How Leading Firms Pursue Legitimacy through CSR Communication? A Cross-Regional Analysis

Abstract

To deepen our understanding of how firms pursue different forms of legitimacy in communicating their corporate social responsibility (CSR), a specific framework has been developed. By employing a specific methodology for content analysis of online CSR communication, four different CSR legitimacy-seeking strategies are compared across European, North-American and Asian firms included in both Dow Jones Sustainability Index (DJSI) and Hang Seng (Mainland China and Hong Kong) Corporate Sustainability Index (HSMHSUS). The analysis reveals that Asian firms do not present significant differences in how they disclose on corporate websites their orientation to sustainability (i.e. institutional rhetoric) than European and North American counterparts. However, they seem significantly less inclined to engage in political (i.e. how they report their stakeholder engagement and governance structure), dialogic (i.e. how they adopt a two-way dialogue strategy) and strategic rhetoric in comparison with European firms. The difference between Asian and North American firms mostly concerns the former¡¯s less salient use of the strategic rhetoric, namely the ways in which firms disseminate content on CSR issues to gain societal support and, at the same time, seek competitive advantage. The comparative study sheds light on how concrete legitimacy strategies through CSR communication vary in different contexts. The paper suggests the need to further explore CSR communication as an indicator of the evolution of legitimacy-seeking approaches by firms.