The Role of Perceived Authenticity of Social Communications in Social Innovation Ratings

This chapter aims to shed light on how customers perceive companies’ social innovation as well as on how to understand the role exerted by the perceived authenticity of companies’ communication of social initiatives. Building on a model of customer-perceived firm innovativeness, this research analyzes the factors that drive consumers to perceive a company as highly committed to social innovation. This research also explores the mediating role of perceived authenticity of companies’ social communication on the company social innovation ratings. To test the proposed hypotheses, structural equation modelling is used with a sample of 17,100 firm evaluations from Spanish customers that cover 57 firms grouped in 10 industries. The study’s main finding reveals that perceived authenticity of social communications strongly mediates the relationship between perceptions of changes made by the company on various social issues and the company’s social innovation ratings. The findings have clear implications for managers in terms of the importance of coherence between social initiatives and the way in which they are communicated (i.e., true-to-fact authenticity).