Bridging the Legitimacy Gap Beyond Borders: Country-of-Origin Effects in Strategic CSR Communication

This research examines how strategic communication sources can overcome country-of-origin biases in multinational corporations’ CSR messaging. Two experiments with U.S. consumers reveal that companies from high-animosity countries (China) face significant legitimacy deficits across pragmatic, moral, and cognitive dimensions compared to domestic firms, mediated by intrinsic motive attributions. However, third-party communication sources effectively neutralize these negative effects. Nonprofit organizations prove most effective for enhancing moral and cognitive legitimacy, while social media influencers excel at building pragmatic legitimacy, with CSR credibility as the key mediating mechanism. The findings advance communication theory by demonstrating how strategic source selection can overcome audience biases and revealing differential communication effectiveness across legitimacy dimensions. This research provides a framework for international CSR communication that transforms potential country-of-origin liabilities into competitive advantages through evidence-based message design strategies.