A goodwill shield for crisis communication: Exploring the ‘Halo Effect’ of CSR activities

• Published in: Public relations review Vol. 51; no. 4; p. 102602
• Main Authors: Page, Tyler G., Lin, Carolyn A.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Elsevier Inc 01.11.2025
• Subjects: Corporate social responsibility; Crisis communication; Offensiveness; Revised model of reputation repair; Virtuousness; Virtuousness; Corporate social responsibility; Crisis communication; Offensiveness; Revised model of reputation repair
• ISSN: 0363-8111
• DOI: 10.1016/j.pubrev.2025.102602

Corporate social responsibility is a corporate citizenship component that can serve as a goodwill shield to help protect organizational reputation in a crisis. How this good will shield functions to influence audience evaluation of corporate reputation, which often balances moral judgment and the nature of the offense, is not well-understood. As research addressing CSR and crisis management remains limited, this study explored this complex process with a between-subjects experiment regarding a fictional company. Participants were given introductory information about the company and asked to rate how they perceived the CSR of the fictional company. Next, participants were shown a crisis about the story and responded to measures of perceived crisis offensiveness, virtuousness, and then reputation of the company. Findings demonstrated that pre-crisis CSR perception had a significant halo effect on post-crisis perceptions of company reputation——as mediated by perceived virtuousness and crisis offensiveness—instead of a direct carryover effect. •The effect of perceived CSR on post-crisis reputation is tested in an experiment.•The halo effect is tested against a carryover effect.•Perceived CSR has a positive halo effect on post-crisis reputation that is mediated through virtuousness.•No significant carryover effect was discovered in this research.•The revised model of reputation repair is utilized to examine how perceptions of crisis influence post-crisis reputation.