Users’ perception on difference richness level of corporate social responsibility disclosure: Trust and attitude perspectives

The main purpose of this study is to examine the influence of trust and attitude on
organizational image at different levels of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR)
information richness. In this study, trust is divided into three categories; trusting belief, trusting intention and emotional trust. On the other hand, attitude is divided into two categories, namely attitude towards website and attitude towards information. This study used mixed methodology; experimental and survey. 241 students from a public university in Malaysia were selected as respondents that represented the consumers in this study. The respondents were divided into two groups based on the level of richness; rich presentation and lean presentation of CSR information on the website. Path least square multiple regressions were used to analyze data. The results revealed that trusting belief and emotional trust are the antecedents in determining organizational image. The impacts of media richness on trust factors are mixed. The rich CSR information presentation has a significant influence on trusting belief and lean presentation has a strong influence on emotional trust. The result also showed that the attitude towards website and information are the determinant factors for
organizational image. Further analysis disclosed that attitude towards website has a
significant effect on organizational image in both levels of richness. Attitude towards
information has a significant effect on organization image only in the lean presentation of CSR disclosure. The outcome of this study provides additional insights to business managers on potential investments in CSR communication in the scope of website disclosure.. For academicians, this study extends the visual disclosure literature that potentially manipulates users’ perception of the organization