Message design
Recognize difference.
The message acknowledges competing considerations rather than reducing the issue to one claim.
Job market paper · Dissertation Essay 2
Nuanced Advocacy.
When a company speaks on a divisive issue, a more complex message may do something a simple position cannot: demonstrate that the firm understands the conflict itself.
The idea, animatedIntegrative complexity
The problem
Advocacy is designed for clarity. Polarized audiences hear only a side.
Research frequently treats corporate activism as a question of alignment: consumers support firms whose values match their own. This project asks whether the cognitive structure of the message can change that response, especially for the people least inclined to agree.
The central idea
Nuance can signal serious engagement.
Message integrative complexity captures whether an advocacy message recognizes multiple perspectives and connects them into a coherent position. The theory: this structure shapes source credibility and, in turn, behavioral intentions among value-misaligned consumers.
Consumer inference
Reassess the source.
Consumers evaluate whether the firm appears informed, thoughtful, and credible.
Marketplace response
Decide whether to engage.
Credibility may alter downstream purchase and behavioral intentions even without value agreement.
Inside the method
Build the message. Hold the issue constant. Isolate the inference.
Two studies are complete and additional data collection is underway. The program manipulates message integrative complexity and examines the process through source credibility, with value misalignment as a boundary condition.
Method
Experimental precision
Controlled message designs separate complexity from issue position, length, and simple valence.
Measurement
Construct development
The project motivates a broader scale-development program for measuring message integrative complexity in marketing contexts.
