A Corpus-based Multi-dimensional Analysis on Chinese and US Corporate Responsibility Reports: A Case Study of HUAWEI and Apple

Abstract

The discourse of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) report can predict the performance of CSR. Research on the CSR report of international well-known companies can provide reference and encouragement for others listed companies. Based on the multi-dimensional analysis method of Biber, this study investigates the linguistic features of the CSR report discourse of Huawei and Apple. This study makes a comparative analysis of the CSR discourse from the two firms, to explore the differences in discourse functional dimensions between Chinese and American corporate CSR reports. This study finds that, on the one hand, there are differences between Chinese and American CSR reports in dimensions of Involved versus Informational Production, Explicit versus Situation-dependent Reference, and Abstract versus Non-abstract Information. Compared with Apple’s CSR reports, Huawei’s CSR reports are more informative and explicit, but less interactive and abstract. On the other hand, there is no significant difference between Huawei’s and Apple’s CSR reports in Narrative versus Non-narrative Concerns and Overt Expression of Persuasion dimensions, indicating that CSR reports are less narrative and persuasive in both Chinese and American firms. This study has implications for improving the quality of Chinese enterprises’ CSR reports and enlightenment value for corporations to improve social responsibility performance.