Dr Regina Chen, Associate Professor of the Department of Communication Studies of the School of Communication, recently won a Best Faculty Paper award in the Public Relations Division from the International Communication Association (ICA), a central organisation in the field of communication.

The winning-paper is entitled “Mobile CSR activities in crises: An examination of gratifications, CSR motives, social media use on mobile devices, and relationship outcomes”. For the research, Dr Chen and her team randomly surveyed 1,433 Americans in the context of the Harvey Hurricane disaster with the aim of better understanding the effect of mobile corporate social responsibility (mCSR) on the public’s relationship with corporations by considering mobile-device use gratifications and perceived CSR motives.

Results showed that user gratifications for technological convenience (accessibility), information exchange (cognition needs), and social interaction (recognition needs) significantly predicted the level of public trust and control mutuality toward the corporation that initiated mCSR for the Harvey Hurricane disaster relief. In addition, the value-driven CSR motive and the egoistic-driven CSR motive were the positive and negative predictor of relationship outcomes, such as trust, control mutuality, satisfaction, and commitment.

The study concluded that mobile-based CSR activities are an effective means for cultivating relationships with Americans in a natural crisis if they are perceived as value-driven. mCSR activities further drive public trust if the activities can allow the public to easily contribute to disaster relief while simultaneously fulfilling their informational and social needs associated with the disaster.

The paper is co-authored with Dr Cheng Yang of North Carolina State University, Dr Jin Yan of University of Georgia and Dr Flora Hung-Baesecke of Massey University in New Zealand.