Abstract
Over the last few decades, stakeholders’ growing attention towards social and environmental issues has challenged universities’ traditional accountability boundaries, imposing the adoption of innovative reporting tools that facilitate stakeholders’ engagement in Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) practices and performances. Against this backdrop, online communication tools, such as websites and social media platforms, have gained momentum as a pivotal means to increase dialogue with the myriad of stakeholders, especially during the pandemic period, as it has dramatically reduced physical interactions. Based on these premises, this study aims to dive deep into the use of social media to communicate CSR strategies in the university context by exploring the case of the University of Salerno. To this end, all posts published by the University of Salerno’s official Twitter account from 2015 to 2021 have been extracted and analyzed. Accordingly, the degree of interactions with stakeholders and the communication direction and balance level have been examined based on Carroll’s pyramid. Findings show a higher level of engagement for CSR posts and, in particular, for the philanthropic dimension. Results also highlight that, during the COVID-19 pandemic, the University of Salerno has empowered CSR disclosure through Twitter. The methodology adopted could be replicated for other universities to understand better how public universities use social media to involve a broader range of stakeholders in their CSR practices.
Highlights
In current decades, sustainability and Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) were deemed pivotal drivers for value creation for both private and public institutions (Bezani 2010; Siboni et al 2013)
Under the lens of the stakeholder engagement theory and legitimacy theory, this paper explores the case of the University of Salerno (UNISA) in order to pursue the following two objectives: (1) To investigate the extent to which UNISA is exploiting the potential of social media (SM) tools (i.e., Twitter) to disclose CSR information and engage with stakeholders; and
The present paper focuses on the UNISA, a leading Italian university seated in Fisciano, a small town in the province of Salerno
Summary
Sustainability and Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) were deemed pivotal drivers for value creation for both private and public institutions (Bezani 2010; Siboni et al 2013). Universities have started to disclose their CSR practices and performances using different communication tools, such as sustainability reports, CSR reports, alternative non-financial reports, corporate websites, press, and others (Nicolò et al 2021a; Schroder 2021) These channels do not allow the opportunity to engage with internal and external stakeholders as they are based on a one-way interaction (Gori et al 2020; Schroder 2021). The dissemination of CSR information has changed from a one-way transmission approach to communication (e.g., annual reports, sustainability reports, universities’ websites) to a two-way transactional communication approach (Reilly and Hynan 2014) In this context, universities have started to use SM to activate two-way symmetrical interactions and, in turn, engage with stakeholders
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callDisclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
