Does Corporate Political Activity Make TMT’s Expressed Attention to CSR Louder and Clearer?

Abstract

The impact of corporate political activity (CPA) appears to be a gap in the CSR literature. Drawing on the communicative constitution of organization (CCO) theory, which argues that communication is a dynamic process capable of changing organizational reality, we investigate under what conditions top managers’ attention to CSR when expressed publicly results in firm CSR actions. Using multiple secondary databases for the U.S. publicly-traded firms, we found the expressed attention-CSR strength relationship to be more profound where firms have high levels of PAC contributions while lobbying expenditures indicate a less profound relationship. For the measurement of expressed TMT attention to CSR, we adopted supervised learning-based content analysis, which develops classifiers by relying on probabilistic algorithm and is widely applied to various research areas. This study will contribute both theoretically and practically by expanding CCO theory to CPA research and by providing a framework which helps practitioners distinguish between sincere CSR communications and insincere greenwashing.