Authentic Corporate Social Advocacy Across Five National Contexts: The Moderating Roles of Perceived Corporate Value Proximity and Publics’ Value-Driven Action Motivation

Abstract

This study examines how authentic corporate social advocacy (CSA) influences publics’ supportive communication and consumption intentions across five national contexts and whether these effects depend on two value-based conditions. Organizational legitimacy theory provides the overarching framework: authenticity is theorized to provide legitimacy-relevant information about the integrity of corporate value expression, while perceived corporate value proximity and value-driven action motivation are tested as value-alignment and values-to-action boundary conditions. A one-factor (authentic vs. inauthentic) between-subjects experiment was conducted in Chile (N = 202), China (N = 207), South Korea (N = 207), the UK (N = 203), and the U.S. (N = 216). The results indicate that authentic CSA increased positive WOM intention in all five samples and purchase intention in Chile, South Korea, and the U.S. Perceived corporate value proximity moderated the authenticity effect on purchase intention in the U.S.; value-driven action motivation moderated the effect on purchase intention in Korea and on both outcomes in the UK. The study advances a legitimacy-informed conditional account of why authenticity matters and when its influence becomes more consequential, extends a value-centered understanding of CSA as organizational social value communication, and clarifies the cross-national scope and contextual limits of authentic CSA effects.