Purpose Organizations increasingly engage in corporate social advocacy (CSA), which can be understood as perceived organizational norm entrepreneurship. Perceived norm entrepreneurship may foster new societal norms, in this case related to public evaluations of organizations. This study aims to focus on factors explaining (a) when the general public feels that competitors should make similar CSA efforts too (norm-setting potential) and (b) when CSA efforts make an organization stand out positively among its competitors (norm-performance potential). Design/methodology/approach This study focused both on organizational factors (perceived norm entrepreneurship, perceived company-case fit, perceived corporate washing) and issue-level factors (perceived issue-position agreement, perceived issue salience, perceived public support) as predictors. This study conducted a preregistered, cross-sectional survey in the Netherlands (representative sample, n = 502). The respondents were randomly exposed to one of two real-world Dutch CSA examples, either related to sustainability or diversity. Findings Perceptions of norm entrepreneurship, company-cause fit, issue-position agreement and public support were all positively associated with organizations’ norm-setting and norm-performance potential. No significant associations were found in the case of perceived corporate washing, nor in the case of perceived issue salience. Originality/value This study extends existing work on norm entrepreneurship and organizations by examining it from the perspective of the public, thereby shedding light on how CSA is perceived by external audiences. This study also offers new insights into the interplay between organizations’ communication and its potential to set and perform on the norms used for public evaluations of (other) organizations.
Jacobs et al. (Wed,) studied this question.