The current study examines the persuasiveness of narrative richness in messages about acts of corporate social responsibility (CSR). Specifically, we apply theory about narrative persuasion to the domain of corporate communication. Focusing on Coca-Cola’s clean water project, a cross-national experiment (n = 659) was conducted in which the narrative richness and the source cue of a CSR message were manipulated, and the effects on (a) message processing (specifically via character identification, transportation, and credibility), (b) attitude towards the company, and subsequent (c) behavioral intention were measured. Considering the global nature of Coca-Cola, the experiment was simultaneously fielded in the United States and the Netherlands to verify the generalizability of our findings. Robust results in both countries suggest that narratively rich CSR messages can indirectly improve the attitude towards the company and thereby encourage behavioral intentions via character identification and transportation, irrespective of the source cue (company vs. news media). Importantly, message credibility was not compromised by the narrative richness, while being the strongest predictor of company attitude.

当前的研究检验了有关企业社会责任(CSR)行为的信息中叙事丰富性的说服力。具体而言，我们将有关叙事说服的理论应用于企业传播领域。围绕可口可乐的净水项目，进行了一项跨国实验（n = 659），其中操纵了 CSR 消息的叙事丰富度和来源线索，以及对（a）消息处理（特别是通过性格识别、交通和可信度）、（b）对公司的态度和随后的（c）行为意图进行测量。考虑到可口可乐的全球性，该实验同时在美国和荷兰进行，以验证我们发现的普遍性。两国的稳健结果表明，叙事丰富的企业社会责任信息可以间接改善对公司的态度，从而通过角色识别和交通鼓励行为意图，而不管来源线索（公司与新闻媒体）。重要的是，信息的可信度并没有受到叙事丰富性的影响，同时也是公司态度的最强预测指标。