Attribution and attributional processes of organizations’ environmental messages

This experimental study, guided by attribution theory, investigated the impact of the substantiation and specificity of organizations' environmental messages on perceived communication motivation and how this perception prompts audiences' affective and cognitive responses.

Introduction

Organizations discuss their pro-environmental philosophy, plans, products, and achievements with the public via their social media channels (Shin & Ki, 2017). However, environmental messages can leave negative impressions in media users' mind when the message tries to mislead audiences. Some organizations produce environmental messages without engaging in any actual pro-environmental initiatives, exaggerate their pro-environmental actions, and/or intentionally conceal environment-harming deeds (Allen, 2016). These intentionally misleading environmental communications are called "greenwashing." Greenwashing is a societal problem because it can increase publics' skepticism about environmental messages in general regardless of whether they are innocent or deceptive, and this negative perception interrupts...

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