Communicating Green Innovation to Online Communities: Evidence from Sports Mega Events

Abstract

Tourism and event organizers implement green innovation to mitigate the negative environmental impacts they cause. However, how to effectively communicate these green innovations to online communities remains a challenge. Drawing on message framing and construal level theories, we collected 503 tweets and used an exploratory sequential mixed-methods approach to analyze the textual data. First, we conducted abductive coding analysis, identifying two novel framing forms, innovative and value chain framings. Second, using negative binomial regressions, we found that input-value (vs. output-value) framing is often used but decreases online engagement. Moreover, proximal (vs. distal) framing is less used but enhances online engagement. Third, we explored the moderating effect of green innovation, revealing that innovative and proximal framings are more effective for green organizational innovation, whereas emotional framing is more effective for green service innovation. This study offers novel insights on how to strategically communicate green innovation to event online communities.