not confirm that storytelling in CSR communication on social media benefits organizational legitimacy. Participants that were shown the video, which consisted of the story, did not value the organization more legitimate than participants exposed to the photograph, which did not tell a story. Even though participants that were shown the story did value the message as more credible, this did not lead to an increase of organizational legitimacy. In contrast to the expectations and literature, that emphasized the importance of a credible CSR message that enhances organizational values (Du et al., 2010).
A clarification for the lack of this finding can be that adding a story did not lead to more empathy toward or recognition of CSR actions (Singh & Sonnenburg, 2012). Also, the
storytelling message was not valued less as a marketing tactic. Together, these findings imply that the management of CSR communication on social media is not restricted to the creation of an authentic story to gain legitimacy. Organizations should pursue CSR behavior that embeds more in their existence, in order to transfer this into a story on social media to pass it along to stakeholders.
The relation between CSR communication using storytelling on social media and organizational legitimacy was fully mediated by engagement and emotional appeal on itself, but also these mediators influenced each other. Participants that were exposed to the video were more engaged by the message which resulted in more positive evaluations of
organizational legitimacy. In line with previous findings, pervasive feelings and thoughts toward the organization were created by storytelling (Shaufeli & Bakker, 2004). The
favorable values of legitimacy were a result of enlightened engagement (Dowling, 2006). In addition, exposure to the story evoked more positive emotions, which also led to an increase in organizational legitimacy values. The induced emotional appeal through the story let participants apply their personal beliefs (Marshall & Adamic, 2010). The story influenced participants positive perception of organizational legitimacy, because of the shared
understanding of the message (Gioia & Chittipeddi, 1991). Altogether, this implicates that storytelling on social media should focus on establishing a relation directly with stakeholders. The reinforcement of the stakeholder relations can be achieved through the creation of a story emphasizing organizational values. Hence, if sensemaking is stimulated among stakeholders, the organizational legitimacy should be able to be maintained.
Discussion
The implications of this study are an addition to current debates about CSR
communication of organizations in relation to their stakeholders (Colleoni, 2013; Du et al., 2010; Rim & Song, 2016). Especially, considering the role of social media as an interesting asset to communicate CSR practices (Lee et al., 2013). This study provides arguments that support a position of social media as positive endeavor to strive for legitimacy. Practitioners could embrace the strengths of CSR communication on social media using storytelling, but this presumes authenticity of organizations. Also, these findings nourish the debate about sincerity of motivations, since interpretation of any CSR message can trigger skeptical stakeholder evaluations (Du et al., 2010). Moreover, using sensegiving and sensemaking as approaches for organizations to create a story in accordance with organizational values, is in addition to the idea that storytelling is sensitive to individual perceptions (Dailey &
Browning, 2014). In fact, the different stakeholder perspectives are a matter of discussion. Critics can question whether storytelling has a positive influence on all stakeholder, due to opposing positions. By all means, the implications trigger a debate about using stories on social media, which confirms the idea that organizations and stakeholders together create values and beliefs that might lead to the perception of an organization as legitimate. Limitations and further research
This study has some shortcomings that could be improved. The sample is not a good representation of the stakeholders most organizations deal with, due to the size of the sample and the characteristics of the group. A larger and more diverse sample could suit the
generalizability and applicability of the results better. The sample consisted of mostly higher educated women, which is not an accurate representation of the population that enacts with CSR communication. In addition, the experimental survey could be improved by transferring
the demographic questions to the first block of the questionnaire. The study had a lot of participants that were excluded from the analyses due to uncompleted measures. Since the demographics were asked at the end, it was not possible to make any attributions of the group that was eliminated. It could be that this was a homogenous group, but this is not a valid assumption.
In order to elaborate on this study of CSR communication on social media, follow-up studies could extend on the relation between CSR communication and organizational
legitimacy. Further studies could emphasize more on the impact of storytelling by using different organizational stories. This could provide a more in-depth explanation of the relation. Also, it could be relevant to expand on social media use, in the form of designated CSR applications or platforms. Storytelling might be applicable to those forms of CSR communication, which might respond to the different stakeholder perspectives.
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Appendix A
Screenshots of Video Storytelling Condition
Appendix B Introduction
Dear participant,
Welcome to my survey for the Master track Corporate Communications at the University of Amsterdam. This survey is about how you would respond after watching a message of an organization about sustainability.
The survey is divided into several blocks. It starts with an introduction to the message of an organization. After the message, some questions are asked about how you perceived the message. Also some demographic questions are asked. Please read all the questions very carefully.
I would like to emphasize that there are no right or wrong answers. In addition, all answers are completely anonymous and the survey will take about 7-10 minutes to complete.
Your participation is greatly appreciated as it brings me a step closer to finishing my Master. Kind regards,
Anne Myrthe Korvinus Participation statement:
I agree, fully and voluntarily, to participate in this research study. I am aware that I may halt my participation in the experiment at any time.
If my research results are used in scientific publications or are made public in another way, this will be done in such a way that my anonymity is completely safeguarded. My personal data will not be passed on to third parties without my express permission.
If I wish to receive more information about the research, either now or in future, I can contact Anne Myrthe Korvinus (anne.myrthe.korvinus@student.uva.nl). Should I have any
complaints about this research, I can contact the designated member of the Ethics Committee representing the ASCoR, at the following address: ASCoR secretariat, Ethics Committee, University of Amsterdam, Postbus 15793, 1001 NG Amsterdam; 020‐ 525 3680; ascor‐secr‐ fmg@uva.nl.
