Research On The Impact Mechanism Of Virtual Corporate Social Responsibility Co-Creation On User Response

Since the late 1980 s,corporate social responsibility has developed from an aspect of an organization’s marketing plan to a mainstay of sustainable business.The development of social media technology and the construction of digital technology-enabled scenarios in the Web 2.0 era have set up a new Internet+paradigm for corporate social responsibility revolution and the boost of value co-creation between enterprises and relevant stakeholders.The Chinese government has also released a series of policy guidance and guarantee measures to promote the value co-creation of corporate social responsibility in the new Internet+ networking social media technology paradigm,and the virtual corporate social responsibility co-creation with social media as the carrier has gained some good social benefits in the contemporary context.Although virtual corporate social responsibility co-creation has broad market prospects and strong policy support,and as a strategy for dialogue and communication between companies and users on corporate social responsibility matters through social media,it remains to be explored whether virtual corporate social responsibility co-creation will be more efficacious than traditional corporate social responsibility in enhancing the effectiveness of corporate social responsibility and overcoming the backlash from stakeholder groups and the consequential erosion of reasonableness,reputation and trust due to the imbalance in communication and participation between enterprises and stakeholders on corporate social responsibility issues.Previous research has argued that maintaining coherence between corporate social responsibility dialogue and action can help companies foster a culture of stakeholder engagement.Despite the interest of external stakeholders,especially users,in engaging in corporate social responsibility activities and the frequent mention in the literature that corporate social responsibility is supported by user groups,traditional corporate social responsibility research often treats users as the value-consuming end of the value chain,and little literature has considered how users are practically involved in the corporate social responsibility implementation process from a value co-creation perspective,and how users comprehend corporate social responsibility.Although in the context of Internet+,companies hope to gradually define corporate social responsibility as an organizational mind-set in the process of strategic and two-way dialogical communication through virtual corporate social responsibility co-creation,so that users can be integrated into the process of value co-creation.However,whether involving users in the process of institutionalizing corporate social responsibility,establishing corporate-stakeholder linkages across all levels and aspects of the organization,and providing coherence and internal and external drivers for it,can effectively promote the strategic goals and development of corporate social responsibility needs to be further explored.In view of this,this study takes value co-creation theory as the theoretical foundation to explore the mechanism of virtual corporate social responsibility co-creation on user response,enriching the study of value co-creation strategy in corporate social responsibility strategy,providing a new theoretical perspective to reveal the impact mechanism and path of virtual corporate social responsibility co-creation on user response,and expanding the application context of value co-creation theory.This paper clarifies and defines the core concept of corporate social responsibility from the perspective of value co-creation—virtual corporate social responsibility co-creation,namely the dialogical communication between enterprises and users on corporate social responsibility through the strategic use of social media,and clarifies the differentiated responses of users.We constructed a theoretical model with virtual corporate social responsibility co-creation as the independent variable,corporate social responsibility authenticity as the mediation variable,user response as the dependent variable,and company-cause fit as the moderation variable,that is,Study 1,and tested the research hypotheses in Study 1 through Experiment 1 and Experiment 2.Experiment 1 verified that users’ attitudes,willingness to buy products and willingness to spread word-of-mouth about virtual corporate social responsibility are more positive than those of traditional corporate social responsibility,and that the corporate social responsibility authenticity plays an important mediation role.Experiment 2 again verified the findings of Experiment 1 by selecting different experimental materials and replacing the subject group,and further investigated the moderation effect of company-cause fit and the mediation role of corporate social responsibility authenticity under the moderation of company-cause fit.On the basis of the conclusion that virtual corporate social responsibility co-creation can promote users’ positive response more than traditional corporate social responsibility,Study 2 further subdivides virtual corporate social responsibility co-creation into the duration of participation and the depth of participation from the perspective of user participation process.The theoretical model with the duration of participation and depth of participation in virtual corporate social responsibility co-creation as independent variables,the perception of flow experience and organizational legitimacy as mediation variables,user response as dependent variables,and contextual openness as moderation variables is constructed,namely Study 2,and the proposed research hypotheses were verified by Experiment 3,4,and 5.Among them,Experiment 3 verifies the direct effects of virtual corporate social responsibility co-creation participation duration and participation depth on users’ responses.Experiment 4 changed the experimental materials and subjects to verify the experimental results of Experiment 3 again,and further discovered the co-mediation role of flow experience and organizational legitimacy in the influence path of virtual corporate social responsibility co-creation participation duration,participation depth and user response.In Experiment 5,all the findings in Experiment 3 and Experiment4 were verified again by changing the subjects again,and further revealed that contextual openness would play a moderation role in the paths of virtual corporate social responsibility co-creation participation duration and participation depth affecting flow experience and organizational legitimacy,and finally had a moderated mediating effect on user response.