Issue contention and consumers’ reactions to corporate social responsibility: Challenging the dyadic assumptions

Two experiments (one fictitious on environmental CSR and one real-life on a company’s social advocacy on gun violence) were conducted to examine how issue contention affects consumers’ reactions to corporate social responsibility (CSR). Results of the two experiments suggest that while issue contention does not lower consumers’ agency, it makes consumers less likely to engage the organization based on their values and beliefs (i.e., symbolic avoidance) regardless of the organization’s viewpoints. The results also suggest that this effect does not directly extend to actual purchase intention, which indicates that actual purchase intention is confounded by both symbolic interactions and tangible factors such as price and corporate expertise. Results of the two experiments provide important implications for public relations research, challenging the dyadic assumptions of organization-public interactions and relationships and calling for further attention on inter-publics and inter-organizations dynamics.