In recent years, the food industry has been confronted with public concerns about health and obesity. And while companies are taking several measures in response, it is unclear to what extent they should communicate these policies or not. This is a topic left largely unexplored, but a crucial...

To contribute to the debate on the role of social media in responsible business, this article explores blogger buzz in reaction to food companies’ press releases on health and obesity issues, considering the content and the level of fit between the CSR initiatives and the company. Findings...

While most research on business-nonprofit partnerships has focused on macro and meso perspectives, this paper pays attention to the micro level. Drawing on various theoretical perspectives from both marketing and management, we conceptually relate the outcomes of active employee participation in...

The growing body of literature on partnerships has paid most attention to their implications at the macro level, for society, as well as the meso level, for the partnering organizations. While generating many valuable insights, what has remained underexposed is the micro level, i.e. the role of...

In the past decade, a sizable body of literature has built up on the concept and characteristics of corporate social responsibility (CSR) in Western countries, where it has also been referred to as sustainability. More recently, attention has grown for CSR in emerging countries. Remarkably,...

Cross-sector social partnerships are often studied from a macro and meso perspective, also in an attempt to assess effectiveness and societal impact. This paper pays specific attention to the micro perspective, i.e. individual interactions between and within organizations related to partnerships...

Despite large interest in CSR in China, the role of consumers has been underexplored in empirical research, with studies mainly focused on specific subcomponents of CSR, based on evidence from small, urban samples. Using a country-wide consumer survey, this article examines 1) how Chinese...

By performing tasks traditionally fulfilled by service personnel in physical settings and having a humanlike appearance, virtual customer service agents seem to bring classical service personnel characteristics to the online service encounter, which in turn may elicit social responses and...