Beyond the single business: factors that predict corporate social advocacy’s norm-setting and norm-performance potential

At present, organizations are faced with stakeholders who expect them to position themselves in relation to societal issues (van der Meer and Jonkman, 2021). In response to these public expectations, organizations increasingly engage in corporate social advocacy (CSA; e.g. Song and Choi, 2023). CSA refers to organizations’ communicative positioning on sociopolitical issues that spark public controversy and fall “outside their normal sphere of CSR interest” (Dodd and Supa, 2015, p. 288). Examples of such issues are LGBTQ+ rights and Black Lives Matter, but also climate change and geopolitical events, including the Russian invasion of Ukraine and conflicts in the Middle East.

Previous research often focused on understanding either perceptions of CSA, such as the authenticity of CSA messages (Vredenburg et al., 2020), or CSA’s effects related to the organization or issue at hand. This second stream of studies often investigates the consequences of CSA for stakeholder perceptions of and relations with the organization (e.g. Hong and Li, 2020; Song and Choi, 2023), including brand evaluations (e.g. Lim and Young, 2021) and behavioral intentions such as purchase intentions (e.g. Dodd and Supa, 2015). In addition, CSA’s social outcomes, such as issue advocacy, have been studied (Song and Choi, 2023). All these types of studies have in common that they focus on the consequences of CSA related to the studied CSA content, such as messages, organizations or issues.

In this paper, we focus on cross-organizational effects instead. By engaging in CSA, organizations position themselves in relation to their sociopolitical environment and can, thus, act as facilitators of societal change (Eilert and Nappier Cherup, 2020). In light of this, we argue that CSA can be understood as a form of organizational norm entrepreneurship, in which an organization’s communication about social causes fosters new societal standards and norms for the public and (other) organizations (Finnemore and Sikkink, 1998; Pollach, 2015; Sjöström, 2010; Wunderlich, 2013). In other words, our central assumption is that organizations engaging in CSA can be seen as norm entrepreneurs, which subsequently might influence public perceptions of how organizations in general should function in society, even if that was not the primary aim of their CSA. Our study extends previous research by shifting the focus from shareholders as norm entrepreneurs (Sjöström, 2010) to public perceptions of how organizations act as norm entrepreneurs. By examining when CSA leads the public to see organizations as (implicitly) proposing new standards for evaluating other organizations, we enhance our understanding of CSA’s normative impact on expectations of organizations. We assess how the public perceives CSA’s potential to set norms for other organizations and organizations’ performance relative to these norms. Both norm-setting and norm-performance potential refer to normative consequences of CSA beyond the focal organization: Whereas norm-setting potential reflects CSA’s influence on standards for evaluating other organizations, norm-performance potential reflects CSA’s impact on public views of the organization’s distinctiveness and the resulting disadvantage to other organizations.

Given the importance of public evaluations to organizations (Fombrun et al., 2000; Pollach, 2015), our goal is to explore which factors predict public perceptions of CSA’s norm-setting and norm-performance potential. We distinguished between both relevant organizational-level factors (i.e. perceived norm entrepreneurship, perceived company-cause fit, perceived corporate washing) and relevant issue-level factors (i.e. perceived issue salience, perceived issue-position agreement, perceived public support), which we derived from the extant literature on norm entrepreneurship and CSA effects (e.g. De Vries et al., 2015; Hong and Li, 2020; Johnson et al., 2022; Overton et al., 2021; Tsai et al., 2023; Wunderlich, 2013). We thus integrate the literature on CSA and norm entrepreneurship to assess CSA’s potential to drive societal change at the industry level:

Although organizations speaking out on societal topics is not a new phenomenon, societal responsibility has grown into a core challenge for organizations nowadays (Holmström, 2020). In response, organizations have engaged in many different activities to show their engagement with sociopolitical issues. CSA is characterized by its high levels of controversy, which has consequences for stakeholders’ attitudes: CSA can alienate stakeholder groups and, in turn, divide the organization’s publics into supporters, boycotters and noncotters (Rim et al., 2020). CSA should thus be considered a potentially risky business for organizations. This distinguishes CSA from disruptive forms of corporate social responsibility (CSR), which focus on responsibility and social change in relation to organizations’ main activities (Abidin et al., 2025).

Norms refer to “a standard of appropriate behavior” for specific actor groups (Finnemore and Sikkink, 1998, p. 891). The concept of norm entrepreneurship, originating in international relations, has found its way to business studies (Finnemore and Sikkink, 1998; Sjöström, 2010; Wunderlich, 2013). Norm entrepreneurs persuade other actors to adopt new norms: “Norms do not appear out of thin air; they are actively built by agents having strong notions about appropriate or desirable behavior in their community” (Finnemore and Sikkink, 1998, p. 896). Organizations can initiate, reinterpret, promote, maintain or enforce norms (Wunderlich, 2013). Sjöström (2010, p. 178) emphasizes the “pioneering efforts” taken by norm entrepreneurs, which she distinguishes from promoting more established norms. We interpret “norm entrepreneurship” as the public’s perception of a company’s initiation, reinterpretation or early-stage promotion of norms within their own group of social actors, that is, the business community. This definition does not exclude the possibility that a cause or norm was initially put on the wider public agenda by a different type of actor (e.g. social movement, competitor or shareholder; Sjöström, 2010) and emphasizes that norm entrepreneurship is a perception held by the public. Moreover, according to our definition, norm entrepreneurship can occur without the explicit goal of establishing a new norm, as an organization’s actions may be perceived as such by the public even if not intended that way.

CSA, with its inherent focus on communicative positioning toward sociopolitical issues, can be considered norm entrepreneurship due to two combined factors. First, by engaging in CSA, companies are communicating about desirable behavior in society. Second, they communicate about this as a business, implicitly signaling norms about how organizations should behave.

Considering CSA as norm entrepreneurship offers clear theoretical and empirical benefits. Adhering to prevailing norms can be beneficial for organizations (Deephouse and Suchman, 2008). Companies operate in complex and mediated societies in which how the public sees them is communicatively constructed (Holmström, 2020). Previous research often focuses on CSA’s consequences for the communicating organization itself (e.g. brand evaluations or purchase intentions; Dodd and Supa, 2015; Lim and Young, 2021) or on social outcomes such as issue advocacy (Song and Choi, 2023). Analyzing CSA from the perspective of norm entrepreneurship shifts the focus toward cross-organizational effects, that is, organizations’ role in society and industry. Viewing CSA from the perspective of perceived norm entrepreneurship thus allows us to shift the focus from organizations reactively navigating a complex stakeholder environment to the ways they can proactively influence the norms by which they are evaluated relative to their competitors. This perspective does not imply that engaging in CSA necessarily entails successful norm entrepreneurship, because CSA is inherently risky for organizations as it carries the potential for boycotts (Hong and Li, 2020), the effect may also be adverse.

Previous research on CSA effects focused on CSA perceptions or its consequences for the organization or societal issue (e.g. Vredenburg et al., 2020; Dodd and Supa, 2014; Hong and Li, 2020; Song and Choi, 2023). This study focuses on a different type of CSA outcome: cross-organizational effects (i.e. its norm-setting and norm-performance potential), thus, the extent to which an organization, by engaging in CSA, can affect and perform on the standards by which it, as well as its competitors, are judged by the public.

Adherence to social norms is associated with organizational success (Bitektine, 2011; Deephouse and Suchman, 2008). A common set of norms by which organizations are evaluated by the public is moral legitimacy. Moral legitimacy entails the extent to which an organization adheres to societal values, ethics and principles (Alexiou and Wiggins, 2019): “It rests not on judgments about whether a given activity benefits the evaluator, but rather on judgments about whether the activity is ‘the right thing to do’” (Suchman, 1995, p. 579). The standards used for legitimacy judgments are not fixed, instead, they reflect changing norms in society (Holmström, 2020). We adopt the term norm-setting potential to capture CSA’s capacity to set new norms for moral legitimacy judgments of organizations. Moral legitimacy, thus, reflects whether an organization’s actions are considered appropriate or desirable according to existing moral norms, while norm-setting potential refers to the organization’s perceived ability to shape or redefine those moral norms. When an organization exhibits high norm-setting potential through its CSA, the organization may act as a driver of broader societal change. Other organizations might then feel pressure to conform to meet the standards adjusted by the organization or seek to imitate the organization to maintain legitimacy (Pollach, 2015; Suchman, 1995).

For organizations, what matters is not only which norms are set, but also how they and their competitors perform on these norms, according to the public. At a basic level, an organization’s reputation reflects how consistently and credibly it is perceived to meet stakeholder expectations over time, including adherence to social norms. Reputations are multidimensional (Fombrun et al., 2000), with each dimension reflecting a specific standard used to compare organizations. For example, an organization might be evaluated based on the quality of its leadership or its performance in social responsibility, among other dimensions (Fombrun et al., 2000). For our second outcome variable, we draw on this concept of reputation. We define norm-performance potential as the extent to which CSA enables the organization to differentiate itself from competitors based on its performance relative to these evaluative standards. When the public views CSA as a positive point of differentiation, indicating high norm-performance potential, the organization can gain benefits. Reputation is inherently comparative, so competitors are disadvantaged if they are seen to perform less favorably on these standards (Deephouse and Suchman, 2008).

Norm-setting and norm-performance potential both refer to norm-based organizational evaluations. A key distinction between these constructs is that norm-setting potential stresses conformity with social norms, whereas norm-performance potential emphasizes the organization’s unique features to set it apart from competitors (Deephouse and Suchman, 2008; Pollach, 2015). We therefore focus on both outcome variables to investigate when the public perceives CSA-engaging organizations as norm entrepreneurs from complementary angles.

In this study, we aim to explore which factors predict CSA’s norm-setting and norm-performance potential. Given the limited research on the effects of CSA beyond the organization in question and on public perceptions of CSA-engaging organizations as norm entrepreneurs, it is still unclear when organizations’ CSA has the most norm-setting and norm-performance potential. Our study addresses this gap by testing the predictive value of several organizational- and issue-level factors that we derived from the norm entrepreneurship and CSA literature. H1 tests the central assumption of this paper based on the concept of norm entrepreneurship (Finnemore and Sikkink, 1998; Wunderlich, 2013): the more the public perceives an organization to set new societal standards and norms for organizations through advocating a particular sociopolitical stance, the more likely individuals are to have positive norm-setting and norm-performance judgements:

The CSA literature suggests that CSA needs to be perceived as authentic for it to result in favorable organizational perceptions (e.g. Lim and Young, 2021; Yim, 2021). Skepticism arises when the public does not trust organizations’ motives to engage in CSA. CSA research approaches studying CSA effects in different ways. Taking a functionalistic perspective, researchers have examined the role in these evaluations of the perceived fit between the organization’s values, mission and/or identity, on the one hand, and the issue stance the organization advocates for, on the other. These studies, unsurprisingly, demonstrate that perceptions of company-cause-fit help prevent the impression that the organization is simply using the cause to boost profits, and in turn, promote positive organizational evaluations (e.g. Lim and Young, 2021; O’Donnell et al., 2025; Overton et al., 2021). We assume that among such positive organizational evaluations could also be an organization’s norm-setting and norm-performance potential, because a positive assessment of company-cause-fit can be extended toward similar companies within the same sector.

Taking a rhetorical approach, growing CSA research is also considering the role of corporate “washing” perceptions in forming evaluations of the organization, including perceptions of greenwashing (e.g. Vasquez, 2022) and rainbowwashing (e.g. Lim et al., 2024). “Washing” practices refer to misleading communication from organizations about their commitment to a cause, such as climate change protection (i.e. greenwashing) and LGBTQ+ rights and inclusivity (i.e. rainbowwashing). Common forms include organizations exaggerating their commitments, making vague claims, and issuing statements that are hard for the public to verify or that lack supporting evidence (De Freitas Netto et al., 2020). CSA research suggests that positive organizational evaluations depend on how credible and genuine the public perceives the CSA stance (e.g. Lim et al., 2024; Vasquez, 2022). Based on these insights, our H2 and H3 predict that CSA is more likely to lead to norm-setting and norm-performance perceptions when the public views the initial company and the cause as aligned and free from suspicions of insincerity or deception:

The CSA literature also suggests a number of potentially important issue-level factors that could shape the broader impact of CSA beyond the organization that communicates its stance. A first is the degree to which the public agrees with the advocated stance. Researchers have found more favorable outcomes for the organization when there is alignment between the CSA stance and the opinions of the stakeholders (e.g. Dodd and Supa, 2014; Hong and Li, 2020; Xu et al., 2024). This could, for instance, be explained by social identity theory (Tajfel and Turner, 1986). This theory suggests that individuals derive their self-concept from the social groups they belong to, which impacts their perceptions and behaviors toward others. In the case of CSA, people will judge whether the ideological values as expressed in the stance align with their own values. When this is the case, they could be more likely to consider the organization as part of their in-group and therefore have positive evaluations of the organization (Xu et al., 2024). By contrast, organizations with opposing views would more likely be seen as out-group members and would then be criticized.

In addition to having stakeholders agree to the issue stance, issue salience is expected to foster norm-setting and norm-performance potential. Salience refers to the degree to which people consider the issue important to themselves and care about it (Li et al., 2022; Johnson et al., 2022). Again, following social identity theory (Tajfel and Turner, 1986), a potential mechanism might be that people value organizations engaging with issues they themselves care about. By strengthening the in-group’s sense of identity and unity, individuals may then also wish to see this norm set both within and beyond the group to which the organization belongs, and see it as an example to evaluate other organizations. In addition, issue salience has been argued to be another driver behind beneficial CSA effects to the organization (e.g. Li et al., 2022; Zhang and Borden, 2024). Thus, we expect that the personal relevance of the issue for which new norms are promoted (i.e. issue salience) is positively associated with norm-setting and norm-performance potential. Taken together, we predict in our next two hypotheses that perceived issue-position agreement and perceived issue salience foster norm-setting and norm-performance perceptions of CSA:

Finally, CSA always involves a controversial sociopolitical issue, and controversy perceptions – or its counterpart: public support perceptions – have also been shown to predict organizational outcomes of CSA. Atanga et al. (2022) found that highly controversial CSA issues negatively impacted attitudes toward the organization, compared to less controversial issues. The authors attribute this to the often ad hoc nature of CSA on controversial issues, with organizations engaging in CSA to “ride the wave” of public attention and meet consumer demands, which causes stakeholders to more likely consider the CSA disingenuous. Moreover, inspired by the theory of planned behavior (Ajzen, 1991), Kim et al. (2023) found that the more individuals perceived others to support CSA, the more positive the organizational outcomes were. We expect that this line of reasoning and previous findings will also hold for norm-setting and norm-performance potential. We therefore hypothesized that norm-setting and norm-performance perceptions require public support perceptions:

We conducted a preregistered ^[1], cross-sectional survey in the Netherlands. This country is, on the one hand, characterized by high scores on both secular-rational and self-expression values, indicating a lesser importance of traditional values and “relative acceptation” of topics such as divorce and abortion. Self-expression values refer to tolerance regarding gender equality, gays and foreigners and the importance of environmental protection and political and economic participation (World Values Survey Association, 2025). On the other hand, while the Netherlands ranks high in secular-rational and self-expression values, and citizens’ positioning toward LGBTQ+ equality and empowerment is predominantly progressive, Dutch citizens have become slightly more conservative in recent years, also on LGBTQ+ topics. Positions on sustainability topics such as climate change reflect divides among citizens (Voogd et al., 2024; World Values Survey Association, 2025). This context suggests that Dutch society is in flux regarding important societal topics, which might also translate into how citizens view organizations and their societal positioning, making Dutch citizens a good population for testing which factors predict CSA’s norm-setting and norm-performance potential.

A representative sample (i.e. across age, gender, level of education and region) of Dutch respondents was recruited with the help of the Dynata research panel (Link to dynataLink to the cited website of dynata). In total, 651 respondents started the survey. However, 29 did not complete it, and 120 failed both attention checks (i.e. they did not follow the explicit instructions to select “neutral” for one item, and “completely disagree” for another). The final sample (n = 502) had a mean age of 48 years (SD = 17.31). Women made up 50.79% of the respondents. 29.48% had obtained a degree from an applied (in Dutch: “hbo”) or academic university (in Dutch: “wo”). On average, respondents positioned themselves slightly right-center on a political orientation scale ranging from [1] entirely left-wing to [7] entirely right-wing (M = 4.25, SD = 1.42).

At the beginning of the survey, respondents were informed that the survey’s goal was to understand their views on a company in general and its communication regarding a particular topic. After providing informed consent, the respondents answered demographic questions, questions about their political leaning and news consumption and questions about their issue position on and perceived issue salience of one of two topics they were randomly exposed to: plant-based meat substitutes (n = 256) or special birth leave (n = 246) ^[2]. We considered multiple themes (i.e. sustainability and diversity) to enhance the generalizability of our findings across different types of CSA stances. Moreover, sustainability and diversity are both associated with salient and polarized debates, including in Dutch society.

Depending on the assigned topic, we next showed the respondents a webpage of one of two well-known Dutch companies that are prime examples of CSA-forward organizations. On these webpages, the companies explained their sociopolitical stances toward sustainability or diversity. The Dutch company de Vegetarische Slager [the Vegetarian Butcher] advocates in favor of plant-based meat substitutes to remove animals from the food chain. HEMA, a Dutch retail company, is known to be committed to diversity and inclusion, as exemplified by its special birth leave policy intended for new parents to bond with their child, irrespective of whether one of the parents gave birth (which, for instance, applies to adoption or surrogacy). The webpages were not altered. Following CSA exposure, we measured the remaining independent variables as well as our dependent variables. We finally debriefed the respondents and thanked them for their participation. This study was approved by the ethical review board of the authors’ institution.

Norm-setting potential refers to CSA’s perceived ability to set new norms for the moral judgment of organizations. The norm-setting potential measure was inspired by the moral legitimacy scale that was developed by Alexiou and Wiggins (2019). We selected six items that could best be adapted for our purposes. Unlike their scale, which focuses on moral evaluations of the organization itself, our measure asked respondents to assess the extent to which the company’s CSA initiative establishes a new moral norm for other organizations; that is, how much it represents an action necessary for maintaining or enhancing moral legitimacy of these other organizations. On a seven-point Likert scale (1 = completely disagree, 7 = completely agree), we asked the respondents to indicate their agreement with the statements such as: “If other companies were to adopt the same policy as [the assigned company], ” (a) they would seek to meet ethical standards, (b) the general public will approve of it and (c) the world would be a better place (α = 0.93; M = 4.55, SD = 1.24). Table A1 in  Appendix 1 lists the Dutch items and English translations for this variable.

Norm-performance potential refers to the extent to which people perceive that a company positively distinguishes itself from others through its CSA activities, thereby performing on newly established norms. Our measure was inspired by the reputation scale developed by Fombrun et al. (2000). We asked respondents to think of the assigned company and the assigned topic before rating these items. While the original scale focused on the organization at hand, we modified the items to assess how a company’s CSA initiatives allow it to stand out relative to competitors. We selected the three most relevant scale dimensions for this purpose: (a) emotional appeal, (b) vision and leadership, and (c)social and environmental responsibility.

On a seven-point Likert scale (1 = completely disagree, 7 = completely agree), the respondents indicated to what extent they agreed with nine statements, including “Compared to other companies, [the assigned company] distinguishes itself positively in terms of” (a) the good feeling it gives me, (b) having a clear vision for the future of this company and (c) “practicing corporate social responsibility” (α = 0.94; M = 4.51, SD = 1.15). See Table A1 in  Appendix 1 for an overview of the Dutch items and their English translations.

According to Wunderlich (2013), norm entrepreneurs “may initiate a new norm or a reinterpretation of an existing one, they may promote norms to attract an increasing number of supporters and followers; they may struggle to maintain a contested or otherwise endangered norm and enhance its strength or they may engage in enforcing a norm violated by a defecting actor” (p. 36). Based on these different elements of what norm entrepreneurship can entail, we formulated five statements: “With its policy on [the assigned topic], I think that [the assigned company]” (a) initiates new societal norms, (b) interprets existing societal norms in a new way, (c) promotes new societal norms, (d) is committed to preserving a societal norm that is being challenged and (e) is committed to upholding a societal norm that others do not take as seriously. We asked respondents to rate these statements on a seven-point Likert scale (1 = completely disagree, 7 = completely agree; α = 0.88; M = 4.70, SD = 0.88).

Perceived company-cause fit was measured on seven-point Likert scale (1 = completely disagree, 7 = completely agree) by means of three items from Overton et al. (2021), including “I think there is a good fit between [the assigned company] and [the assigned topic]” and “I think [the assigned company]’s efforts to support [the assigned topic] is a logical choice for [the assigned company]” (α = 0.89; M = 4.81, SD = 0.89).

We also measured perceived corporate washing on a seven-point Likert scale (1 = completely disagree, 7 = completely agree) by means of three items adapted from De Vries et al. (2015). However, the scale’s reliability significantly improved after dropping one item. This left the statements: “[The assigned company]” (a) has hidden intentions and interests, and (b) presents itself as more socially responsible than it actually is (r = 0.63, M = 3.83, SD = 1.39).

A four-item semantic differential scale was adopted from Tsai et al. (2023) to measure how much respondents’ own issue stance aligned with the company’s CSA stance. They indicated their agreement with the organization’s issue position on a seven-point scale: (a) not beneficial to society – beneficial to society, (b) harmful to society – benign to society, (c) negative – positive, (d) undesirable – desirable (α = 0.91; M = 4.50, SD = 1.57).

Based on Johnson et al. (2022), four questions were asked to measure perceived issue salience. We, for instance, asked the respondents how important [the assigned topic] was to them personally (1 = very unimportant, 7 = very important) and how much they cared about it (1 = not at all, 7 = very much; α = 0.76; M = 3.30, SD = 1.45).

To measure perceived public support, we asked respondents (Noelle-Neumann, 1993): “Regardless of your own opinion, what do you think: are most Dutch people for or against [the assigned topic]?” They could answer using a seven-point semantic differential scale (1 = completely against, 7 = completely in favor; M = 4.17, SD = 1.38).

Finally, we had preregistered that we would include respondents’ familiarity with the assigned company as a control variable in the statistical analyses to avoid the possibility that differences in familiarity with the company and with its CSA initiatives would influence the results. We therefore measured to what extent they were familiar with the assigned company on seven-point scale, ranging from 1 = not at all familiar to 7 = extremely familiar (M = 4.77, SD = 1.72). An independent t-test showed significant differences in familiarity scores (t(453.24) = 9.98, p < 0.001, d = 0.88), with HEMA being more well-known among our respondents (M = 5.48, SD = 1.25) than de Vegetarische Slager (M = 4.09, SD = 1.83). This supports the importance of controlling for this variable while testing our hypotheses.

To test our hypotheses, we fitted two linear regression models, one for each dependent variable. All six independent variables were included as predictors. The variance inflation factors were all below 2.50, indicating no concerns regarding multicollinearity. As preregistered, we controlled for the assigned company and familiarity with the company. We also conducted robustness checks by including age, gender, education and political orientation as additional controls, but adding these variables barely increased the explained variance and left the conclusions unchanged (see  Appendix 2, Tables A2–A4 for the full regression tables). For this reason, we report the results without these additional controls.

We found four significant associations with perceived norm setting [F(8, 493) = 147.80, p < 0.001, R² = 0.71]. In line to what was hypothesized, perceived norm setting increased with higher scores on perceived norm entrepreneurship (H1a; β = 0.28, SE = 0.04, p < 0.001), company-cause fit (H2a; β = 0.39, SE = 0.03, p < 0.001), issue-position agreement (H4a; β = 0.22, SE = 0.03, p < 0.001) and public support (H6a; β = 0.12, SE = 0.02, p < 0.001). The results showed no significant associations in the cases of perceived corporate washing (H3a; β = 0.01, SE = 0.02, p = 0.72) and issue salience (H5a; β = 0.03, SE = 0.03, p = 0.42).

The same four variables were shown to be significantly associated with perceived norm performance [F(8, 493) = 148.60, p < 0.001, R² = 0.71]. As predicted and was the case with perceived norm-setting, perceived norm performance increased with higher scores for norm entrepreneurship (H1b; β = 0.32, SE = 0.04, p < 0.001), company-cause fit (H2b; β = 0.44, SE = 0.03, p < 0.001), issue-position agreement (H4b; β = 0.09, SE = 0.03, p = 0.02) and public support (H6b; β = 0.08, SE = 0.02, p = 0.002). Again, no significant associations were found between perceived norm performance and perceived corporate washing (H3b; β = −0.02, SE = 0.02, p = 0.54) or issue salience (H5b; β = 0.05, SE = 0.03, p = 0.13).

Thus, while H3 and H5 did not hold, H1, H2, H4 and H6 were supported. As illustrated in Figure 1, perceived company-cause fit and norm entrepreneurship emerged as the strongest predictors, each demonstrating small-to-medium-sized associations, while the perceived issue-position agreement and public support associations were only small.

Companies can position themselves in relation to sociopolitical developments by engaging in CSA. Whereas previous research often focused on the consequences of CSA related to contents that were included in the study itself, such as messages, organizations or issues (e.g. Hong and Li, 2020; Song and Choi, 2023; Vredenburg et al., 2020), we studied CSA’s consequences beyond the single business. By conceptualizing CSA as perceived norm entrepreneurship, we aimed to explain CSA’s potential, according to the public, to set the norms used for organizational evaluation and its norm-performance potential: Its ability to strengthen differentiation between organizations.

We found that perceived norm entrepreneurship indeed predicts both norm-setting and norm-performance potential: The more an organization’s CSA is considered as engaging in norm entrepreneurship, the more people believe that other organizations should make such an effort too (norm setting) and the more people believe that the organization positively distinguishes itself from competitors (norm performance). Norm entrepreneurship attempts are typically conceptualized as a “struggle to get [an] idea accepted as a new standard for behavior” (Wunderlich, 2013, p. 32), indicating that these attempts do not succeed by default and are often contested before gaining broader acceptance. Our finding provides a remarkable insight: The mere perception of proposing new norms can, in itself, be influential. When CSA efforts are perceived as instances of norm entrepreneurship, we found that the CSA raises public expectations of the bar for the behavior of all (similar) organizations. Thus, our research demonstrates an impact of CSA beyond the single business.

Perceived company-cause fit matters even more than norm entrepreneurship for both perceived norm setting and norm performance. The finding implies that perceived norm setting and norm performance can be added to the list of outcomes previously identified as being positively influenced by company-cause fit, such as the initial concept of reputation, purchase and boycott intentions and legitimacy (Dodd and Supa, 2015; Hong and Li, 2020; Lim and Young, 2021; Overton et al., 2021; Yim, 2021). Although “fit” is clearly defined as the perceived congruence between the company and issue at hand (see, for instance, Overton et al., 2021), future research could further unravel the empirical mechanism of company-cause fit: How do different organizational and issue attributes, such as the organization’s mission or target group and the issue’s urgency or controversy, weight in stakeholders’ assessment of “fit,” and, thus, how can we further empirically uncover the explanatory mechanism between perceived company-cause fit and the diverse set of CSA outcomes?

In addition, we found that perceived public support also predicts both norm-setting potential and norm-performance potential, confirming the findings by Kim et al. (2023). Given that CSA entails the risk of consumer alienation and boycotts (e.g. Dodd and Supa, 2014; Hong and Li, 2020), perceived public support appears important for minimizing consumer backlash and maximizing CSA’s impact on norm setting and norm performance.

To our surprise and in contrast to previous research, we found no significant associations between our outcome variables and perceived corporate washing, issue-position agreement and issue salience. Our outcomes, however, differ from those examined in previous research (e.g. Dodd and Supa, 2014; Li et al., 2022; Lim et al., 2024; Vasquez, 2022) in that they do not reflect perceptions of organizations in isolation but in relation to others. High predictor scores did not translate into public expectations for organization-wide norm adoption or performance. Our findings therefore suggest that, in contexts where organizations are evaluated comparatively, the explanatory power of these three predictors diminishes. People may suspect a CSA initiative is “greenwashed” or “pinkwashed” yet still acknowledge its impact, especially in the absence of more authentic alternatives. Likewise, people may agree in principle with the norm but still resist imposing that standard on all organizations, for instance when trade-offs (e.g. higher prices or reduced convenience) are anticipated. Perceived issue salience, in turn, may signal personal relevance but does not provide direction in terms of what the “right” norm, or solution to the problem, is. However, more research is needed in this area to confirm these mechanisms.

For organizations, it is worth pointing out that both perceived norm setting and norm performance are predicted by the same set of variables. This finding suggests that organizations seeking to implement CSA can efficiently assess their proposed strategy against a single set of criteria, potentially achieving dual benefits – boosting norm-setting potential and norm-performance potential – as suggested by Pollach (2015) in the context of CSR, legitimacy and reputation.

A strategic approach to CSA would require businesses to also communicatively emphasize how the social cause fits their mission, vision or identity, as company-cause fit was the most important predictor of positive public perceptions of an organization’s norm setting and norm performance. While communication professionals might feel reluctant to engage in CSA because they fear being perceived as insincere (corporate washing), it seems they should not let this factor dominate their societal positioning considerations. When seeking recognition as a norm setter and performer, ensuring the CSA aligns with the organization can improve such public perceptions without increasing concerns about insincerity.

Our findings also have communicative implications for businesses exposed to it but not directly engaging in it. Such companies can be considered norm receivers (Wunderlich, 2013). Environmental monitoring (e.g. van der Meer and Jonkman, 2021) can help organizations to identify competitors’ social positioning and thus assist them in spotting norm emergence (Finnemore and Sikkink, 1998). If CSA is detected, two key questions emerge. First, norm receivers can consider if and how they also want to communicatively position themselves in relation to the CSA topic. If they choose to amplify the new norm, they become norm promoters, potentially triggering wider norm adoption (Finnemore and Sikkink, 1998; Sjöström, 2010). Norm receivers might also consider taking substantive action to meet the proposed norms (norm internalization; Finnemore and Sikkink, 1998; Sjöström, 2010). In addition, for each detected instance of CSA, it is worthwhile for norm receivers to assess public support for these new norms proposed in the CSA message, as public support was found to be an important predictor of norm-setting and norm-performance potential, and thus for the norms by which norm-receivers’ behavior is judged.

Our findings showed that bringing the concept of norm entrepreneurship to business studies (Sjöström, 2010) provides a fruitful lens to further explore the role of corporations in the communicative aspects of norm emergence and its amplification, opening up many more avenues for research. In this study, we focused on two instances of CSA by exposing participants to companies’ self-descriptions on their websites. However, in many cases, the public is informed about corporations’ behavior by (social) media coverage, and vice versa, companies need media visibility to reach stakeholders (Einwiller et al., 2010). Mediatization and polarization affect how organizations can position themselves, how this is portrayed in the news, and, consequently, stakeholders’ awareness of and attitudes toward news on companies (van der Meer and Jonkman, 2021). In future research, it is therefore crucial to understand how corporations communicatively balance their positioning on salient political issues and their business interests (e.g. avoiding boycotts, Hong and Li, 2020). Specific attention should be paid to the assessment of the impact of the current complex and dynamic media landscape on the interpretation and amplification of norms proposed by organizations.

Our study fits in a research tradition in which studies often focus on progressive forms of CSA (e.g. Li et al., 2022; Zhang and Borden, 2024), that is, advocating for norm change or new norms. Analyzing CSA from the perspective of norm entrepreneurship opens the way for a more dynamic approach to CSA, for instance, by focusing on different types of positioning like more conservative stances or in a religious context (Waymer and VanSlette, 2021) or by assessing the communicative dynamics of norm life cycles (Wunderlich, 2013).

In addition, our study has been conducted in a single country characterized by two factors: High scores on secular-rational and self-expression values (World Values Survey Association, 2025) and a recent tendency toward more conservatism (Voogd et al., 2024). While both factors make this an interesting case to test the predictors of CSA’s norm-setting and norm-performance potential, they also limit the generalizability of the results to comparable societal contexts. Future research would benefit from cross-cultural comparisons.

Another limitation of our study is that, because our study relied on a survey, it can reveal associations but not causal relationships. An important area for future research is assessing CSA’s norm-performance and norm-setting potential in a controlled, experimental context using a theoretical lens frequently mentioned in CSA research but not yet rigorously empirically tested in this context. For instance, given the strong presence of social identity theory-related explanations to account for the effects of CSA (e.g. Zhao et al., 2024), one could test social identity theory’s propositions in the context of CSA to further unravel the role of message (cf. DiRusso et al., 2022) and individual characteristics in the emergence, diffusion, maintenance and contestation of societal norms related to business (cf. Finnemore and Sikkink, 1998), and in the assessment of its social outcomes.

In sum, our study sheds new light on the relations between companies’ CSA, conceptualized as norm entrepreneurship and its norm-setting and norm-performance potential. This novel perspective enhances our understanding of how public perceptions of CSA shape organizations’ potential to affect and perform on the norms used for public evaluations of a broader group of organizations.