Abstract
Corporate social advocacy (CSA) has been widely studied in recent public relations scholarship. When companies engage in public discussion of controversial issues, they will inevitably alienate some publics while resonate with some others, due to the polarization nature of such issues. This chapter adopts a public-centric approach and synthesize existing literature on the factors that impact individuals’ different responses to CSA initiatives. These factors serve as criteria to categorize different publics and thus facilitating understanding of different segmentations of publics/stakeholders within the CSA context. Relevant theories that are tied to these factors are also summarized. Findings of this chapter will provide a comprehensive overview of the key variables and theoretical frameworks that contribute to public segmentation in response to CSA initiatives.