Corporate Promises and the Price of Market Exits

Posted on June 10, 2026 by the Institute of Public Relations

https://instituteforpr.org/muravsky-promises-market-exits/

Introduction

When multinationals began exiting Russia in early 2022, Western media framed it as a story of moral clarity. On the ground, the people most immediately affected were Russian consumers who had purchased these products for years, workers whose careers depended on these companies, and local businesses built around their presence. For those communities, years of corporate social responsibility (CSR) communication had positioned these firms as long-term partners that shared local values and would stand by them over time.

This raises a critical question for communicators: What happened to those relationships, and what does it mean for any attempt to return? Many firms did not leave as permanently as headlines suggested. They preserved re-entry options through franchise agreements with contractual return clauses, temporary asset transfers, and other structures that kept the door open. As diplomatic discussions about ending the conflict continue, boardrooms are already weighing re-entry scenarios. How exits were communicated in 2022 will heavily influence whether local communities are willing to reopen that door.

Analysing the Stakeholder Reaction

To understand these dynamics, we analysed the withdrawal statements and local stakeholder reactions of 182 multinational corporations that exited Russia between February 24 and March 20, 2022. The study spanned 21 home countries and ten industry groups. Focusing on Russian-language digital media, we captured the voices of directly affected consumers, employees and communities. The dataset comprised 525,703 documents expressing negative sentiment across social networks, news outlets, blogs and forums. We measured each company’s prior CSR signalling and coded each withdrawal statement for empathetic crisis communication: whether it acknowledged concrete human impacts, expressed regret, validated the emotions of those left behind, and signalled that the relationship was not permanently severed.

The Hypocrisy Effect: When Values Backfire

The study’s primary finding was a “hypocrisy effect” in action. Companies with stronger histories of CSR signalling faced significantly higher public outrage from local stakeholders than companies with fewer public commitments. The more visibly a company had communicated its values to local audiences over the years, the more intense the backlash when it left.

CSR communication raises expectations that an organisation genuinely cares about its stakeholders and will behave consistently with its stated values. When a sudden exit occurs, local audiences interpret it less as an unavoidable constraint and more as evidence that those commitments were never fully sincere. The depth of the prior relationship does not soften the blow. It sharpens it. For brands planning to return, this means arriving not at a neutral starting point but with a reputational debt that must be acknowledged and repaid.

Companies that used empathetic crisis communication in their withdrawal statements experienced substantially lower local backlash, regardless of their prior CSR record.

Messages that recognised the real impact on workers and consumers, expressed genuine concern, validated how affected communities might feel, and conveyed regret consistently reduced outrage. Local audiences did not respond to reputational credentials. They responded to whether the company, at the moment of departure, appeared to see them as people with legitimate expectations rather than as a logistical problem to be managed.

One caveat applies to high-CSR brands: empathetic communication significantly reduced anger but did not fully close the gap. Where expectations had been set highest, even well-crafted statements could not entirely erase the sense of betrayal. For these companies, exit communication is the first chapter in a long repair story, not the last.

Practical Steps for Communicators

• Write for the people being left behind, not just the international media. Local consumers, employees and partners will decide whether re-entry is viable. Statements written for a global audience can appear distant in the local context, making future relationship-building much harder.

• Name what is being lost, not only what is being done. Go beyond references to sanctions and compliance. Acknowledge specifically what communities are losing: jobs, services, everyday routines and long-standing relationships.

• Be explicit if you intend to return. Many companies exited under arrangements that preserved re-entry options. If that intention is genuine, state it clearly, along with the conditions and how the relationship will be maintained in the meantime. That framing helps audiences see the exit as a painful interruption rather than a permanent abandonment.

• High-CSR brands need a dedicated re-entry communication strategy. Do not assume prior goodwill remains intact. Re-entry messaging must acknowledge the departure openly, explain what has changed and demonstrate renewed commitment in concrete, locally relevant terms.

• Treat geopolitically forced exits as relationship-management challenges. Market exits driven by geopolitical shocks are likely to recur. The habits communicators build now around empathy, acknowledgment and clarity about future intentions will shape how their organisations are perceived in every future disruption.

References

Coombs, W. T. (2007). Protecting organisation reputations during a crisis: The development and application of situational crisis communication theory. Corporate Reputation Review, 10(3), 163–176.

Godfrey, P. C., Merrill, C. B., & Hansen, J. M. (2009). The relationship between corporate social responsibility and shareholder value. Strategic Management Journal, 30(4), 425–445.

Muravsky, D., & Singh, L. (2025). Set fire to the rain: Can empathetic crisis communication help when CSR signalling backfires? Journal of Strategic Marketing. Advance online publication.

Schoofs, L., Fannes, G., & Claeys, A. S. (2022). Empathy as a main ingredient of impactful crisis communication. Public Relations Review, 48(1), 102150.

Vanhamme, J., & Grobben, B. (2009). “Too good to be true!” The effectiveness of CSR history in countering negative publicity. Journal of Business Ethics, 85(2), 273–283.

Dr. Dan Muravsky is Senior Lecturer in Marketing at the University of the West of Scotland. He has over 13 years of higher education experience and over 40 academic publications. His research focuses on marketing communication, gamification, brand communities and market withdrawal strategies.