Looking beyond active publics: how public segmentation moderates country-of-origin animosity and CSR impact in multinational CSR communication

Purpose Drawing on Grunig’s situational theory of publics and the corporate social responsibility (CSR) communication framework by Du and colleagues, this study investigates how public segment memberships function as a stakeholder contingency factor to interact with the CSR initiative communication factor (perceived CSR impact) and the company contingency factor (country-of-origin animosity) to influence perceptions of organization-public relationships (OPR) in the context of multinational corporations’ CSR communication in China. Design/methodology/approach The study employs an online survey methodology with 671 Chinese participants who evaluated CSR messages from six multinational companies during the 2021 Henan floods. Two-step cluster analysis and ANCOVA were applied to test the moderating effects of public segments on the relationships between country-of-origin (COO) animosity, perceived CSR impact and OPR. Findings Results reveal significant interaction effects between public segments and both COO animosity and perceived CSR impact on OPR. Active publics demonstrated resilience to COO animosity while maintaining consistently high relationship perceptions, whereas aware, latent and non-publics showed significant sensitivity to animosity levels. All public segments responded to perceived CSR impact, but aware publics and non-publics exhibited the strongest responsiveness to CSR impact variations, while active publics showed less variation. Originality/value This research advances CSR communication scholarship by integrating situational theory of publics as an issue-related stakeholder contingency factor within established CSR communication frameworks, providing novel insights into multinational CSR communication research.