For Whom Does CSA Matter? A Transnational Study Profiling Citizen CSA Expectations in Australia, Belgium, China, and the U.S.

Abstract

Public segmentation has been shown to help corporations respond more effectively to customer needs and expectations. However, limited research has explored segmenting the public based on their role expectations of corporate social advocacy (CSA) engagement in transnational contexts, even though corporations increasingly face these expectations in practice. This study is one of early attempts to segment customers’ expectations of CSA engagement across the U.S., Belgium, China, and Australia using latent profile analysis. The analysis identified three distinct groups with differing expectations for corporate involvement in CSA: the insular, pragmatic, and altruistic groups. These groups vary in political ideology, perceived importance and awareness of CSA, and expected motivations for corporate CSA engagement (value-driven, stakeholder-driven, strategic-driven, and egoistic-driven) across the four countries. This study offers theoretical contributions to CSA public segmentation and practical insights to help corporations better understand customer expectations for CSA engagement.