How Value Congruence and Issue Relevance Affect Consumer Reactions to Corporate Political Advocacy

Abstract

Companies are often hesitant about the impacts of corporate political advocacy, whether to take a stance, and on which issues. This study conducted a 2 (value congruence vs. value incongruence) by 2 (issue relevance: low vs. high) online experiment to understand how these two factors affect consumers’ perceptions of the motives of a company engaging in corporate political advocacy, as well as how consumers’ perceptions of the company affect their supportive behaviors. The findings revealed that value congruence affects consumers’ perception that the company is acting in the public interest, which encourages them to support corporate advocacy regardless of whether the outcome of the advocacy is relevant to their lives. However, issue relevance can affect how strongly people oppose a company’s stance when they disagree. The findings indicate that the public service motive is a crucial predictor of consumers’ favorable perceptions of a company and their supportive behavioral responses to corporate political advocacy.