A Comparative Study on the Identity Construction of New Energy Enterprises Between China and the United States Based on Discourse Historical Approach

Abstract

Up against climate change, the identity construction and corporate social responsibility of new energy enterprises are of great strategic significance to corporate reputation and competitiveness. Taking the corporate social responsibility reports of BYD and Tesla from 2018 to 2022 as the corpus, this study takes the Discourse-Historical Approach (DHA) as a theoretical framework to analyze the identity construction of Chinese and American new energy enterprises and the social context behind them. It is found that BYD and Tesla both have constructed the corporate identities of “smart car provider”, “faithful environmentalist”, and “zealous globalist” based on social contexts of China and America. Due to the differences between the two cultures, BYD and Tesla have won a good social reputation by building the corporate identities of “social-oriented contributor” and “self-oriented contributor” respectively. This study not only provides a reference for the in-depth study of corporate identity discourse construction, but also guides Chinese and foreign enterprises to construct good corporate identity through corporate social responsibility reports.