Chevron's Power of Human Energy: A Case for Corporate Social Responsibility as Identification Inducement

Abstract

With corporate social responsibility (CSR) emerging as an inescapable business priority around the world, organizations are developing elaborate CSR campaigns to highlight their good deeds and influence important stakeholders. Despite its potentially powerful persuasive influence, however, we know surprisingly little about the actual messaging used in contemporary CSR campaigns. Accordingly, this study investigates a major multinational-and controversial-company's CSR campaign to examine CSR messages' propensity for inducing positive organizational identification. A case study applying Cheney's (1983b) organizational identification inducements reveals that Chevron's Power of Human Energy CSR campaign extensively and strategically uses CSR messaging to induce identification. This study thus suggests that organizations are using complex, versatile, and wide-ranging identification inducements in contemporary CSR campaigns-including eliciting identification via employee and outsider voices. Results are discussed in terms of practical and ethical implications for researchers, communication practitioners, and society.