Consumers and Corporate Social Responsibility Communication: What Do They Really Want?

This paper questions and discusses whether the currently recommended way of communicating CSR to the increasingly important stakeholder group consisting of consumers will also be the optimum way to represent corporate values and behaviour in the future? Maybe it is time to challenge current thinking within the field of CSR communication suggesting that companies should apply a very subtle, implicit and sometimes even endorsed way of communicating CSR in order to inhibit scepticism and enhance persuasion. Perhaps the young consumers- the consumers of the future - are ready for another approach because they have a different understanding and awareness of CSR than we have seen so far? The question is, then, how companies can accommodate this understanding and awareness rhetorically in their communication of CSR. In this paper, a new conceptual model for communicating CSR to consumers is presented along with the theoretical background for a consumer survey aiming to test and develop the model further.