Negative Electronic Word of Mouth in Corporate Social Responsibility Online Communication: A Case Study of a Cosmetics Company
Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) as a stakeholder oriented concept, requires companies to be interactive with stakeholders. CSR communication, therefore, is recommended to be dialogical despite their fear of negative conversations with stakeholders. This thesis aims at understanding how a cosmetics company which is well known for actively engaging in CSR handles negative eWOM in CSR online communication with consumers. The research purpose is to understand emerged negative eWOM in CSR online communication with consumers and how it is handled by the case company for dialogical communication. The theoretical framework was build combining CSR communication research and negative eWOM management research. Inductive research approach and single case study method is used in this study. This study collected and analysed computermediated data as consumers' negative feedbacks and company's responses from the company's Facebook fan page. The results of this study indicate that negative eWOM can be handled with structural and strategic approach. Different types of emerged negative eWOM were handled with different strategies which could be either responsive or non responsive. The chosen strategy acted as a guide for response construction in order for desired strategic outcomes. Responsiveness and tone of language is also important when responding to negative eWOM. Overall, the company took active participation in CSR online communication with consumers in order to solve consumers' challenges and to project its CSR reputation.