agenda setting theory and csr reporting in the automotive industry

Running Head: AGENDA SETTING THEORY AND CSR REPORTING ii.

Driving Change in Consumer Attitudes:

Agenda Setting Theory and CSR Reporting in the Automotive Industry

Patrick Bedard

Hamilton College

©

2014

Patrick Bedard

AGENDA SETTING THEORY AND CSR REPORTING ii.

Abstract

This study was designed to explore the possibility of agenda-setting effects in the realm

corporate social responsibility (CSR) reporting. A review of literature in the field shows that the

traditional concept of agenda-setting, which originally explained the influence of the mass media

on public perceptions of political issues, has given way to a more comprehensive idea of agenda

setting, which acknowledges the existence of related effects for corporate news. In order to

investigate if this expansion of agenda-setting can be carried further into the realm of CSR

reporting in the automotive industry in particular, this study surveyed a sample of 89

participants, who were randomly exposed to CSR reports from Ford Motor Company and

Mitsubishi Motors Corporation or to a control variable. Regression analysis was then used to

determine the effect of CSR report exposure on consumer perception of corporate sustainability

and consumer purchase intent for six CSR issues: environmental issues, economic issues, human

rights issues, labor practices and decent working conditions issues, product responsibility issues,

and social issues. Demographic and automotive and environmental interest control variables

were also used to assess the existence of moderating factors on the agenda setting effect. This

study found evidence for the existence of both first and second level agenda setting effects for

both Ford and Mitsubishi CSR reports, although effects varied in strength between the two

companies.

Keywords: Agenda Setting, Corporate Social Responsibility

AGENDA SETTING THEORY AND CSR REPORTING iii.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Abstract ………………………………………………………….……………….. ii.

List of Tables ...………………………………………………………………....... iv.

Chapter One: Introduction ……………………………………………………….. 1.

Chapter Two: Literature Review ………………………………………………… 4.

The Evolution of Agenda Setting ………………....................................... 4.

Empirical Support for Agenda Setting in the Corporate Sphere ………… 8.

Agenda Setting and Corporate Social Responsibility ……………………. 14.

Automotive CSR Report Content ……………………………………....... 15.

Chapter Three: Methods …………………………………………………………. 18.

Purpose ……………………………………………………....................... 18.

Participants ……………………………………………………………….. 19.

Procedure ………………………………………………………………… 21.

Measures …………………………………………………………………. 24.

Chapter Four: Results ……………………………………………………………. 27.

Chapter Five: Discussion ………………………………………………………… 34.

Limitations ……………………………………………………………….. 38.

Future Directions ………………………………………………………… 39.

Chapter Six: Conclusions …………………………………………………........... 40.

References ………………………………………………………………………... 43.

Appendix A ………………………………………………………………………. 46.

Appendix B ………………………………………………………………………. 59.

AGENDA SETTING THEORY AND CSR REPORTING iv.

LIST OF TABLES

Table One: Overall Sustainability Assessment Measure …….………………....... 46.

Table Two: Purchase Intent Measure: Economic Issues …………………............ 47.

Table Three: Purchase Intent Measure: Environmental Issues …………………... 48.

Table Four: Purchase Intent Measure: Human Rights Issues…………………….. 49.

Table Five: Purchase Intent Measure: Labor Practices and Decent Working

Conditions Issues………………………………………………………………….

50.

Table Six: Purchase Intent Measure: Product Responsibility Issues……………... 51.

Table Seven: Purchase Intent Measure: Social Issues……………………………. 52.

Table Eight: Willingness to Pay Measure: Economic Issues ………..………....... 53.

Table Nine: Willingness to Pay Measure: Environmental Issues ……..…………. 54.

Table Ten: Willingness to Pay Measure: Human Rights Issues………….………. 55.

Table Eleven: Willingness to Pay Measure: Labor Practices and Decent Working

Conditions Issues………………………………………………………………….

56.

Table Twelve: Willingness to Pay Measure: Product Responsibility Issues……... 57.

Table Thirteen: Willingness to Pay Measure: Social Issues……………………… 58.

AGENDA SETTING THEORY AND CSR REPORTING 1

Agenda Setting Theory and CSR Reporting in the Automotive Industry

After the demise of the hypodermic needle theory of media influence in the late twenty-

first century, agenda setting theory became a frequently used method for explaining the nuanced

influence of mass media on the public (Weaver, 2008). Originally developed to explain the

relationship between political coverage in the mass media and public opinion, agenda setting

theory was soon expanded to include media influences pertaining to a variety of other topics. In

the late 1990s and 2000s, scholars began to increasingly include corporate communications

within the set of topics acknowledged to have agenda setting effects (Carroll and McCombs,

2003 & MCcombs, 2005). Multiple studies have found that corporations can become the objects

referred to in the first level of agenda setting, which pertains to how often people think about

certain entities within the public agenda (Amujo et al., 2012; Davidson and Chazaud, 2009;

Gorpe and Yuksel, 2006; Kiousis et al., 2007; Meijer and Kleinnijenhuis, 2006). The second

level of agenda setting, which relates to positive or negative issue attributes, affects how we

actually think about the objects placed into the public agenda by the first level of agenda setting

(Weaver, 2008). As the scholarly community has already provided significant evidence for the

existence of traditional agenda setting within the realm of corporate communication in the mass

media (Akpabio, 2005; Carroll & McCombs, 2003; Curtin, 1999; McCombs, 2005), this research

will pursue agenda setting within a similar but less studied context – the context of direct

corporate communication.

As society moves into the internet age, demassification has become more and more

prevalent and has had a significant impact on the relevance of agenda setting theory. Agenda

setting theory, whether pertaining to corporate or political news, traditionally relies on mass

media to communicate messages concerning objects and attributes to the public. Over the past


two decades, technological advancements in internet, social media, and mass media

communication have allowed public relations practitioners to engage in new forms of

communication which reach out directly to the public in order to influence the first level (object)

and second level (issue) attribute agenda. One of these forms of communication is the corporate

social responsibility (CSR) report, which paints a picture for the public of a company’s social

footprint and sustainability efforts, both positive and negative. In theory, CSR reporting is a tool

for transparency and accountability to stakeholders, but as CSR reporting is a largely unregulated

field, these reports and their accompanying public relations materials have an enormous potential

to influence public perceptions of companies. It remains to be seen whether or not this influence

is strong enough to elicit agenda setting effects on those who are exposed to CSR related

materials.

Unlike product advertisements or traditional press releases, CSR reports, though publicly

available, are not intended for consumption by the public at large (Whan, 2004). Rather, CSR

reports are tailored towards parties with a preexisting interest in the companies producing them –

investors, stakeholders, and socially conscious consumers. Despite this fact, a 2004 study found

that 54 percent of Americans had read, looked at, or heard about a CSR report (Whan, 2004). Of

those twenty percent of Americans who read a company’s CSR report, 53 percent go on to buy

the company’s products, 52 percent go on to speak positively about the company, and 49 percent

take on an improved impression of the company (Whan, 2004). While only a relatively small

portion of CSR report readers are comprised of the public at large – most readers represent

interests ranging from investment to social activism – CSR report readership has increased

tremendously in all demographics over the last 15 years, with many estimates putting growth at

well over 50 percent over the course of the last decade (Townsend et al., 2010). Given this


tremendous growth in CSR readership, which serves as an example of the demassification of

traditional media, it is no surprise that the number of companies producing reports have grown

by double-digit figures every year for the past decade, to a sum of nearly 6,000 companies in

2012 (GRI, 2012).

The tremendous growth in CSR reporting alone justifies further research in this field, but

the possible agenda setting implications of this new form of corporate communication provide an

even more pressing reason for researchers to better understand the impact of CSR reporting on

the public. While significant academic research already suggests that traditional agenda setting

applies in the corporate sphere (Akpabio, 2005; Carroll & McCombs, 2003; Curtin, 1999;

McCombs, 2005), this theory has yet to be applied specifically to the practice CSR reporting.

The following literature review contains examination of the evolution of agenda setting theory in

the corporate realm and demonstrates that corporations do have agenda setting power. This thesis

will determine whether or not the corporate agenda setting which exists in mass media also

applies to the growing field of CSR reporting.

In order to investigate the agenda setting effects of CSR reporting, this thesis will make

use of a previously conducted a content analysis of automotive industry CSR reports in order to

determine the objects and issue attributes of the automotive CSR agenda (Pouvreau and Sonier,

2012). The automotive industry was chosen as a field of focus for two primary reasons. First, the

automotive industry has a highly visible, broad-spectrum social responsibility impact in the areas

of greenhouse gas emissions, traditional pollutant emissions, resource depletion, consumer

safety, economic impact, and domestic employment. This broad spectrum is reflected in

automotive industry CSR reports, which encompass all possible CSR categories (Pouvreau and

Sonier, 2012). Second, at a bare minimum, the automotive industry has a noticeable impact on


the lives of everyone with a driver’s license, as well as quite a number of those who do not,

making it an easy industry for participants to conceptualize and identify with. All major

automakers produce CSR reports, and the industry is considered by some to be on the forefront

of the CSR reporting trend (Gartner, 2011; Pouvreau and Sonier, 2012), possibly because its

impact is so highly visible in regards to the global climate change crisis.

This study’s primary tool for analysis will be a survey of two groups of participants: the

first group will be exposed to content from the six previously analyzed CSR reports while the

second group will act as a control group. The survey responses will then be examined and

correlated with the content analysis to determine if a greater agenda setting effect exists for the

CSR exposed group than for the control group.

Literature Review

The Evolution of Agenda Setting

Before agenda-setting can be reviewed within the context of corporate news, a clear

understanding of its origins and evolution is needed. Agenda-setting was first proposed by

McCombs and Shaw in 1972. Their study examined the effect of media coverage on the public

issues agenda for the 1968 presidential election campaign. Specifically, the two researchers

“attempted to match what Chapel Hill voters said were key issues of the campaign with the

actual content of the mass media used by them during the campaign” (McCombs and Shaw,

1972, p. 177). The study interviewed one hundred undecided voters on the issues they felt to be

most important to the 1968 presidential election, regardless of which issues the candidates were

actually focusing on. Concurrently, content analysis was performed for four local newspapers,

three national newspapers and magazines, and two major broadcast news stations. After

analyzing the results of their correlation, the researchers determined that “the media appear to


have exerted a considerable impact on voters' judgments of what they considered the major

issues of the campaign,” (McCombs and Shaw, 1972, p. 180). Despite its limited scope and

sample size, McCombs and Shaw’s research laid down a compelling starting point for further

research on agenda setting to build upon. In the more than 40 years since McCombs and Shaw

first published on agenda setting in 1972, hundreds of follow up studies have been conducted to

expand the scope of agenda setting beyond its original political context (McCombs and Shaw,

1993; McCombs, 2005; Tan and Weaver, 2012). Although relatively little research has sought to

investigate the existence of agenda setting as it affects public opinions on corporations, those

studies which have been conducted are of robust, empirical design and make a compelling

argument for the expansion of agenda setting into the corporate sphere.

In order to properly understand the agenda setting theory and its applicability to the realm

of corporate communication, one must gain an understanding of the definitions relevant to

McCombs and Shaw’s theory. At its simplest, agenda setting theory states that issues, which are

also known as objects, will be more prevalent on the public agenda if they receive attention in

the mass media (Weaver, 2008). This is known as the first level of agenda setting. The second

level of agenda setting focuses on the specific attributes of objects in the media by stating the

media’s decision to focus on certain positive or negative object attributes can influence how the

public perceives objects portrayed in the media (Weaver, 2008). In the context of agenda setting,

the public agenda is often referred to as the public issues agenda (Weaver, 2008).

In addition to being notable for their early work on agenda setting, McCombs and Shaw

have also made considerable contributions to the study of agenda setting theory’s evolution.

Their works help to connect modern scholarly research on agenda setting in public relations and

corporate image with earlier research in the field which focused almost exclusively on agenda


setting in the political news realm (Weaver, 2008). In their 1993 work, McCombs and Shaw note

that even in the earliest phases of agenda-setting research, scholars were stretching the bounds of

agenda-setting applicability into a number of new, albeit still political, domains (McCombs and

Shaw, 1993). Also critical to the expansion of agenda-setting into new research venues was the

expansion of agenda-setting effects beyond the first level of agenda-setting and into previously

mentioned second level. By acknowledging that the amount of time devoted to certain positive or

negative attributes of an issue affects how the public thinks about that issue, researchers opened

the door for the study of how self-interested parties, such as corporations, influence public

opinion via agenda-setting (McCombs and Shaw, 1993).

The applicability of agenda setting to the world of corporate news is best advocated from

a theoretical standpoint by McCombs’s 2005 summation of progress in agenda-setting theory,

which drew specific attention to agenda-setting in the field of corporate communication

(McCombs, 2005). It is important to note that from 1972 to 2003, a more than 31 year period

during which scholarship regarding agenda setting theory in the political realm flourished,

relatively few empirical studies of corporate agenda setting were conducted (McCombs, 2005).

Only after the turn of the new millennia did agenda setting theory begin to encompass the

corporate realm, and after this point in time, corporate agenda setting research progress became

relatively rapid. Regardless, McCombs notes that studies on corporate image management

conducted in the early 2000s are the first to confirm the existence of first and second level

agenda-setting effects for corporate news (McCombs, 2005, p. 553). While this research has

identified a small number of studies (Curtin, 1999; Esrock and Leichty, 1998) which suggested

the existence of agenda setting research in corporate communication slightly before the turn of

the century, none of these early studies are empirically robust. Even McCombs’ own 2004 study,


in which he found that both negative and positive media coverage of companies tended to

increase stock prices by multiple percentage points above the market average was lacking,

hindered by a small sample size and a weak attempt to establish causation. In his 2005 review of

agenda-setting, McCombs found an agenda setting effect for media coverage of NBA player and

coach interviews, with more media coverage leading to more fan attendance and viewership of

games (McCombs, 2005). This study once again failed to make strong attempts at establishing

causation, something that McCombs and Shaw’s landmark 1972 study did so well. Thus, while

McCombs makes an attempt at illustrating the evolution of agenda-setting to include the venue

of corporate news in his 2005 summation of agenda setting research, it is clear that there is room

for significantly more focus on agenda-setting research in corporate communication.

If McCombs is the father of agenda setting in general, Carroll deserves credit for

spearheading agenda setting research in the corporate community. In addition to completing his

doctoral dissertation on agenda setting, Carroll worked with McCombs to present a

comprehensive and convincing application of traditional agenda-setting effects to corporate news

(2003). It is of interest, then, that McCombs fails to mention even once this substantial progress

in corporate agenda setting research in his 2005 summation. It may simply be that McCombs

wished to consider the 2003 work, which examined corporate agenda setting from both a

theoretical and literature review perspective, separately from traditional agenda setting research,

or that McCombs felt that the corporate field of agenda setting was still too emergent to warrant

consideration in his 2005 summation. Regardless of his reasoning, Carroll and McCombs’s 2003

publication on agenda setting research set a new standard for corporate agenda setting and

applied the first comprehensive framework to this new field.


Carroll and McCombs (2003) focused their research on the agenda-setting effects of both

routine media coverage and major issues media coverage, the latter of which includes topics such

as scandals, recalls, and environmental disasters. Based on their research, Carroll and McCombs

were able to conclude that “the central theoretical idea [of political communication agenda-

setting] fits equally well in the world of business communication” (Carroll & McCombs, 2003,

p. 36). According in Carroll and McCombs, corporations themselves become the first level

agenda-setting objects, comparable to political candidates or public affairs issues in a classical

agenda setting context, while six corporate attributes set forth by the researchers – financial

performance, product quality, employee treatment, community involvement, environmental

performance and organizational issues – fulfill the second level issue attributes category of

agenda-setting (Carroll & McCombs, 2003). These six corporate attributes are important to note

because they serve as the building blocks for subsequent content analysis for other works on

corporate agenda setting (Pouvreau & Sonier, 2012). Unfortunately, despite the progress made

by Carroll and McCombs’s agenda setting research, the empirical basis for their findings was

still limited at best.

Empirical Support for Agenda Setting in the Corporate Sphere

Beyond the generalist agenda setting research of McCombs, Carroll, and Shaw, five

studies conducted in five different countries have empirically confirmed the existence of first and

second level agenda setting specifically for corporate communication. These studies, conducted

by Meijer and Kleinnijenhuis (2006), Gorpe and Yuksel (2006), Amujo et al. (2012), Davidson

and Chazaud (2009), and Kiousis et al. (2007), share a common empirical approach to agenda

setting research and provide concrete support for the previous assumptions made by Carroll and

McCombs (2003). Each of the these studies uses a slightly different form of empirical analysis to


support the concept of agenda setting effects for the corporate world, and together they make up

an impressive meta-sample through which first and second level agenda setting effects were

consistently confirmed. The use of content analysis to determine the objects and attributes

prevalent in the media agenda and the use of survey tools to determine the objects and attributes

prevalent in the public agenda should be also be noted, as this is the same basic research design

employed by McCombs and Shaw in their original 1972 agenda setting study of presidential

elections, indicating a sense of continuity in agenda setting research.

First, Meijer and Kleinnijenhuis (2006) examined media data and panel survey data on

public perceptions of ten companies in the oil, banking, food retail, transportation, and

professional sectors. Approximately 280 Dutch households participated in the survey used by

these researchers, which was administered over three consecutive summers, making it a

particularly strong survey tool because of its longitudinal design. Newspaper and television

media coverage was also analyzed for this three year period, resulting in over 9,200 newspaper

articles and over 2,200 television news items, again providing an admirably large sample for

content analysis. After analyzing their results, the researchers found that “the amount of news

about issues determined the salience of an issue… and that the salience of an issue determined

corporate reputation” (Meijer and Kleinnijenhuis, 2006, p. 554). The first part of this finding

should not come as a surprise, as the first level of agenda setting theory has suggested since its

inception that greater media coverage of an issue leads to greater salience for that issue. What

makes this finding so important is the fact that it also establishes the existence of a more

powerful second level agenda setting effect for corporate news. By demonstrating that

consumers form their actual opinions on corporations based on the issues the media associates

with those corporations, Meijer and Kleinnijenhuis show that the media has the ability to shape a


corporation’s public image. Meijer and Kleinnijenhuis’s (2006) finding that public opinion

regarding corporations is not immune to the agenda setting effects of the media is significant

because it was the result of one of the first studies to empirically support Carrol and McComb’s

(2003) framework for corporate news agenda setting. Despite the dearth of empirical research on

this subset of agenda setting that preceded Meijer and Kleinnijenhuis’s study, the years following

their 2006 study saw public relations scholars publish a number of works supporting their

discovery of second level agenda setting in corporate news.

In 2006, Gorpe and Yuksel found evidence for second level agenda setting effects

relating to public perceptions of 12 major Turkish corporations, thus building upon the body of

empirical evidence established by Meijer and Kleinnijenhuis. The researchers comprised their

study’s sample with three companies from each of the four largest sectors covered in the Turkish

Capital Magazine’s 2006 list of most admired companies. The researchers also conducted a

media content analysis of more than 20,000 articles from 36 Turkish newspapers in order to

determine coverage ranks for all 12 companies within the four industries they represented. For

nine of the 12 companies analyzed, media coverage rankings correlated perfectly with Capital

Magazine’s most admired companies rankings. These findings strongly support the existence of

first level agenda-setting among Turkish corporations, and do so in a way somewhat different

from the method used by Meijer and Kleinnijenhuis (2006). A research design which combined

the methods used by both Gorpe and Yuksel (2006) and Meijer and Kleinnijenuis (2006) on the

same survey sample would be particularly robust.

While Gorpe and Yuksel’s (2006) work is notable for its robust sample sizes, the use of

Capital Magazine’s most admired companies rankings as the dependent variable in this studies

limits the amount of credence that can be given the researches assertion that second level agenda


setting effects were found. The most admired companies ranking list, while reputable and

statistically sound (Gorpe & Yuksel, 2006), was not created for the purpose of assessing agenda

setting effects and thus serves as an imprecise instrument for measuring public perception of

companies. A 2012 study by Amujo et al. addressed this problem by constructing a tailor made

semi-structured interview to measure second level agenda setting effects among Nigerian

companies. Although these researchers interviewed a relatively small sample of only 30

participants, their in-depth interviews and subsequent content analysis mirrored Gorpe and

Yuksel’s (2006) results and established evidence for both first and second level agenda setting.

Amujo et al. (2012) even note in their concluding remarks that their interview-based study

validates earlier research designs which searched for agenda setting effects using a most admired

companies list as a dependent variable.

A similar study of corporate agenda setting in the French press by Davidson and Chazaud

(2009) uncovered support for a somewhat more nuanced version of first level agenda setting by

demonstrating that the public is more able to form opinions on and assign a reputation to

companies which receive a high level of media coverage. While the fact that this finding

confirms previous studies is notable, Davidson and Chazaud’s (2009) work is most important

because it raises questions about differing agenda setting effects for companies based industry

category, something which Meijer and Kleinnijenhuis (2006) and Gorpe and Yuksel failed to do

despite the fact that they too examined studies on an industry by industry basis.

Progress in empirical research supporting the existence of agenda setting in the corporate

news realm is not limited to research conducted overseas, as domestic evidence for agenda-

setting in corporate news can be found in the 2007 study by researchers Kiousis et al. These

researchers examined public opinion and financial performance for 28 U.S. companies, a sample


of companies more than twice as large as those used by Meijer and Kleinnijenuis (2006) and

Gorpe and Yuksel (2006). Public opinion was evaluated based on the Harris Interactive and

Reputation Institute Reputation Quotient, which examined 6 reputation attributes based on nearly

20,000 survey responses. Using three major financial news providers, the researchers analyzed

over 1,000 individual news articles and 1,200 PR releases to create a randomized sample of 121

PR releases and 106 news articles. Similar to findings in the aforementioned studies, Kiousis et

al. confirmed that “the basic agenda-building proposition that increased object salience in public

relations content stimulates increased attention to objects in news coverage” (Kiousis et al.,

2007, p. 156). Thus, despite the fact that all three of the aforementioned empirical studies were

conducted over only the last 10 years, there is consistent evidence to suggest the existence of

first and second level agenda setting in corporate communications. The fact that these five

studies are supported by data from five countries, 90 companies, more than 20,000 survey

respondents, and more than 34,000 news articles and television news segments provides ample

support for the concept of agenda setting within the corporate news realm.

The fifth corporate agenda-setting element proposed by Carroll and McCombs (2003) –

the assertion that firms can influence their own coverage in news media – is perhaps the most

important aspect of their five-part framework because it affords corporations a level of power in

controlling the first and second level public issues agenda. Unfortunately, this element of Carroll

and McCombs’s corporate agenda setting model is more difficult to prove than the mere

existence of corporate agenda setting alone, although evidence does exist to suggest that

corporate influence over the news is reality. Akpabio (2005) takes a much needed in-depth look

at this fifth element, and concludes that through the practice of supplying inputs, called

information subsidies, to news providers, corporations “have tremendous inputs into media


content” (Akpabio, 2005, p. 173). According to Akpabio’s review of then current research, up to

50 percent of media content related to corporations results from information subsidies including

“confirmation of stories, press releases, video news releases, press conferences, [and] media

visits” (Akpabio, 2005, p. 173). According to the work of Curtin (1999), as media consumers

rely less and less on established media outlets and cost cutting inherently ensues, mass media

providers are forced to become more and more reliant on free sources of content, such as those

provided by public relations practitioners. Curtin investigated the influence of public relations

materials on story formulation by conducting a survey on a stratified sample of 189 managing

editors of wide-circulation daily and weekly periodicals. She found that over 75 percent of

managing editors used public relations materials to formulate stories “half the time” or

“frequently,” thereby supporting Akpabio’s (2005) related assertion (Curtin, 1999). Nearly 90

percent of managing editors also responded to Curtin’s inquiry by saying that they provided

“special sections” for public relations news in their publications either half the time, frequently,

or always (Curtin, 1999, p. 80). Furthermore, Curtin found that over half of the aforementioned

90 percent of editors felt that special sections interfered with their ability to report on news

(Curtin, 1999). The fact that traditional media was heavily dependent on public relations material

as far back as 1999 provides strong evidence for the ability of corporations to influence their

portrayal in the media today. By combining the research on corporate influence in the traditional

news media by Akpabio (2005) and Curtin (1999) with the research indicating the first and

second level agenda-setting effects of corporate issues, (Amujo et al., 2012; Carroll & McCombs

2003; Davidson & Chazaud 2009; Gorpe & Yuksel 2006; Kiousis et al., 2007; McCombs 2005;

Meijer & Kleinnijenhuis 2006), it is clear that agenda setting effects apply to corporate news in

the traditional mass media. If this research can uncover the existence of agenda setting effects


similar to those identified in the aforementioned empirical agenda setting studies for publications

provided directly to consumers and stakeholders by corporations, it will demonstrate an even

greater net ability for corporations to influence public perceptions than traditional agenda setting

through mass media alone ever could.

Agenda Setting and Corporate Social Responsibility

Relatively little research has been conducted to specifically tie agenda setting to

corporate sustainability reporting, although one notable study on CSR reporting in China does

merit mentioning. The Chinese business sector is of particular interest to academics studying

CSR because of the significant criticism China regularly receives over its CSR practices and

because China’s rapid industrial growth has given the country a high priority among the

international media (Tang, 2011). Tang’s (2011) study on depictions of CSR reporting in the

Chinese media was centered on a content analysis of articles published in five of China’s most

widely distributed newspapers. For the year of 2009 alone, Tang (2011) identified 814 articles

that specifically mentioned CSR, with each of the five newspapers he examined publishing an

average of three CSR related articles a week. Of those articles analyzed by Tang (2011), over 45

percent actively discussed CSR as a central focus of the article, while another 16 percent of

articles were actually publications on CSR by corporations themselves, masquerading as news.

Given the heavy content of CSR related items in Chinese newspapers and the fact that a large

portion of CSR pieces were actually written by corporations themselves, Tang’s (2011) research

makes clear the need for a better understanding of the potential agenda setting effects of CSR

reports themselves.


Automotive CSR Report Content

In order to avoid reinventing the wheel and to design this study in a manner that takes

advantage of the findings of previously conducted and peer reviewed content analyses of

automotive industry CSR reports, it is important to examine any previous studies which have

already conducted this type of analysis. Carroll and McCombs’s (2003) six part corporate

attribute categorization serves as a useful starting point here, and the work of Pouvreau and

Sonier (2012) to code automotive industry CSR reports serves as a particularly pertinent example

for subsequent research design. Pouvreau and Sonier (2012) examined CSR reports from three

major car makers, BMW Group, Ford Motor Company, and Mitsubishi Motors Corporation, for

the years 2002, 2006, and 2010, in order to determine which issues (or issue attributes) were

most important to consumers. Pouvreau and Sonier (2012) identified environmental and

employee-related social concerns as being the greatest focus of the CSR reports they examined.

In addition to this overarching conclusion, Pouvreau and Sonier (2012) were able to establish an

actual CSR object and issue attribute agenda for the CSR reports they examined by breaking

down the CSR reports they examined into categories which mirror those proposed by Carroll and

McCombs (2003). The results of this content analysis are so specific that the nine CSR reports

they examined can be broken down into exact percentages for the categories economic impact,

environmental impact, human rights impact, labor practices and decent working conditions,

product responsibility, and societal impact. By using this content analysis to assess participant

response to the actual CSR reports examined by Pouvreau and Sonier (2012), this study will base

the first part of its research design (the content analysis) on inherently solid ground.

In addition to Pouvreau and Sonier’s (2012) comprehensive content analysis, a similar

work by Stienweg in 2010 also examines CSR reports on an automaker-by-automaker basis for


10 of the world’s largest car companies. The research design of this study is somewhat less

useful than the content analysis conducted by Pouvreau and Sonier’s (2012) because it fails to

place enough focus on issue attributes from an agenda setting perspective. Still, Stienweg’s

report is useful for conceptualizing CSR reporting in the automotive industry as a whole, and it

importantly demonstrates that the CSR efforts of BMW Group, Ford Motor Company, and

Mitsubishi are in line with the industry as a whole, thus making these companies a representative

sample for the general population. Taken in conjuncture, these two reports provide ample

evidence that Pouvreau and Sonier’s (2012) content analysis will serve as a strong foundation for

the administration of a survey to assess consumer responses to the CSR efforts of the three

aforementioned automotive companies.

While the literature clearly indicates that first and second levels of agenda setting apply

to messages concerning corporations in the news, and that corporations can affect these

messages, little evidence exists to suggest that CSR reports themselves have agenda setting

effects. CSR reporting is still a very new phenomenon and much of the research currently being

conducted on it exists in the field of business and applied communication as opposed to

theoretical communication, meaning that agenda setting theory is currently taking a back seat to

the real world financial implications of CSR reporting. Nonetheless, research in both the fields of

theoretical communication and applied communication is useful because it helps to create the

concept of a “CSR domain,” akin to the objects and issue attributes that classical agenda setting

is based on. Furthermore, those few studies which have attempted to bridge the gap between

agenda setting and CSR reporting have shown that CSR report consumers tend to be most

influenced by those CSR domains (or attributes, for the purposes of agenda setting) which they

find most salient (Sen & Bhattacharya, 2001). Conclusions like this one will be all the more


credible once researchers are able to develop a concrete empirical connection between agenda

setting and CSR reporting.

If agenda setting theory holds true for CSR reporting as the logical application of Carroll and

McCombs’s (2003) framework for corporate agenda setting suggests, then the second level of

agenda setting should allow corporations to influence which attributes CSR report consumers

will find most salient, thus maximizing their influence. Similarly, Martin and Rubio (2009)

found in their research that CSR reports can influence whether or not consumers find companies

attractive or identifiable, two aspects which very well may be influenced by both first and second

level agenda-setting. As such, while evidence directly tying agenda setting effects to CSR

reporting is still limited, indirect evidence does exist to support both the existence of agenda-

setting in corporate communication and agenda setting-like effects for CSR reporting. The

presence of suggestive and indirect evidence for the agenda setting effects of CSR reports

provides a compelling reason for further research in this field, but still allows for the results of a

study seeking to directly tie agenda setting effects to CSR reporting to make a hereunto unseen

contribution to the fields of both CSR and agenda setting research. Thus, the following research

hypotheses are advanced:

H1: Individuals exposed to a CSR report will assess the CSR efforts of the company in

question in a more positive manner than those who are not exposed to a CSR report.

H2: Individuals exposed to a CSR report will assess the issue attributes emphasized most

by the CSR report in a more positive light than they will assess those issue attributes

emphasized least by the CSR report.

H3: Individuals exposed to a CSR report will be more likely to let on performance on

sustainability issues affect their decision to purchase a vehicle.


H4: Individuals exposed to a CSR report will be willing to pay more for a vehicle that

performs well on sustainability issues than for one that does not.

H5: Certain automotive consumer demographic factors, including income, age,

environmental consciousness, and automotive enthusiasm, will have moderating effects

on the agenda setting ability of automakers.

Method

Purpose

In order to test for the existence of a modified agenda setting effect in consumer exposure

to CSR reports, two sets of data must be obtained. First, the contents of CSR reports must be

empirically analyzed in order to create a CSR report issues agenda. Agenda setting theory states

that the issues agenda advocated by a certain medium, in this case a CSR report, will be reflected

by the attitudes of those members of the public who are exposed to that medium (Weaver, 2008).

The second level of agenda setting theory further indicates that public attitudes about issues

portrayed by a medium can be affected positively or negatively by the attributes of those issues

emphasized by that medium (McCombs and Shaw, 1993). Thus, before it can test for the

existence of first and second level agenda setting in a certain survey sample, this research must

determine what issues and attributes are present in the medium the survey sample is exposed to.

Content analysis is the most commonly used method for determining the issue and attribute

agenda in agenda setting research (Amujo et al., 2012; Davidson and Chazaud, 2009; Gorpe and

Yuksel, 2006; Kiousis et al., 2007; McCombs, 2005; McCombs and Shaw, 1972; McCombs and

Shaw, 1993; Meijer and Kleinnijenhuis, 2006), and this research will use a form of previously

conducted content analysis in order to create an issue and attribute agenda for CSR reports. After

a known issue and attribute agenda is determined for the CSR reports via content analysis, a


survey will be administered to and experimental group of participants, who are exposed to the

CSR reports, and a control group of participants, who are exposed to a non-CSR related video.

This research will attempt to show that agenda-setting theory applies to the practice of

CSR reporting by determining if those objects and attributes revealed by the content analysis to

be the focus of automotive industry CSR reports are reflected in the survey responses of

participants who are exposed to automotive industry CSR reports, as compared to the survey

responses of those who are not. Simply put, it is the hypothesis of this research that the

automotive industry is capable of influencing the object and issue attribute agendas of those

consumers who are exposed to its CSR reports. Furthermore, certain consumer demographic

factors, including levels of automotive and environmental interest, should serve as moderating

effects on the agenda setting power of CSR reports. Finally, the results of this research may be

generalizable to other industries with social-impact related traits similar to the automotive

industry, although further research will be needed to support this assertion.

Participants

Snowball sampling (Baxter & Babbie, 2004, p. 135) was used to obtain a sample

representing a variety of demographic backgrounds. Participants were originally solicited via

email, social media, and word of mouth. Ninety participants successfully completed the survey

used in this study.

The sample for this study heavily featured students from a small northeastern liberal arts

college; however, only 59 participants identified themselves as students (65.6%). Of those

participants who did not identify as students, 27 identified as employed (30%), and four

participants identified as unemployed, homemaker, or retired (4.4%). Participants ranged in age

from 18 to 57 (M = 26.5, SD = 11.7). The sample included 51 males and 39 females (56.7% and


43.3% respectively), indicating a relatively even gender distribution. Seventy-seven participants

identified themselves as White/Caucasian (85.6%), five participants identified themselves as

Asian (5.6%), four participants identified themselves as African American (4.4%), and two

participants identified themselves each as each as Hispanic and Native American (2.2%, 2.2%).

Participants hailed from 23 different states, with New York and Massachusetts encompassing the

majority of the participants, with 31 and 20 participants, (34.4% and 22.2% respectively).

Sixty-five participants were single or never married (72.2%), 14 participants were

married (15%), five participants lived with a partner (5.6%), and three participants were each

widowed or divorced (3.3%, 3.3%). Seventy participants did not have children (77.8%). Of those

20 participants who did have children (22.2%), the median number of children was two children.

Fifty-six participants completed some college (62.2%), 18 participants completed a four-

year college degree (20%), eight participants completed a master’s degree (8.9%), five

participants completed high school or received a GED (5.6%), two participants completed a two-

year college degree (2.2%), and one participants completed a professional degree (1.1%).

Participant combined annual household incomes ranged from under $20,000 per year to over

$200,000 per year, with a mean annual household income range of $120,000 to $129,000. These

two demographic measures indicate that this survey’s sample was both well-educated and fairly

affluent.

In terms of political beliefs, forty-four participants identified as liberal (48.9%), 19

participants identified as moderate (21.1%), 12 participants identified as conservative (13.3%),

nine participants identified as libertarian (10%), and three participants each identified as green or

other (3.3%, 3.3%).


Procedure

Content analysis. In order for a survey to effectively assess the agenda setting effect of

CSR reports, it must utilize object and issue attribute measures which correlate with the CSR

reports that the participants are exposed to. Within the field of agenda setting research, content

analysis is usually conducted for a certain single object or issue attribute that researchers are

examining, such as a company name or a corporate topic, with a large number of mass media

documents instead of for individual corporate publications. Researchers run keyword searches

for certain terms for up to thousands of individual newspaper articles, magazine articles, and

television news clips in order to determine which objects and issue attributes make up the public

agenda (Amujo et al., 2012; Davidson and Chazaud, 2009; Gorpe and Yuksel, 2006; Kiousis et

al., 2007; McCombs, 2005; McCombs and Shaw, 1972; McCombs and Shaw, 1993; Meijer and

Kleinnijenhuis, 2006). This research’s application of agenda setting to CSR reporting is unique

from the aforementioned studies because it focuses on an individual medium (a CSR report) to

which participants are exposed, as opposed to a large selection of media sources. In order to

determine an object and issue attribute agenda for a single medium, like a CSR report, a more

nuanced method of content analysis is required than that which is traditionally used because the

researchers must break the medium down by the various objects and issue attributes which

comprise it. Fortunately, some of the top researchers in the field of corporate agenda setting

research, Carroll and McCombs (2003), have built upon previous research (Fombrum, 1998;

Fombrun et al., 2000) in order to establish six standard agenda setting objects – financial

performance, product quality, employee treatment, community involvement, environmental

performance and organizational issues – which most commonly emerge in corporate media


content analysis. These six objects and their positive or negative issue attributes form the

framework for an in-depth content analysis of CSR reports.

Content analysis requires the use of a reliable codebook and multiple coders in order to

ensure that the data produced accurately reflects the contents of the documents analyzed

(Bryman and Bell, 2003); the coding step of this research is of paramount importance. Rather

than conduct an entirely original content analysis on CSR reports – which would require the

creation and testing of a coding scheme – this research takes advantage of a peer reviewed

codebook developed by Bouten et al. (2011) for analyzing corporate annual reports and reapplied

by Pouvreau & Sonier (2012) for the purpose of CSR report analysis. By taking advantage of

Pourveau and Sonier’s (2012) previously conducted content analysis of nine CSR reports (one

CSR report for three companies for each of three years), this research reduces the possibility of

low inter-coder or intra-coder reliability.

Because this research is subject to a limited sample size due to time and population

constraints, the use of all nine of the CSR reports analyzed by Pourveau and Sonier’s (2012)

would not have been feasible. Furthermore, while Pourveau and Sonier’s (2012) goal was to

demonstrate the evolution of CSR report content over time, this research is primarily concerned

with the ability of a CSR report to influence the public agenda. As such, only the most recent

CSR reports in Pourveau and Sonier’s (2012) study, which were from the year 2010, were used

as experimental conditions for this study. Of these three reports for the year 2010, only two

reports, by Ford Motor Company and Mitsubishi Motors Corporation, were ultimately chosen for

this study. The reduction from three reports to two reports was done for practical reasons relating

to sample size – conducting the survey with three experimental conditions instead of two would

have simply required a greater number of respondents than was feasible. The CSR report


produced by BMW Motor Group was excluded from this study primarily because its length (130

pages for BMW Motor Group compared to 11 pages for Mitsubishi Motors Corporation and an

interactive micro-site for Ford Motor Company) made it less feasible for survey respondents to

analyze in a short period of time. Ford Motor Company and Mitsubishi Motors Corporation were

also selected over BMW Motor Group because these two companies were deemed more

accessible to the average consumer, given their lower average vehicle pricing. Prior to the actual

analysis of survey results and undertaking of related statistical procedures, the objects making up

the CSR report issues agenda needed to be identified for the purpose of survey construction.

Based on Pourveau and Sonier’s (2012) detailed content analysis, the objects making up the CSR

report issues agenda were determined to be: economic issues, environmental issues, human rights

issues, labor practices and decent working conditions issues, product responsibility issues, and

social issues. These objects closely mirror the six issues identified by Carroll and McCombs

(2003) as making up corporate news issues agendas in general, and Pourveua and Sonier (2012)

do credit Carroll with influencing their content analysis coding scheme design. The distribution

of the six objects in the issues agenda of the Ford Motor Company and Mitsubishi Motors

Corporation CSR reports identified by Pourveau and Sonier’s (2012) content analysis can be

seen appendix A.

Survey. Experimental and control conditions. An experimental survey mechanism was

necessary to determine if the issues agenda established by Pourveau and Sonier’s (2012) content

analysis of CSR reports is reflected by members of the public exposed to those CSR reports. The

survey was administered under two experimental conditions, each of which was accompanied by

a control condition. All four possible conditions – two experimental conditions and two

corresponding control conditions – were randomized to occur at an equal rate; each of the four


conditions had a 25 percent chance of occurring. These four conditions serve as the independent

variables of interest for this study. The first experimental condition was exposure to the

aforementioned 2010 CSR microsite created by Ford Motor Company. Participants were asked

to interact with the site for three to five minutes before taking the accompanying survey. The

second experimental condition was exposure the aforementioned 2010 CSR report created by

Mitsubishi Motors Corporation, which participants were asked to spend three to five minutes

browsing. Each of the two experimental groups was offset by a control group which was

exposure to a two to three minute promotional video produced by Ford Motor Company or

Mitsubishi Motors Corporation. The two videos were deliberately selected to say as little about

the two automotive companies as possible, with a specific avoidance of CSR related material. It

was necessary to expose the two control groups to material relating to the two companies in

question in order to ensure that both the experimental and control groups were at a predisposition

to think about the automotive companies which they were about to be surveyed on. After

exposure to the CSR reports and control material, survey respondents were posed with a set of

survey questions.

Measures

Participants under all four survey conditions were each exposed to a set of six survey

measures, which serve as the dependent variables for this study. The survey measures were

identical across the four survey conditions. Five of the six measures participants were exposed to

made use of Likert-type scales. The first four Likert-type measures were each broken down into

six subtopics corresponding to the six objects previously identified by Pourveau and Sonier’s

(2012) content analysis. The final Likert-type measure was comprised of a single question to

assess overall sustainability performance. In addition to the Likert-type measures, an additional


measure using sliding percentage scales was employed to assess willingness to pay for

sustainability performance. Finally, a number of measures assessed automotive enthusiasm and

environmental activism, two possible moderating factors on the dependent variables of interest.

Overall sustainability assessment. A measure was created in order to determine

participant’s overall sustainability assessment of the automotive company they were presented

with. This measure was comprised of a single Likert-type measure regarding a company’s

sustainability efforts. The Likert-type sub-measures used a one to five scale, with one

representing strongly agree and five representing strongly disagree. The Cronbach’s alpha was

.811 for this measure, indicating an acceptable level of reliability.

Social responsibility assessment. A measure was created in order to determine how

positively participants regarded the social responsibility efforts of the company that they were

exposed to. This measure was comprised of two Likert-type sub-measures for each of the six

issue attributes present in the CSR report participants were exposed to. The Likert-type sub-

measures used a one to five scale, with one representing strongly agree and five representing

strongly disagree. The second sub-measure posed its question as a negative statement and its

answer was recoded into an affirmative statement in order to correspond with the other measures

used in this study, which were affirmative measures. Participants’ answers to these two sub-

measures were combined into an average for each of the six CSR issue attributes to create a

composite score for social responsibility assessment. The Cronbach’s alpha was .725 for the first

of the two sub-measures and .865 for the second of the two sub-measures, indicating an adequate

level of reliability.

Purchase intent assessment. A measure was created in order to determine if exposure to

a CSR report could affect a participant’s decision to purchase a vehicle based on perceived


sustainability performance. This measure was comprised of a Likert-type measure for each of

the six issue attributes present in the CSR report participants were exposed to. The Likert-type

sub-measures used a one to five scale, with one representing strongly agree and five representing

strongly disagree. The Cronbach’s alpha was .804 for this measure, indicating an adequate level

of reliability.

Spending assessment one. A measure was created in order to determine if exposure to a

CSR report could lead a participant to consider paying more for a vehicle based on sustainability

performance. This measure was comprised of a Likert-type measure for each of the six issue

attributes present in the CSR report participants were exposed to. The Likert-type sub-measures

used a one to five scale, with one representing strongly agree and five representing strongly

disagree. The Cronbach’s alpha was .899 for this measure, indicating a high level of reliability.

Spending assessment two. This measure was created to determine the actual amount

more (if any) participants would be willing to pay for a vehicle that performs well on

sustainability issues. For this measure, participants selected the percentage more they would be

willing to pay for a vehicle that performs well on each of six CSR issues presented in the CSR

report by using a sliding scale tool. The Cronbach’s alpha was .870 for this measure, indicating a

high level of reliability.

Environmentalism. This measure was created to determine a participant’s level of

environmentalism. This measure was comprised two sub-measures which were averaged

together to form a composite measure. Each sub-measure used a Likert-type measure with a one

to five scale, with one representing strongly agree and five representing strongly disagree. The

first sub-measure asked the participant to rate their level of agreement with a statement

concerning environmental consciousness, while the second sub-measure asked the participant to


rate their level of agreement with a statement concerning environmental activism. The

Cronbach’s alpha was .659 for this measure, indicating an inadequate level of reliability.

Potential explanations for the low reliability will be discussed in the limitations section.

Automotive enthusiasm. This measure was created to determine a participant’s level of

automotive enthusiasm. This measure was comprised of six sub-measures which were averaged

to create a composite measure of automotive enthusiasm. The first sub-measure used a Likert-

type measure with a one to five scale, with one representing strongly agree and five representing

strongly disagree, which asked the participant to rate their level of agreement with a statement

concerning automotive enthusiasm. The next five sub-measures asked participants questions

regarding automotive magazines, automotive television shows, automotive racing, and

automotive event attendance. Cronbach’s alpha could not be determined for this measure

because of the ordinal nature of the data it used.

Results

The first hypothesis predicted that the participants exposed to a CSR report (i.e.,

experimental group) would evaluate the sustainability efforts the company they were questioned

on more positively than participants exposed to a video unrelated to CSR (i.e., control group). A

linear regression was run with the overall sustainability assessment measure as the dependent

variable in order to test this prediction. The results of the regression partially supported this

hypothesis (R2 = .27, F = 1.28 (20, 89), p > .05) (see Table 1, Appendix A). Participants

exposed to Mitsubishi’s CSR report rated their agreement with the statement presented in the

sustainability assessment measure an average of .99 points closer to strongly agree on the Likert-

type scale, compared to participants in the control group (ß = -.99, t = -2.87, p < .005).

Participants exposed to Ford’s CSR report did not rate their agreement with the statement


presented in the sustainability assessment measure any differently from the control group to a

degree of statistical significance (ß = -.52, t = -1.92, p > .05). These effects were moderated very

slightly, but nonetheless statistically significantly, by the amount of money the participant

planned to spend on their next vehicle (ß = -.21, t = -2.62, p < .011), thus supporting the fifth

hypothesis regarding the existence of moderating demographic factors.

The second hypothesis predicted that individuals exposed to a CSR report would

assess the issue attributes emphasized by the CSR report in a more positive light than they would

assess those issue attributes not emphasized by the CSR report. Participant assessment was

determined by an independent samples t-test which was run for the six sub-measures which made

up the social responsibility assessment measure. The results of the three t-tests run revealed a

significant difference between the CSR exposed group and the control group for each of the three

sub-measures tested (environmental issues: M = 2.79, SD = .784, t = -2.13 (20, 69), p < .036;

social issues: M = 2.83, SD = .806, t = -2.27 (20, 69), p < .026; human rights issues: M = 3.09,

SD = .857, t = -2.72 (20, 69), p < .008). The means for each of these three sub-measures indicate

that respondents exposed to a CSR report rated automakers’ sustainability efforts most highly for

environmental issues, followed by social issues, followed by human rights issues, thus

replicating the order in which the issues arose in Pouvreau and Sonier’s content analysis (2012)

and supporting the second hypothesis. It is important to note that a lower mean indicates a

greater level of agreement because of the Likert-type scale used, where one refers to strongly

agree and five refers to strongly disagree. Respondents not exposed to a CSR report also

replicated the order in which issues arose in Pouvreau and Sonier’s content analysis (2012),

albeit to a lesser degree (environmental issues: M = 3.14, SD = .735; social issues: M = 3.23, SD

= .820; human rights issues: M = 3.52, SD = .640).


The third hypothesis predicted that exposure to a CSR report would lead participants to

be more likely to let performance on sustainability issues affect their decision to purchase a

vehicle. This hypothesis was tested by running a linear regression on each of the six purchase

intent assessment sub-measures. The results of this regression did not support the hypothesis for

any of the six purchase intent assessment sub-measures. The regression on the economic issues

sub-measure (R2 = .22, F = .953 (20, 89), p > .05) yielded non-significant results for participants

exposed to both Ford (ß = -.15, t = -.48, p > .05) and Mitsubishi (ß = .65, t = 1.65, p >.05) CSR

reports (see Table 2, Appendix A). The regression on the environmental issues sub-measure (R2

= .28, F = 1.371 (20, 89), p > .05) yielded non-significant results for both participants exposed to

Ford (ß = -.12, t = -.45, p > .05) and Mitsubishi (ß = .07, t = .20, p > .05) CSR reports (see Table

3, Appendix A). The regression on the human rights issues sub-measure (R2 = .31, F = 1.511

(20, 89), p > .05) yielded non-significant results for both participants exposed to Ford (ß = -.37, t

= -1.17, p > .05) and Mitsubishi (ß = .34, t = .85, p > .05) CSR reports (see Table 4, Appendix

A). The regression on the labor practices and working conditions issues sub-measure (R2 = .29, F

= 1.51 (20, 89), p > .05) yielded non-significant results for participants exposed to both Ford (ß

= -.26, t = -.88, p > .05) and Mitsubishi (ß = -.10, t = -.28, p > .05) CSR reports (see Table 5,

Appendix A). The regression on the product responsibility issues sub-measure (R2 = .26, F =

1.205 (20, 89), p > .05) yielded non-significant results for participants exposed to both Ford (ß =

.11, t = .41, p > .05) and Mitsubishi (ß = .11, t = .31, p > .05) CSR reports (see Table 6,

Appendix A). The regression on the social issues sub-measure (R2 = .20, F = .885 (20, 89), p >

.05) yielded non-significant results for both participants exposed to Ford (ß = -.47, t = -1.45, p >

.05) and Mitsubishi (ß = .25, t = .62, p > .05) CSR reports (see Table 7, Appendix A). Given

these consistently non-significant results, the third hypothesis must be rejected.


The fourth hypothesis predicted that individuals exposed to a CSR report would be more

willing to pay more for a vehicle that performs well on sustainability issues than for one that

does not, compared to participants not exposed to a CSR report. This hypothesis was tested by

running a linear regression on each of the six spending assessment one sub-measures. For five

out of six sub-measures, exposure to a Ford CSR report increased participants’ willingness to

pay for sustainability performance. Exposure to CSR reports did not decrease participants’

willingness to pay for sustainability performance in any of the conditions. Overall, this

hypothesis is supported for participants exposed to Ford’s CSR report, but not for participant’s

exposed to Mitsubishi’s CSR report.

The regression on the economic issues sub-measure (R2 = .39, F = 2.247 (20, 89), p <

.05) yielded significant results for participants exposed to a Ford CSR report (ß = -.58, t = -2.07,

p < .043), but not for participants exposed to a Mitsubishi CSR report (ß = .37, t = 1.04, p >

0.05) (see Table 8, Appendix A). This indicates that participants exposed to Ford’s CSR report

rated their agreement with the statement presented in the spending assessment one economic

issues sub-measure an average of .58 points closer to strongly agree on the Likert-type scale,

compared to participants in the control group. There were three moderating factors present in this

regression which support the fifth hypothesis. Unsurprisingly, the amount a participant was

willing to spend on their next vehicle increased a participant’s valuation of economic issues

sustainability performance (ß = -.02, t = -2.27, p < .026). Two moderating factors that were more

difficult to explain were whether or not the participant owned a luxury vehicle (ß = 1.15, t =

2.94, p < .005) and whether or not the participant was white (ß = -.74, t = -2.13, p < .037).

The regression on the environmental issues sub-measure (R2 = .51, F = 3.542 (20, 89), p

< .05) yielded significant results for participants exposed to a Ford CSR report (β = -.71, t = -


2.72, p < .008), but not participants exposed to a Mitsubishi CSR report (β = .01, t = .02, p > .05)

(see Table 9, Appendix A). This indicates that participants exposed to Ford’s CSR report rated

their agreement with the statement presented in the spending assessment one economic issues

sub-measure an average of .71 points closer to strongly agree on the Likert-type scale, compared

to participants in the control group. There were three moderating factors present in this

regression which support the fifth hypothesis. First, participants who identified as liberal

displayed a willingness to spend more for environmental issues sustainability performance (β = -

.84, t = -2.55, p < .013) compared to participants who did not identify as liberal. Another

moderating factor on willingness to spend more for environmental sustainability issues

performance was age: younger participants were more willing to pay for environmental issues

performance (β = .05, t = 2.40, p < .020). This makes intuitive sense given the common

stereotype of greater environmental awareness among younger people. Once again, the less

explainable moderating factor of whether or not the participant was white was also significant (β

= -.82, t = -2.50, p < .015).

The regression on the human rights issues sub-measure (R2 = .417, F = 3.542 (20,

89), p < .05) yielded significant results for participants exposed to a Ford CSR report (β = -.69, t

= -2.29, p < .025), but not participants exposed to a Mitsubishi CSR report (β = -.007, t = -.02, p

> 0.05) (see Table 10, Appendix A). This indicates that participants exposed to Ford’s CSR

report rated their agreement with the statement presented in the spending assessment one

economic issues sub-measure an average of .69 points closer to strongly agree on the Likert-type

scale, compared to participants in the control group. There were three moderating factors present

in this regression which support the fifth hypothesis. First, participants who identified as liberal

displayed a willingness to spend more for human rights issues sustainability performance (β = -


.78, t = -2.06, p < .043) compared to participants who did not identify as liberal. This makes

logical sense considering the close association between liberalism and social justice in the

current political spectrum. Another logical moderating factor on willingness to spend more for

human rights sustainability issues performance was automotive enthusiasm: automotive

enthusiasts were less willing to pay for human rights issues performance (β = 1.45, t = 2.00, p <

.049), perhaps because they prioritized the performance of the automobile itself over less

relevant issues like human rights issues sustainability performance. Participants with high scores

on the environmentalism measures were less willing to pay more for human rights issues

sustainability performance (β = .32, t = 2.07, p < .042); however, little credence can be given to

this measure because of its low level or reliability (the Cronbach’s alpha was .659 for this

measure).

The regression on the labor practices and working conditions issues sub-measure (R2 =

.36, F = 2.464 (20, 89), p < .05) yielded significant results for participants exposed to a Ford

CSR report (β = -.86, t = -2.70, p < .009), but not participants exposed to a Mitsubishi CSR

report (β = -.21, t = -.52, p > .05) (see Table 11, Appendix A). This indicates that participants

exposed to Ford’s CSR report rated their agreement with the statement presented in the spending

assessment one labor practices and working conditions issues sub-measure an average of .86

points closer to strongly agree on the Likert-type scale, compared to participants in the control

group. There were two moderating factors present in this regression which support the fifth

hypothesis. First, participants with children were more likely to express a willingness to pay

more for labor practices and working conditions issues sustainability performance for each child

they had (β = -.43, t = -2.41, p < .019). This could possibly be explained by the notion that

participants with children could identify more with the issue of child labor, and want to buy a


vehicle from a company that takes active steps to combat child labor. Another moderating factor

that is not easily explainable is whether or not the participant drove a hybrid, diesel, or electric

car (β = -.35, t = -2.32, p < .023).

The regression on the product responsibility issues sub-measure (R2 = .37, F = 1.926, (20,

89), p < .05) yielded significant results for participants exposed to a Mitsubishi CSR report (β = -

.76, t = -2.03, p < .046), but not participants exposed to a Ford CSR report (β = -.51, t = -1.73, p

> .05) (see Table 12, Appendix A). This indicates that participants exposed to Mitsubishi’s CSR

report rated their agreement with the statement presented in the spending assessment one product

responsibility issues sub-measure an average of .76 points closer to strongly agree on the Likert-

type scale, compared to participants in the control group. This is particularly interesting because

it defies the trend of participants only responding to Ford’s CSR report for the sustainability

assessment one measure. This difference is not easily explainable, as Mitsubishi actually devotes

less of its CSR report to issues pertaining to product responsibility than does Ford. There were

three moderating factors present in this regression; however, none are easily explainable. First,

automotive enthusiasts were less willing to pay for product responsibility issues performance (β

= 1.75, t = 2.48, p < .016), but sports car owners were more willing to pay for product

responsibility performance (β = -.80, t = -2.04, p < .045). There is no readily apparent

explanation for why sports car owners and automotive enthusiasts, two intuitively similar groups,

would differ so greatly on this issue. Once again, a statistically significant moderating factor

exists for whether or not the participant was white (β = -.80, t = -2.18, p < .033).

The regression on the social issues sub-measure (R2 = .34, F = 2.063 (20, 89), p < .05)

yielded significant results for participants exposed to a Ford CSR report (β = -.74, t = -2.34, p <

.009), but not participants exposed to a Mitsubishi CSR report (β = -.31, t = -.78, p > .05) (see


Table 13, Appendix A). This indicates that participants exposed to Ford’s CSR report rated their

agreement with the statement presented in the spending assessment one social issues sub-

measure an average of .74 points closer to strongly agree on the Likert-type scale, compared to

participants in the control group. There were three moderating factors present in this regression

which support the fifth hypothesis. First, participants with children were more likely to express a

willingness to pay more for social issues sustainability performance for each child they had (β =

-.43, t = -2.43, p < .018). This could possibly be explained by the notion that participants with

children see a greater need for spending on social issues (in the case of CSR, social issue

spending is often heavily tailored towards educational initiatives) (GRI, 2012). Participants who

identified as liberal displayed a willingness to spend more for human rights issues sustainability

performance (β = -.85, t = -2.16, p < .034) compared to participants who did not identify as

liberal, possibility because of the close ties between modern liberalism and social activism and

social spending. Finally, automotive enthusiasts were less willing to pay for social issues

performance (β = 1.57, t = 2.08, p < .041), perhaps because they prioritized the performance of

the automobile itself over less relevant issues like social issues sustainability performance.

Discussion

While agenda setting theory has evolved to see relatively widespread acceptance in the

field of corporate communications since the turn of the 21st century, very little research has been

done on the possible agenda setting effects of CSR reporting (Amujo et al., 2012; Davidson and

Chazaud, 2009; Gorpe and Yuksel, 2006; Kiousis et al., 2007; Meijer and Kleinnijenhuis, 2006).

CSR reporting is a quickly growing field of corporate public relations that focuses on a broad

spectrum of social responsibility issues, ranging from environmental impact to product

responsibility (GRI, 2012). Because CSR reports are in effect unregulated disclosure statements,


they have a significant potential to affect consumer perceptions of corporations (GRI, 2012).

Given that agenda setting theory, which asserts that media exposure has the power to affect what

issues individuals think about and how individuals assess those issues, is one of the primary

media effects theories in the discipline of communication, it is important to determine the

potential of CSR reports to affect consumer attitudes via agenda setting (Weaver, 2008). This

researched sought to answer this question on the effect of CSR report exposure on individual

perceptions of corporations by exposing a group of participants to CSR reports and then

assessing their perceptions related to the companies and issues discussed in those reports.

Overall, this research found significant support for the existence of agenda setting effects for

CSR report exposure.

This research found that exposure to both Ford’s and Mitsubishi’s CSR reports increased

the positive nature of a participant’s evaluation of a company from a sustainability perspective.

Exposure to Mitsubishi’s CSR report had a greater positive effect on participants’ assessments of

a company’s CSR performance, perhaps because the Mitsubishi report was significantly shorter

and more straightforward than its Ford alternative and stated its disclosures in simple laymen’s

terms as opposed to in industry jargon. The difference in effect size is further explained the

differing nature (interactive micro-site versus traditional PDF) and sustainability content of the

two reports (Pouvreau and Sonier, 2012); however, it is surprising that Mitsubishi performed so

well in this assessment for overall company evaluation, but failed to perform well in the specific

sustainability assessments regarding willingness to pay for sustainability features. This may be

because Mitsubishi has significantly less brand recognition in the U.S. than does Ford, which

may translate into a reduced willingness to pay for Mitsubishi products in general (Pouvreau and

Sonier, 2012).


No matter how favorably participants assessed the two companies’ sustainability efforts,

these companies’ greatest interest is in translating those positive public assessments into both

new customers and an increased willingness to spend among current and new customers.

Unfortunately for automakers’ bottom lines, this research failed to confirm that individuals

exposed to a CSR report would be more likely to purchase a vehicle that performs well on

sustainability issues than that to purchase a vehicle that does not. In the case of both automakers,

none of the six sub-measures for the effect of CSR report exposure on likelihood to purchase a

vehicle from a Ford or Mitsubishi were found to be significant. Despite this finding, those

individuals already considering purchasing a Ford vehicle were willing to pay more for a Ford

that performed well on social responsibility issues, but the same could not be said for those

individuals already considering purchasing a Mitsubishi. As stated before, this may be due to

differing consumer perceptions on the value prospect of Ford and Mitsubishi vehicles - potential

car buyers appreciate the Ford brand enough to pay a premium to help it achieve sustainability,

but may do not have the same level of appreciation for Mitsubishi. Multiple demographic and

consumer factors, ranging from environmental and automotive enthusiasm to race and family

makeup, were found to modify these aforementioned agenda setting effects.

These findings on the purchasing intent and willingness to spend raise a number of

interesting questions. First, why does the data support a CSR exposed consumer’s willingness to

pay more for a vehicle based on sustainability performance, but not a CSR exposed consumer’s

willingness to buy a vehicle in the first place? There is a clear disconnect between a participant’s

assessment of a company’s performance on CSR issues and a participant’s willingness to buy a

vehicle from that company. This could be due to the fact that the decision to initially purchase a

vehicle involves many more considerations than just social responsibility performance and may


include issues such as brand image, vehicle reliability, and vehicle performance, whereas

willingness to pay for sustainability performance involves only one consideration, price

Consumers may not yet value sustainability performance enough to let it affect the car company

they plan on buying from, but they do care enough about sustainability performance to pay a bit

more for a car from the company that they planned on buying a car from in the first place. From

an agenda setting perspective, this finding should not be surprising, as second level agenda

setting effects could cause an individual to think more about certain issues, like sustainability,

when purchasing a car, but they are not powerful enough to entirely determine what kind of car

an individual would actually purchase.

In addition to finding evidence for second level agenda setting effects for CSR report

exposure, this study further found that individuals exposed to a CSR report would assess the

issue attributes emphasized most by a CSR report in a more positive light than they would assess

those issue attributes emphasized least by the CSR report. This nuanced finding goes directly to

support first level agenda setting, which asserts that the level of attention an issue receives in the

media can affect the level of attention it is given by media consumers. Specifically, the issues

examined by this study were assessed in terms of positivity in the order in which they were

emphasized in the CSR reports themselves. Of the three attributes examined by the independent

samples t-test, all three were assessed by participants in terms of positivity in the same order in

which they appeared in the CSR reports themselves. Interestingly, the control group also

assessed the three tested CSR issues in terms of positivity in the same order in which they

appeared in the CSR reports, despite the fact that it was not exposed to those reports. This

indicates that there may already be a preexisting agenda setting effect for consumer perceptions

of how automakers address CSR issues, but that CSR report exposure amplifies this effect by


both reinforcing the order in which automakers address the issues and increasing the amount

participants think the automaker is addressing each issue. Thus, while this study provides

evidence to support the existence of first level agenda setting effects for CSR report exposure, it

also suggests that the increase in corporate sustainability related news and the related agenda

setting effects documented by Amujo et al. (2012), Davidson and Chazaud (2009), Gorpe and

Yuksel (2006), Kiousis et al. (2007), McCombs (2005), and Meijer and Kleinnijenhuis (2006)

since the turn of the millennium may already be at work in the CSR issues agenda expressed by

this study’s participants.

Limitations.

There are two significant potential limitations to this research that must be addressed. The

first of these challenges regards the nature of agenda setting theory. Agenda setting theory

traditionally applies to mass media (McCombs & Shaw, 1972; McCombs & Shaw, 1993), and its

application to scenarios of direct communication is limited, at best (Esrock & Leichty, 1998).

CSR reports, unlike press releases and public relations circulations, are stand-alone publications

that require significant effort to consumer. As such, the majority of CSR reports are read by an

organization’s non-consumer stakeholders, meaning that while CSR reports do have the potential

to shape the public’s perception of a company via agenda setting, they generally do so through

an intermediate mass media medium (Townsend et al., 2010). Thus, the technique employed by

this research of direct exposure of participants to CSR reports for the purposes of agenda setting

is unique and may draw criticism for its uncommon approach which stretches the definition of

agenda setting. Despite this fact, the internet has made the mass distribution of CSR materials

much easier than in the past, and it may prove beneficial for companies to take advantage of this

opportunity, especially given the agenda setting implications of CSR materials.


The challenge of causation also arises in this research design, because one cannot infer

that exposure to CSR reporting is necessarily the reason a participant’s opinions on issue

attributes correspond with a CSR report’s content. Causation is a necessary factor for the

existence of agenda setting to be supported. Fortunately, the collection of relevant demographic

and modifying factor data and the use of regression analysis help to solve this problem by ruling

out possible confounding factors in the correlation between CSR report exposure and consumer

attitude. When a correlation between CSR report exposure and consumer attitude exists holding

all other demographic factors equal, as is the case in a regression, then causation becomes far

more likely.

Future Directions

While this study found evidence for the existence of first and second level agenda setting

effects for automotive industry CSR reports, significant room for future research into this

specific field of study still remains. The inconsistencies between Mitsubishi CSR report exposure

and Ford CSR report exposure indicate a need to explore how agenda setting effects differ

between automotive companies. Are some automotive companies simply more suited for agenda

setting effects, or is CSR report construction a more important determinant of agenda setting

theory applicability? This question could be answered by conducting a similar regression

analysis for the CSR reports of multiple automotive companies, and those companies found to

induce significant agenda setting effects could be analyzed for similar attributes. Multiple CSR

reports of different companies could also be subjected to a thematic or content analysis to

determine if CSR report construction is in fact the bigger determinant of agenda setting effects.

The answers to these questions could have an effect on how companies approach CSR

report construction. If future research indicates that some company profiles are simply ill suited


for agenda setting effects through CSR reports, then those companies may simply decide that

investing significant resources in the creation of a CSR report is not a sound decision. This

research need not be limited to automotive companies either – the financial services sector has

one of the highest participation rates in CSR reporting, despite its tangential relationship to

sustainability issues (GRI, 2012). Is CSR reporting helping that industry to sell products or win

over investors, or are agenda setting effects weaker because of the loser connection between

sustainability and financial services.

Furthermore, very few studies have examined the effects of CSR report exposure on

consumer perceptions from communication theory perspectives (Pouvreau and Sonier, 2012).

Room remains for future research to determine if another communication theory is better suited

to explain the effect of CSR reporting on consumer perceptions. In the new age of direct-to-

consumer marketing, mass media theories like agenda setting may be less suited to explain

consumer reactions to marketing and public relations pieces like CSR reports. Because CSR

reporting is such a recent and fast growing industry, the potential for new communication related

findings in the study of CSR reporting is significant (CSR, 2012). The internet and relative

dominance of the GRI standard in the CSR reporting industry has made CSR reports easy to

locate, download, and categorize, opening the door for further quantitative report studies to make

use of abundant and readily available data.

Conclusion

Agenda setting theory, which asserts that the media can influence the issues and issue

attributes individuals think about, has long been used to explain the ability of the mass media to

subtly influence the public issues agenda, but limited attention has been given to the agenda

setting effects of public relations media (McCombs and Shaw, 1993; McCombs, 2005). While


this dearth of corporate communication agenda setting research has been addressed somewhat

since the turn of the 21st century (Carroll and McCombs, 2003), communication researchers are

still in the early stages of studying the agenda setting effects of certain recently emergent forms

of corporate communication, including CSR reports. A review of literature in the field confirms

that the traditional concept of agenda setting has given way to a more comprehensive idea of

agenda setting, which acknowledges the existence of related effects for corporate news. This

study sought to discover if agenda-setting can be carried further into the realm of corporate

communication to include the specific medium of CSR reports. Specifically, this research sought

to investigate CSR reporting in the automotive industry by surveying a sample of 89 participants.

The automotive industry was chosen as a sector because of its broad and recognizable social

responsibility related impact and because most consumers have experience with automobile

ownership. Participants were randomly exposed to either CSR reports from Ford Motor

Company and Mitsubishi Motors Corporation or to a control variable. Regression analysis was

then used to determine the effect of CSR report exposure on consumer perceptions of corporate

sustainability and consumer purchase intent for six CSR issues: environmental issues, economic

issues, human rights issues, labor practices and decent work issues, product responsibility issues,

and social issues.

This study found evidence for the existence of both first level (issue) and second level

(issue attribute) agenda setting effects for both Ford and Mitsubishi CSR reports. Effects varied

in strength between the two companies, with Mitsubishi being subject to more consumer

perception effects and Ford being subject to more purchase intent effects. Twenty control

variables were also used to assess the existence of moderating factors on the agenda setting, and

multiple control variables were found to modify the agenda setting effect of CSR reports. Future


research in this field should further examine why agenda setting effects vary from CSR report to

CSR report and investigate if agenda setting effects exist for CSR reports produced in other

corporate sectors.


References

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Science, 11 (3), p. 173-176.

Amujo, O., Otubanjo, O., & Laninhun, A. (2013). Media news effects on the formation of

stakeholders' opinions about the reputation of business organizations in Nigeria. Global

Media Journal: Mediterranean Edition, 8(1), 28-47.

Carroll, C.E. & McCombs M. (2003). Agenda-setting effects of business news on the public’s

images and opinions about major corporations. Corporate Reputation Review, 6 (1), p.

36-46.

Curtin, P.A. (1999). Reevaluating public relations information subsidies: Market-driven

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Research, 11 (1), p. 53-90.

Davidson, R., & Chazaud, N. (2009). Media agenda setting and corporate reputation in France.

Conference Papers -- International Communication Association.

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Gartner, Szilvia (2011). Approach change: A responsible automotive industry. Regional and

Business Studies, 3 (1), p. 729-737.

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Appendix A

Table 1

Overall Sustainability Assessment Measure

Variable B t Sig. (p)

Exposed to Ford CSR report -.225 -1.919 .059

Exposed to Mitsubishi CSR Report -.405 -2.871 .005

Age in years .138 .510 .611

Male -.190 -1.522 .132

White -.125 -1.024 .310

Four Year Degree .101 .630 .531

Student .058 .302 .764

Annual combined household income (thousands) -.017 -.149 .882

Married -.044 -.203 .839

Number of children -.169 -.928 .357

Environmental enthusiasm -.002 -.016 .987

Automotive enthusiasm .204 1.553 .125

Luxury car .208 1.688 .096

Sports car -.140 -1.113 .270

Hybrid/ diesel/ electric .091 .636 .527

Planned cost of next vehicle at (thousands) -.323 -2.622 .011

Total time they plan to own current car (years) -.106 -.912 .365

Politically Liberal -.160 -.920 .361

Politically Conservative -.042 -.278 .782

Politically Moderate -.149 -.925 .358


Appendix A

Table 2

Purchase Intent Measure: Economic Issues


Exposed to Ford CSR report -.059 -.482 .631

Exposed to Mitsubishi CSR Report .236 1.615 .111

Age in years -.055 -.198 .844

Male -.095 -.740 .462

White -.020 -.156 .876

Four Year Degree .200 1.199 .235

Student .250 1.257 .213


Married .077 .345 .731


Environmental enthusiasm .123 .993 .324

Automotive enthusiasm .119 .872 .386

Luxury car .204 1.600 .114

Sports car -.114 -.878 .383

Hybrid/ diesel/ electric -.228 -1.543 .128

Planned cost of next vehicle at (thousands) -.106 -.828 .411






Appendix A

Table 3

Purchase Intent Measure: Environmental Issues



Exposed to Mitsubishi CSR Report .027 .196 .845

Age in years .154 .578 .565

Male -.073 -.595 .554

White -.074 -.615 .541


Student .004 .019 .985

Annual combined household income (thousands) -.145 -1.254 .214

Married -.105 -.493 .624


Environmental enthusiasm .219 1.860 .067


Luxury car -.062 -.510 .612

Sports car -.045 -.364 .717

Hybrid/ diesel/ electric -.080 -.566 .573


Total time they plan to own current car (years) .024 .207 .836

Politically Liberal -.329 -1.910 .060

Politically Conservative .040 .267 .790



Appendix A

Table 4

Purchase Intent Measure: Human Rights Issues




Age in years -.133 -.508 .613

Male -.052 -.430 .669

White -.089 -.743 .460


Student -.158 -.844 .402


Married -.137 -.654 .516

Number of children .003 .017 .986



Luxury car .024 .200 .842

Sports car -.033 -.272 .787


Planned cost of next vehicle at (thousands) .031 .259 .796






Appendix A

Table 5

Purchase Intent Measure: Labor Practices and Working Conditions Issues



Exposed to Mitsubishi CSR Report -.038 -.275 .784

Age in years -.274 -1.028 .307

Male -.057 -.465 .643

White .138 1.142 .257


Student -.126 -.660 .512


Married .087 .410 .683




Luxury car -.144 -1.184 .240

Sports car -.046 -.370 .713








Appendix A

Table 6

Purchase Intent Measure: Product Responsibility


Exposed to Ford CSR report .049 .411 .682


Age in years -.134 -.494 .623

Male -.074 -.592 .556

White -.242 -1.971 .053


Student .099 .513 .609


Married -.188 -.868 .388

Number of children .255 1.390 .169



Luxury car -.144 -1.160 .250

Sports car -.141 -1.111 .271

Hybrid/ diesel/ electric -.103 -.715 .477




Politically Conservative -.162 -1.054 .296



Appendix A

Table 7

Purchase Intent Measure: Social Issues




Age in years -.070 -.249 .804

Male .028 .217 .829

White -.099 -.776 .441


Student -.043 -.215 .830


Married .041 .181 .857


Environmental enthusiasm -.014 -.109 .914


Luxury car -.051 -.399 .691

Sports car -.221 -1.686 .096



Total time they plan to own current car (years) -.166 -1.369 .175



Politically Moderate .112 .665 .508


Appendix A

Table 8

Willingness to Pay Measure: Economic Issues



Exposed to Mitsubishi CSR Report .134 1.041 .302

Age in years .040 .163 .871

Male -.185 -1.628 .108

White -.237 -2.129 .037


Student .195 1.111 .270

Annual combined household income (thousands) .029 .270 .788

Married .265 1.352 .181

Number of children -.170 -1.021 .311



Luxury car .329 2.936 .005

Sports car -.191 -1.673 .099






Politically Moderate -.250 -1.708 .092


Appendix A

Table 9

Willingness to Pay Measure: Environmental Issues




Age in years .529 2.390 .020

Male -.103 -1.005 .319

White -.251 -2.498 .015


Student .007 .043 .966

Annual combined household income (thousands) -.101 -1.056 .295

Married -.126 -.711 .479




Luxury car .117 1.160 .250

Sports car -.114 -1.108 .272

Hybrid/ diesel/ electric .082 .700 .486


Total time they plan to own current car (years) .097 1.014 .314


Politically Conservative .146 1.171 .246



Appendix A

Table 10

Willingness to Pay Measure: Human Rights Issues




Age in years .281 1.166 .248

Male -.079 -.707 .482

White -.184 -1.685 .097


Student -.037 -.218 .828


Married -.008 -.040 .968




Luxury car .263 2.386 .020

Sports car -.059 -.527 .600








Appendix A

Table 11

Willingness to Pay Measure: Labor Practices and Working Conditions Issues




Age in years .202 .798 .427

Male -.098 -.838 .405

White -.069 -.605 .547


Student -.062 -.346 .731


Married .090 .447 .656




Luxury car .225 1.946 .056

Sports car -.049 -.420 .676








Appendix A

Table 12

Willingness to Pay Measure: Product Responsibilities Issues



Exposed to Mitsubishi CSR Report -.265 -2.031 .046

Age in years .028 .112 .911

Male .000 -.001 .999

White -.246 -2.180 .033


Student -.004 -.020 .984

Annual combined household income (thousands) .115 1.059 .293

Married -.089 -.448 .656

Number of children .015 .087 .931



Luxury car -.011 -.100 .921

Sports car -.237 -2.039 .045

Hybrid/ diesel/ electric .137 1.039 .303







Appendix A

Table 13

Willingness to Pay Measure: Social Issues




Age in years .229 .895 .374

Male -.054 -.452 .653

White -.091 -.786 .435


Student -.108 -.593 .555


Married -.010 -.050 .960




Luxury car .067 .574 .568

Sports car -.024 -.200 .842








Appendix B

Annotated Bibliography

Akpabio, E. (2005). Towards a public relations agenda setting theory. Journal of Social

Science, 11 (3), p. 173-176.

Akpabio was useful for establishing that mass media providers are heavily reliant on

input from the very subjects of their article when it comes to issues of corporate social

responsibility. This helps to establish the real impact that public relations can have on media

consumers and connects the concepts of agenda setting and public relations in a more concrete

way than was done in past research. The source is highly literature-review based and should be

considered as somewhat of a meta-source, although it is not so quantitative as to be considered

meta-analysis.

Amujo, O., Otubanjo, O., & Laninhun, A. (2013). Media news effects on the formation of

stakeholders' opinions about the reputation of business organizations in Nigeria. Global

Media Journal: Mediterranean Edition, 8(1), 28-47.

This is one of the few intensive-interview based studies to draw a connection between

agenda setting and business reputation. It is useful because it provides a far deeper look at the

inner working of media effects on media consumers than survey studies generally do; however,

its sample size of only thirty limits the statistical power of its findings. This article is yet another

example of the fact that much modern day media effects research involving corporate

communication takes place abroad.


Appendix B

Carroll, C.E. & McCombs M. (2003). Agenda-setting effects of business news on the public’s

images and opinions about major corporations. Corporate Reputation Review, 6 (1), p.

36-46.

The work of McCombs is usually more tailored to political agenda setting theory than the

field’s more recent corporate applications, but in working with Carroll in this 2003 study,

McCombs is able to reach agenda setting conclusions directly tying corporate image and public

opinion to agenda setting. This work is one of the earliest works to specifically apply agenda

setting to corporations, and it is more theoretical and less experimental than many later works on

the same topic. Carroll and McCombs work is particularly relevant for this research because it

both directly acknowledges that the central theory of political agenda setting is applicable to the

corporate world and because it transfers relevant terminology to the world of corporate agenda

setting. Carroll and McCombs create six agenda setting objects for the corporate world, all of

which can be applied to the survey instrument of this research.

Curtin, P.A. (1999). Reevaluating public relations information subsidies: Market-driven

journalism and agenda-building theory and practice. Journal of Public Relations

Research, 11 (1), p. 53-90.

Curtin’s work is unique compared to many other researchers in the field of agenda setting

because she works to expose the ability of corporations to craft their own media coverage. This

serves as a sort of justification for this research project – because corporations have the power to

heavily influence the media according to Curtin, there is a strong need to examine the influence

of this media coverage on the public. Curtin’s purpose here is cyclical – she shows that


Appendix B

corporations can greatly influence the media regarding their own coverage, and Meijer &

Kleinnijenhuis (2006), Gorpe and Yuksel (2006) and Kiousis et al. (2007) show that corporate

portrayals in the media can influence the public. Taken together, these research show that

corporations are already exerting an agenda setting effect on the consumer. In the age of the

internet where corporations can bypass the media and speak directly to the consumer, this

research should be able to determine if directly communicating with the public has a greater

effect than through a traditional agenda setting medium.

Davidson, R., & Chazaud, N. (2009). Media agenda setting and corporate reputation in France.

Conference Papers -- International Communication Association.

While this study only examined first level agenda setting – an unusual fact given that

second level agenda setting seems to be a more popular subject in research published since the

late 1990s – it is useful because it looks at companies on an industry by industry basis. This

research helped to plant the seed for my consideration of future research to compare the agenda

setting effects of CSR research across companies.

Esrock, S.L. & Leichty, G.B. (1998). Social responsibility and corporate web pages: Self-

presentation or agenda-setting?. Public Relations Review, 23 (4), p. 305-321.

This research helps to tie agenda setting to CSR reporting by demonstrating that the

internet has allowed companies to push marketing and public relations materials directly to

consumers through their websites and email, as opposed to traditional mass media methods like

television and newspaper advertising. Because of its age, the actual facts and figures in this

research pertaining to email proliferous and website availability are quite outdated; however, it is


Appendix B

nonetheless a useful article because it demonstrates the evolution of direct to consumer

communication by corporations. It would be interesting to see the content analysis portion of this

research replicated on modern day websites for Fortune 500 companies.

Gartner, Szilvia (2011). Approach change: A responsible automotive industry. Regional and

Business Studies, 3 (1), p. 729-737.

This is a fine source for assessing the general state of CSR reporting in the automotive

industry. It looks at a broad group of automakers and highlights industry CSR trends, areas of

excellence, and areas for improvement. This source was instrumental to my choosing the

automotive industry of my industry of focus because it painted the automotive industry as a

frontrunner in the field of CSR reporting – based on my assessment of automotive industry CSR

reports, this article’s assessment is accurate.

Gorpe, S. & Yuksel, E. (2006). Media content and corporate reputation survey 2006 in

Turkey: A first level agenda-setting study. Eskisher: Anadolu University Publications.

Gorpe and Yuksel’s research shows that a correlation exists between positive media

coverage of a company’s CSR efforts and positive perception of that company in the public eye.

Gorpe and Yuksel’s work is slightly different from the practices employed by this research

because their focus is purely on media coverage, while this research is focused on direct public

relations efforts by companies via CSR reports. Nonetheless, their research supports the

existence of agenda setting for corporate news and includes a content analysis of vast magnitude

– over 20,000 articles from 36 newspapers were examined. For nine out of the 12 companies

they examined, Gorpe and Yuksel found a near perfect correlation between public perception


Appendix B

rank and media coverage rank. This research will use a smaller sample of only two companies as

opposed to Gorpe and Yuksel’s 12, but the fact that participant perceptions will be examined

directly instead of through a proxy survey further differentiates this research from Gorpe and

Yuksel’s in a positive way. Gorpe and Yuksel’s research also focused specifically on Turkish

CSR.

Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) (2012). Annual report 2011/12. The Global Reporting

Initiative. Amsterdam, Netherlands: Beutling, A.

The Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) is a global organization which sets the de-facto

standards which most organizations producing CSR reports adhere to. Their annual report serves

as a tool for identifying industry trends in CSR reporting and provides a necessary grounding for

this research. Finally, the GRI itself maintains a large CSR report database which will be useful

for identifying prospective automotive company CSR reports to use in this research. Finally, the

annual report will be helpful in creating an object and attribute issues agenda which can later be

tailored to the automotive companies subjected to thematic analysis by this research.

Kiousis, S., Popescu, C., and Mitrook, M. (2007). Understanding influence on corporate

reputation: An examination of public relations efforts, media coverage, public opinion,

and financial performance from an agenda-building and agenda-setting perspective.

Journal of Public Relations Research, 19 (2), p. 147-165.

Kiousis et al. carried out research similar to that which will be employed by this study,

although Kiousis et al. assessed CSR performance in a much less direct way than will be done so

in this research. Specifically, Kiousis et al. conducted a content analysis of a sample of 121 PR


Appendix B

releases (which are very much akin to CSR reports) and 106 news stories, and compared their

findings with 20,000 responses from the Harris Interactive and Reputation Institute Reputation

Quotient Survey, which assesses corporate reputation. Kiousis et al. found that by simply

mentioning certain issues in PR releases, companies could cause the public to associate them in a

positive way with these releases. Kiousis et al,’s study, specifically as it relates to the PR

releases, is the most similar locatable study to the intent of this research, and its results which

indicate the existence of agenda setting effects for PR releases are highly desirable.

Martin, L., Ruiz, S., & Rubio, A. (2009). The role of identity salience in the effects of corporate

social responsibility on consumer behavior. Journal of Business Ethics, 84 (1), 65-78.

Martin et al. extensively researched the effect of CSR reports on consumers in their 2009

study. Their study is intricate in design and specifically examines the role of the modifying factor

of identity salience on consumers exposed to CSR reports. While Martin et al. do not specifically

study CSR reports from an agenda setting perspective, identity salience itself is explored in

McCombs’ works (Carroll & McCombs, 2003; McCombs, 2005), where it is explored in more

general terms as an influence on first and second level agenda setting. This research will include

two survey questions as proxy measures for identity salience in order to control for these factors

in regression analysis.

McCombs, M. (2005). A look at agenda-setting: Past, present and future. Journalism Studies, 6

(4), p. 543-567.

McCombs 2005 examination of the evolution of agenda setting theory since 1968 is

particularly useful because it specifically references agenda setting in the corporate context. The


Appendix B

fact that the father of agenda setting research has acknowledged the existence of the sub-field

this research will address is notable, although McCombs still considers corporate agenda setting

only within the specific context of mass media. The studies on corporate agenda setting

referenced by McCombs in his 2005 agenda setting summation are somewhat simplistic in

nature, but in fairness to McCombs, the more complex studies testing for agenda setting effects

in corporate communication identified by this research were only published in the mid to late

2000s, after McCombs wrote this piece. The fact that McCombs has yet to specifically reference

the existence of agenda setting effects in unmediated corporate communication is tentatively

encouraging – it does not mean that such effects do not exist, but rather that little research has

been done in this highly specific area, leaving the door open for the results of this study to be all

the more impactful.

McCombs, M. E. & Shaw, D. L. (1993). The evolution of agenda-setting research: Twenty-

five years in the marketplace of ideas. Journal of Communication, 43 (2), p. 58-67.

McCombs and Shaw’s contributions to the field of agenda setting research did not end

with their original 1972 study, and their 1993 summation of agenda setting research from 1968 –

1993 is useful for tracking the progress of agenda setting research and for determining the

possibility of applying it to less traditional situations involving manipulation of the public

agenda. McCombs and Shaw’s original 1972 research only allowed for agenda setting to affect

how much the public thinks about an issue, making it a useful but limited theory for the purposes

of parties hoping to influence the public agenda. McCombs and Shaw’s follow-up work expands

the usefulness of agenda setting theory by acknowledging the existence of second level agenda


Appendix B

setting effects, whereby the media is capable of actually influencing what the public thinks about

issues. This research will seek to find evidence for both first and second level agenda setting

effects for consumers exposed to CSR reports.

McCombs, M.E. & Shaw, D. S. (1972). The agenda-setting function of mass media. The

Public Opinion Quarterly, 36 (2), p. 176-187.

McCombs and Shaw’s 1972 Chapel Hill study is the seminal work for the field of agenda setting

studies and is the first piece of research to empirically test agenda setting theory. Within their

study, McCombs and Shaw examine the effect of media coverage on issue salience for voters in

Chapel Hill, Virginia during the 1968 presidential election. While this research seeks study

agenda setting in a more evolved corporate context, it is nonetheless essential for the purposes of

this research to gain an understanding of agenda setting’s origins. One cannot advocate for the

expansion of agenda setting research without first understanding where its roots lie. It is also

important to keep in mind the limitations of this study, including the fact that a small sample was

used and no demographic controls were in place. This study will remedy both of these factors

with a large sample size and demographic controls.

Meijer, M.M. & Kleinnijenhuis, J. (2006). Issue news and corporate reputation: Applying the

theories of agenda setting and issue ownership in the field of business communication

Journal of Communication, 56, p. 543-559.

Meijer and Kleinnijenhuis conducted one of the few studies which have applied the

theory of agenda setting to the world of business communication. Unlike this the goal of this

research, which is to examine the agenda setting effect of corporate social responsibility (CSR)


Appendix B

reports on consumers, Meijer and Kleinnijenhuis examined the effect of media coverage of CSR

factors on consumers. While their approach to CSR and agenda setting was less direct than the

approach which will be employed by this research, it is nonetheless encouraging because Meijer

and Kleinnijenhuis did find compelling evidence for the existence of agenda setting effects.

Their huge sample size, which included a content analysis of 9,200 newspaper articles and 2,200

television shows and a survey of 280 Dutch citizens, lends even more credence to their

conclusions.

Pouvreau, B., and Sonier, P. (2012). Corporate social responsibility disclosure in corporate

communication: A content analysis of the automotive industry’s sustainability reports.

(Master Thesis in Management). Retrieved from DIVA-Portal Umea University.

Pouvreau and Sonier’s 2012 thematic analysis of changes in automotive industry CSR

reporting trends from 2002 to 2010 will serve as the backbone for the regression analysis and

correlation which will be performed in this research. Pouvrea and Sonier have constructed a CSR

attribute agenda of six attributes which closely mirrors the attribute agenda proposed by Carroll

and McCombs for corporate agenda setting research. Pouvrea and Sonier’s attribute work is even

more useful because it ranks each of the six specific attributes it identifies by order of

prevalence. This allows for a correlation test to be conducted between the perceived issue

importance identified by survey participants who are exposed to the CSR reports reviewed by

Pouvrea and Sonier and the actual issue importance identified by the researchers’ thematic

analysis. Two of the specific CSR reports examined by Pouvrea and Sonier for the year 2010,


Appendix B

which were authored by Ford Motor Company and Mitsubishi Motors, were obtained for later

use in survey design.

Sen, S. & Bhattacharya, C. B. (2001). Does doing good always lead to doing better: Consumer

reactions to corporate social responsibility. Journal of Marketing Research, 38 (2), 225-

243.

This article was useful for determining what, if any, moderating factors lead to CSR

report effectiveness in relation to influence on consumer trends. The results show a two sided

street: one the one hand, company specific factors, such as the type and quality of a company’s

products, have an effect on CSR report influence, but on the other hand, individual specific

factors such as general CSR beliefs moderate the effectiveness of CSR reports. This served as an

informative source for my research on moderating factors on the consumer side.

Steinweg, Tim. (2010). Driven by corporate social responsibility? Top ten car manufacturers:

A CSR analysis. Centre for Research on Multinational Corporations. Amsterdam,

Netherlands: Colophon.

Steinweg’s 2010 report for the Center for Research on Multinational Organizations

summarizes the sustainability efforts of the automotive industry as a whole. Steinweg divides his

report into sections reflecting the major trends and areas of automotive industry sustainability

and into sections reflecting the sustainability efforts of automakers on a company-by-company

basis. Steinweg’s research could be particularly useful if used in a correlation analysis to study if

CSR reports do in fact accurately reflect the sustainability efforts of major automakers and if

public perceptions of automaker sustainability are in fact accurate. Unfortunately, while


Appendix B

Stienweg’s work is notable for its breadth, it goes into significantly less depth on an automaker-

by-automaker basis than does Pouvreau and Sonier’s 2012 report on the sustainability efforts of

Ford Motor Company, BMW Motor Company, and Mitsubishi Motors.

Tan, Y., & Weaver, D. H. (2013). Agenda diversity and agenda setting from 1956 to 2004.

Journalism Studies, 14(6), 773-789.

This is yet another summation of the evolution of agenda setting over the course of the

later part of the twentieth century. It is notable both because of the shear span of time it covers

(nearly 50 years) and because it goes back all of the way to 1956. Most agenda setting meta-

studies acknowledge agenda setting research as beginning in the late 1960s with McCombs and

Shaw (1972). Tan and Weaver managed to identify more instances of past agenda setting

research than any meta-study I reviewed.

Tang, L. (2012). Media discourse of corporate social responsibility in China: A content analysis

of newspapers. Asian Journal Of Communication, 22(3), 270-288.

Tang’s massive study of agenda setting in China examined a sample of over 800 media

sources in order to establish agenda setting effects for Chinese companies. This is the only study

I identified on agenda setting in China and is extremely important for that reason. CSR issues,

particularly those pertaining to the environment and safe working conditions, are coming under

increasing scrutiny in China, and this report shows that Chinese companies have a method of

countering (sometimes justifiably) negative press. Furthermore, the existence of agenda setting

effects in a state like China, which has a far less open media than most Western countries,

provides an interest perspective for agenda setting research. Finally, this article (unsurprisingly)


Appendix B

shows that Chinese consumers tend to be skeptical of CSR statements by companies than their

Western counterparts. A comparative study between Western and Easter agenda setting effects

would make for an interesting reapplication of my research model.

Townsend, S., Bartels, W., & Renaut, J.P. (2010). Reporting change: Readers and reports

survey 2010. The Global Reporting Initiative. Amsterdam, Netherlands: ScribbleDesign.

One of the most important issues at play in this research is the frequency at which CSR

reports are ready by the general public. If CSR reports are not read by the general public, then

there is no sense in a research project which measures the ability of corporations to influence the

public via CSR reporting. Fortunately, Townsend et al. show through their study, which was

administered via a survey, that consumers do make up a notable portion of CSR report readership

and that the number of consumers exposed to CSR reports has increased over time. Townsend et

al. thus help to justify this research by showing that CSR reports do not simply disappear into a

black hole of corporate reports upon publication.

Weaver, D.H. (2008). Agenda-setting effects. The International Encyclopedia of

Communication. Donsbach, W. (ed). Blackwell Publishing, 2008. Blackwell Reference

Online.

Weaver’s entry in the International Encyclopedia of Communication provides important

background information regarding the history and terminology surround agenda setting. It was

useful for establishing the distinction between first and second level agenda setting and for

establishing the role of agenda setting within the broader context of media effects theory.


Appendix B

Whan, Eric. (2004). Guess what? People do read CSR reports. Globe Scan Incorporated.

Ontario: Canada.

Whan’s study provides details on the readership of CSR reports that are essential for the

application of agenda setting effects to the CSR report medium. Agenda setting is a media effects

theory that relies on mass media to influence the public. In order to apply agenda setting theory

to CSR reports, it must first be demonstrated that a portion of the CSR report readership is made

up of the public at large. Whan’s survey confirms this requirement by showing that members of

the public at large, consumers, and individuals interested in CSR issues make up a large portion

of CSR report readership. Whan further confirms that an adequate percentage of the public at

large is aware of CSR reporting and CSR issues, making this a worthy emergent public relations

medium to study.

agenda setting theory and csr reporting in the automotive industry

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