What makes people willing to comment on social media posts? The roles of interactivity and perceived contingency in online corporate social responsibility communication

ABSTRACT Interactivity is an important concept in the study of online social processes. Two experiments tested how interactivity influenced people’s willingness to comment on social media and their perceptions of a company’s corporate social responsibility (CSR) efforts. Across two operationalizations of interactivity (presence/absence of replies, high/low degree of reference to earlier messages), interactivity led to greater perceived contingency, which led to greater willingness to comment and more positive CSR perceptions. Results advance the interactivity effects model by demonstrating that (a) perceived contingency plays a crucial role in interactivity effects, (b) language intensity moderates the relationship between perceived contingency and willingness to comment, and (c) perceived contingency is fostered only by companies’ interactive messages and not consumers’ interactive messages.