ABSTRACT
While earlier forms of corporate advocacy focused on the protection of business’ interests, the rise of social media and consumer expectations for corporations to engage publicly on a range of issues have led to corporate social advocacy, or CSA, that prioritizes social and political issues and their impacts on stakeholder groups over direct and/or obvious corporate interests. This chapter traces the historical lineage of corporate advocacy in the United States, from corporate issue advertising in the 1900s through its evolution into the corporate social advocacy commonly seen today, providing examples throughout. This chapter then discusses how CSA has been defined under the broad umbrella of corporate social responsibility, while highlighting the similarities and important divergences between the two communication strategies. Finally, this chapter reviews extant CSA research, much of which is grounded in CSR literature, and concludes with directions for future research in CSA and remaining questions within this field.
