Research On The Effect Of Digital Social Responsibility Communication On Consumers’ Purchase Intention

The digital transformation has rapidly enriched people’s lives,and the rapid development of global social media platforms such as Facebook,Twitter,Weibo and We Chat in the Web 2.0 era has provided multinational companies with the opportunity to interact directly with consumers.Today,more and more companies are communicating their CSR practices through interactive digital channels and engaging in digital social responsibility(DSR)communication with consumers.For multinational companies,how can they better use social media to communicate CSR,bring them closer to consumers and attract more consumers worldwide has become a key concern.In the Chinese market,ZARA is actively using its strong brand influence on the popular social platform Weibo to launch DSR communication and interact and communicate with consumers.This includes: inviting consumers to participate in discussions on topics related to environmental protection and public welfare,and regularly releasing information about the brand’s social responsibility.As a representative of multinational fast fashion companies,while its products are rapidly iterating,DSR issues such as environmental protection come one after another,and its DSR communication with stakeholders has received widespread attention today when consumers have higher demands on companies.Based on reading the literature,this study composes the definition and development of digital social responsibility communication.Taking ZARA as an example,we explore the impact of four different dimensions of communication on the relationship between consumer-firm identification and consumer purchase intention.We make a two-by-two combination of DSR communication content(ethics and charity)and mode(internal and external information sources),combine the characteristics of social media platform interaction,propose that perceived interaction has a moderating effect on the above influence,establish a relevant research framework and research model,and propose relevant research hypotheses.This study includes two experiments.Experiment 1 is designed to examine the effect of DSR communication on purchase intention,and four scenario experimental groups are designed: ethical external,ethical internal,philanthropic external and philanthropic internal,to measure whether there are differences in the effects of DSR communication on purchase intention in these four dimensions,and whether consumer-firm identification plays a mediating role;Experiment 2 is designed to examine the moderating effect of perceptual interaction,to measure the effects of eight groups of DSR communication with the addition of high and low perceptual interaction on purchase intention communication on purchase intentions,and to examine the mediating role of consumer-firm identity under moderation.The results show that(1)multinational companies’ DSR communication has an effect on consumers’ purchase intention,and the DSR communication differs across dimensions,with the external source ethical dimension of DSR communication having the most positive effect on purchase intention.(2)Consumer-firm identification plays a mediating role in the effect of DSR communication on purchase intention.(3)The moderating effect of perceived interaction is significant.There is a significant difference between high and low perceived interaction groups,and communication with high interaction affects consumers’ purchase intention more positively,and the four DSR communication groups at high and low interaction levels show different variability.(4)Moderated by the perceptual interaction,CCI mediates the effect of DSR communication on purchase intentions for some groups.Based on the above findings,this study makes relevant management suggestions for ZARA and other multinational companies.