Search results

Drawing on symbolic interaction theory (SIT), this study aims to identify what makes corporate social responsibility (CSR) communication more favorable to customers in the chain restaurants context. Specifically, this study examines the direct relationships between the interactivity of CSR communication, brand trust and brand sincerity. In addition, the mediating role of brand trust (i.e. separate dimensions of brand reliability and intentions) and the moderated mediating role of self-congruity are explored.

A total of 418 US consumers with past experiences of participating in CSR campaigns organized by chain restaurants on social media were recruited using the online survey method of nonprobability sampling through Amazon Mechanical Turk in December 2021.

The results of this study revealed that the interactivity of CSR communication on social media affects brand sincerity; brand reliability and brand intentions mediate the positive effect of interactivity of CSR communication on brand sincerity; and customer’s self-congruity moderated the positive mediation effect via brand reliability.

Chain restaurant marketers need to understand the important role of interactivity as a key element of CSR communication on social media to help develop brand trust and brand sincerity in chain restaurants.

This study expands on SIT to support the symbolic benefits of interactive CSR communication on social media.

From 1953 to 1961, the South Korean economy grew slowly; the average per capita GNP growth was a mere percent, amounting to less than $100 in 1961. Few people, therefore, look for the sources of later dynamism in this period. As Kyung Cho Chung (1956:225) wrote in the mid‐1950s: “[South Korea] faces grave economic difficulties. The limitations imposed by the Japanese have been succeeded by the division of the country, the general destruction incurred by the Korean War, and the attendant dislocation of the population, which has further disorganized the economy” (see also McCune 1956:191–192). T.R. Fehrenbach (1963:37), in his widely read book on the Korean War, prognosticated: “By themselves, the two halves [of Korea] might possibly build a viable economy by the year 2000, certainly not sooner.”