Narrative persuasion by corporate CSR messages: The impact of narrative richness on attitudes and behavioral intentions via character identification, transportation, and message credibility

Highlights

• Narratives have been encouraged as a tool for public relations initiatives.

• We experimentally test the effect of narrative richness in CSR messages on attitude and behavior in two countries.

• Mediating variables (identification, transportation, credibility) are identified.

• Rich narratives have a positive but indirect impact on attitude and behavior.

• Message credibility is not compromised by narrative richness nor by source cue.

Abstract

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.