“I Care Where You Come From”: Testing the Conditional Moderated Mediation of Country-of-Origin Effect in Multinational Enterprises’ Corporate Social Responsibility Communication

Abstract

In today’s polarized global environment, multinational enterprises’ (MNEs) performances are more prone to the influence of the host country stakeholders’ animosity toward their country of origin (COO). In seeking social legitimacy, MNEs often use corporate social responsibility (CSR) programs as a relationship-building strategy in host countries. Drawing on the COO research and attribution theory, this study attempts to reveal how animosity influences host country stakeholders’ attributions of CSR motives and their subsequent evaluations of organization-public relationships with MNEs. In addition, CSR fit and individual ethnocentrism are tested as moderators. An online survey with 671 participants recruited from China supports the proposed conditional moderated mediation model. This study bears theoretical significance to public relations, CSR communication, and COO research. Managerial implications for MNEs are discussed.