An examination of advocacy groups in corporate social irresponsibility: A cognitive appraisal approach

Companies are facing increased scrutiny from advocacy groups, including environmental groups, animal welfare groups, and general consumer activist groups. These advocacy groups serve as watchdogs, monitoring corporate practices and employing diverse strategies such as protests and public education when companies engage in corporate social irresponsibility (CSI). However, little is known about how accusations from advocacy groups influence consumer responses. This study uses a 2 (advocacy group reputation: strong vs. weak) × 2 (perceived severity: high vs. low) between-subjects experiment to examine how advocacy group reputation interacts with perceived severity to shape consumers’ blame attribution, emotions, and behavioral intentions in response to CSI. The findings indicate that advocacy group reputation has a direct and interactive effect with perceived severity on blame attribution. Furthermore, blame attribution fully mediates the effect of advocacy group reputation on anger and sympathy. While anger increases boycott intention, sympathy does not.