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Cited by 18Corporate Social Responsibility ReportingCorporate Social Responsibility and SustainabilityPublic Relations and Crisis Communication

Does culture matter? Measuring cross-country perceptions of CSR communication campaigns about COVID-19

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Colleoni, Elanor, Romenti, Stefania, Valentini, Chiara, Badham, Mark, Choi, Sung In, Kim, Sungsu, Jin, Yan·2022·Sustainability
DOI 10.3390/su14020889
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Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic has brought several challenges to businesses and societies. In response, many corporations have supported local communities and authorities in the management of the pandemic. Although these initiatives, which can be considered forms of corporate social responsibility (CSR), were highly coupled with explicit CSR communication campaigns, little is known about whether these campaigns were effective. Previous research indicates that culture can shape people’s perceptions of CSR initiatives and communications, suggesting that businesses pay attention to careful consideration of cultural norms for effective CSR communication. However, the COVID-19 pandemic as a new CSR setting may challenge earlier findings. This study empirically investigates whether three cultural factors (individualism/collectivism, uncertainty avoidance, and power distance) affect public perceptions measured as recall of and favorability towards corporate COVID-19 response initiatives across six countries. Findings from a representative survey of adults across these countries show that respondents in individualistic and collectivistic countries recall these CSR communication campaigns about these corporate COVID-19 response initiatives quite differently, and these are related to differences in power distance and uncertainty avoidance. However, no difference was found in overall corporate favorability, indicating that cultural factors did not affect levels of favorability towards such initiatives. This, we argue, can be explained by the global dimension of the COVID-19 pandemic, which is the context of these CSR initiatives. This study contributes to CSR communication literature with empirical findings from a global pandemic setting. It offers businesses and managers empirical grounds to understand the communicative impact of COVID-19 response initiatives, which can inform future CSR actions.

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  • Institutional governance and socio-cultural influences collectively determine audience perceptions of trust and skepticism regarding sustainability messages; however, evidence specific to influencers remains limited.

    “Cross-national research indicates that institutional governance and socio-cultural influences collectively determine audience perceptions of trust and skepticism regarding sustainability messages; however, evidence specific to influencers remains limited (Colleoni et al., 2022;Kim et al., 2025;Strycharz and Segijn, 2024).”

    From Cross-national evidence on influencer-driven green choice: a moderated-mediation model of authenticity, parasocial ties, and greenwashing exposure (2026) · cites this paper as Colleoni et al., 2022

    Section 2.1 discusses how CSR messages can elicit trust or skepticism, and Sections 2.2 and 6 link cultural differences to perceptions of CSR campaigns. The paper chiefly reports differences in campaign recall, however; it does not establish that institutional governance and socio-cultural influences collectively determine trust and skepticism. It mentions influencers as a possible information source in Section 3.3 but does not establish a research gap specific to them. Page numbers are unavailable in our copy. (LLM, conf=0.84)

    Experimental — accuracy not yet measured

  • Governance regimes and socio-cultural priors co-produce responses to persuasive technologies and green messages.

    “These variations are consistent with research demonstrating that governance regimes and socio-cultural priors co-produce responses to persuasive technologies and green messages (Colleoni et al., 2022;Kim and Wang, 2024;Strycharz and Segijn, 2024).”

    From Cross-national evidence on influencer-driven green choice: a moderated-mediation model of authenticity, parasocial ties, and greenwashing exposure (2026) · cites this paper as Colleoni et al., 2022

    Section 2.2 says cultural background shapes how people interpret CSR campaigns, and Section 6 reports that recall of COVID-19 CSR campaigns varied across countries with different cultural norms. The paper does not show governance regimes and socio-cultural factors jointly producing responses, nor does it study persuasive technologies or specifically green messages; its campaigns concerned COVID-19. (LLM, conf=0.86)

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Cited by

Sorted by citations

Authors
Colleoni, E., Romenti, S., Valentini, C., Badham, M., Choi, S. I., Kim, S., & Jin, Y.
Affiliations
  • IULM University (IT)
  • University of Jyväskylä (FI)
  • University of Georgia (US)
  • School of Communication, Kookmin University, Seoul 02707, Korea
Corresponding author
Colleoni, Elanor
ORCID
Venue
Sustainability
Publisher
MDPI AG
Published
2022-01-13
Volume
14
Issue
2
Pages
889
ISSN
2071-1050 (ISSN-L)
DOI
10.3390/su14020889
OpenAlex
W4210392395
Cited by
18
References
2
Citations by year
2026: 5 · 2025: 2 · 2024: 5 · 2023: 2 · 2022: 4
FWCI
2.43
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Licence
Locations
  • Sustainability (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • Leeds Beckett Repository (Leeds Beckett University) (acceptedVersion)
  • Jyväskylä University Digital Archive (University of Jyväskylä) (submittedVersion, cc-by)
  • RePEc: Research Papers in Economics (submittedVersion)
  • DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion, cc-by-sa)
Funders
Helsingin Sanomat Foundation (202000087)
Topics
  • Social Sciences › Business, Management and Accounting › Strategy and Management › Corporate Social Responsibility Reporting
  • Social Sciences › Business, Management and Accounting › Organizational Behavior and Human Resource Management › Corporate Social Responsibility and Sustainability
  • Social Sciences › Communication › Public Relations and Crisis Communication
Keywords
CSR communication, COVID-19 pandemic, cross-cultural perception, individualism-collectivism, uncertainty avoidance, power distance, campaign recall, cultural dimensions

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