How consumers’ positive moral emotions can drive their active communication: In the context of corporate responsibility to race campaign

This study investigates factors that motivate consumers’ communicative actions, responding to corporate responsibility to race campaigns. As the controversial practice of addressing racial issues, corporate responsibility to race campaigns may evoke consumers’ moral emotions and problem solving actions for racial justice. This study employs the broaden-and-build theory and situational theory of problem solving to understand consumer responses to corporate racial justice messages, particularly for the minority group of Hispanics/Latinos. The conceptual model is tested through an online survey among 618 consumers of different race/ethnicity groups in the U.S. Results show that responding to corporate racial justice messages, consumers’ positive moral emotions influence their perceived involvement in, recognition of, and perceived barriers of the racial justice issue. Those issue-related perceptions, in turn, can increase consumers’ motivation and active communicative actions to promote racial justice. • Consumers’ positive moral emotions influence their situational perceptions. • Situational perceptions in CRR elicit consumers’ situational motivations. • Problem solving in racial issues lead to increased active communicative actions.