Corporate Social Responsibility Content Research Articles

Identifying Financially Material Content in Corporate Social Responsibility Reports

ABSTRACTThis study examines the relationship between financially material content in corporate social responsibility (CSR) reports and the decision usefulness of these reports. Utilizing sustainability disclosure standards and a machine learning topic modeling algorithm, a firm‐specific quantitative measure of financially material content in CSR reports is developed. It is hypothesized that firms providing greater amounts of financially material CSR content enhance their information environment, which enables analysts to make more accurate earnings predictions. The findings confirm a positive relationship between the extent of financially material CSR content disclosed and analyst forecast accuracy. This research demonstrates the effectiveness of using machine learning to identify financially material content within unstructured voluntary disclosures and contributes to the literature on the financial materiality of CSR activities and their related disclosures.

Interaction Between Public Authorities and Business in the Field of Corporate Social Responsibility: Issues of Legal Regulation

Introduction. The formation of sustainable economic growth (development) presupposes the successful economic activity of entrepreneurs and their socially responsible behavior. At the same time, for effective legal regulation of economic activity, it is ne­cessary to determine what exactly is meant by corporate social responsibility and what should be the attitude of law to various socially significant actions of entrepreneurs. Theoretical Basis. Methods. The research is based on the use of general scientific methods (system method, game theory method, methodological individualism, functional method, formal logical methods (deduction, induction, analysis, synthesis, etc.)) and special legal methods (formal legal, legal comparative research, law and economics, legal modeling method). Results. To assess the content of corporate social responsibility, two models have been identified. The first model assumes that the mission of a business is to maximize profits and pay taxes. Within the second model, in addition to paying taxes, other measures (charity, environmental projects, etc.) are added to the social responsibility of business. The general question, however, is how should the law respond to corporate social responsibility measures? Consideration of corporate social responsibility measures in the general context of economic activity made it possible to develop a universal approach to legal regulation. Discussion and Сonclusion. The article substantiates that the promotion of corporate social responsibility measures at the level of legal regulation should be determined by the needs of society, the lack of entrepreneurs’ own incentives and the difficulty of implementing social projects by public authorities. At the same time, legal norms can both directly provide for legal consequences when implementing certain measures and indicate the possibility of concluding vertical (managerial) agreements, allowing, at the level of individual regulation, to establish modes of activity for entrepreneurs when implementing certain measures of corporate social responsibility.

Does information content of a corporate social responsibility report matter for stock mispricing? Evidence from China

We examine the impact of the information content of a firm's corporate social responsibility (CSR) report on stock mispricing using a sample of Chinese firms from 2007 to 2021. By leveraging the recent advances in textual analysis, we apply the Word2Vec technique to detect the information content of a focal firm's CSR report. Our findings suggest that the degree of a focal firm's stock mispricing decreases with increased information content of its CSR report. The results remain robust after considering a variety of sensitivity tests. Mechanism analyses reveal that the information content of a CSR report mitigates stock mispricing by reducing information asymmetry and alleviating investor irrational behavior. Heterogeneity analysis shows that the effect is more salient when firms face higher degree of uncertainty, both at the macroeconomic and industrial levels. Additionally, we document that a higher degree of information content of a CSR report contributes to a higher firm value.

Assessing the provision of innovative technologies for the growth of corporate social responsibility in Lithuania

The object of this study is the assessment of the provision of innovative technologies for the growth of corporate social responsibility by types of economic activity in Lithuania. In the course of the research, the problem of determining the level of provision of corporate social responsibility with innovative technologies as a factor of its growth was solved; establishing a benchmark for the regularity of the growth of corporate social responsibility by types of economic activity in Lithuania. As a result of the study, an integral indicator of the provision of innovative technologies for the growth of corporate social responsibility by types of economic activity in Lithuania was obtained, which does not correspond to the reference model of the pattern of growth for each. The peculiarity of this study is the comprehensive approach, which takes into account the multi-component content of corporate social responsibility, its relationship with internal and external elements of the socio-economic system, namely its growth, based on the use of innovative technologies. A distinctive feature of the results, owing to which they made it possible to solve the set tasks, is multidimensionality, that is, the structure, dynamics, relationship of the research object were taken into account, quantitative and qualitative indicators were used, and a complex methodological toolkit of matrix business modeling. The results of the study make it possible to determine in practice the level of assurance of the growth of corporate social responsibility by innovative technologies. Taking into account deviations from the reference model of growth patterns, make decisions about the introduction of certain types of innovative technologies in certain components of corporate social responsibility.

Social impacts reflected in CSR reports: Method of extraction and link to firms innovation capacity

Assessing and comprehending the social impact of firms at global and local level is a pressing concern for both researchers and policy-makers. To address this concern, our paper contributes to the stream of literature that studies the content of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) reports (which are also referred to as non-financial statements, sustainability reports or parts of annual reports) using text mining methods. We present a novel approach called Standard-based Impact Classification method (SBIC method), which employs natural language processing (NLP) and supervised machine learning techniques to identify the types of social impacts reflected in CSR reports. We deploy a Random Forest model which we train on reports adhering to Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) framework, enabling the identification of social impact in the majority of CSR reports that do not conform to this standard. Our proposed SBIC method serves as a valuable tool for comparing the social impacts generated by firms, industries, or countries. We showcase an application of our approach by examining the relationship between a company’s social impact and its innovation capacity. Our findings support the existing literature consensus that CSR activities generally exhibit a positive correlation with a firm’s ability to innovate. Furthermore, we reveal that specific types of social impacts have a more pronounced influence on innovation capacity.

Changes in corporate social responsibility activity during a pandemic: The case of COVID‐19

AbstractThis study examines the practice of corporate social responsibility (CSR) during COVID‐19. Little is known about how organizations practice CSR during acute exogenous crises. Overlooking how CSR practices change during a crisis matters because organizations are compelled into trade‐offs that carry implications for their CSR initiatives. Analysis of interview data with CSR managers, from 21 Dubai‐based business organizations during COVID‐19, uncovers changes in the content and process of CSR during the pandemic. The results show that the practice of CSR underwent a fundamental change in focus as organizations shifted to an employee‐centric model of CSR and away from an environmental one. Measures placed on organizations and society to combat the pandemic also led to a recalibration of stakeholder and issue salience, with notable effects on CSR that challenge the capability of the power–legitimacy–urgency framework to anticipate these shifts. We consider the impacts associated with the shift in the content of CSR initiatives and process of their implementation and discuss the implications of the findings for CSR theory, research, policy, and practice.

Factors Affecting Corporate Social Responsibility Web Disclosure: Evidence from the Consumer Sector in Indonesia

An increasing number of companies disclose information about their financial performance, however, publishing Corporate Social Responsibility information on company’s websites is still limited. This study examines the factors affecting Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) web disclosure, as well as examine whether firms with high CSR web disclosure are less likely to engage in earnings management. Corporate Social Responsibility may indicate transparent and reliable financial statements. To do so, we investigate factors that affect the extensiveness of CSR web disclosure. In addition, we investigate the impact financial statement quality on CSR web disclosure. Based on a content analysis of the CSR web disclosure of consumer sector of Indonesia listed companies, this research analyzes the content of CSR disclosures with respect to the following four themes, include environmental information, employee information, community involvement information, and products information areas. Companies publish their CSR disclosure on company’s websites only during the year, therefore we could not collect data on its prior year. Using a sample of 94 consumer sector companies listed on the Indonesia Stock Exchange in 2020, our OLS regression results indicate that company size has a significant effect on CSR web disclosure. In contrast, there is no association between public share ownership, board of commissioner size, audit committee size, profitability, and leverage, on CSR web disclosure. We find no evidence of companies with high-level CSR web disclosure publishing more transparent and reliable financial statement than companies with low-level CSR web disclosure.

Revision of Business Content on Corporate Social Responsibility

With more and more people interested in how sustainable and socially responsible companies are, the comprehensibility of content on corporate social responsibility (CSR) has become paramount. Producing easy-to-read business content – either by writing it from scratch or revising it – is a cognitively demanding undertaking, especially for second-language non-professional writers. Both formal training and sustained practice can help writers build expertise and, in turn, be considerate of their intended audience. In particular, research on the impact of training has usually yielded positive results when examining the texts produced following specific instruction. However, the extent to which training has a positive effect on the process of writing and revision is still under-researched, especially in second language. To address this gap, we report on an experimental study that examines the impact of reader-oriented training on the cognitive effort experienced by 47 second-language university students when revising CSR content. We adopted a pre-test post-test design, and we used keystroke logging and retrospective interviews to collect data on students' pausing behaviour, use of online sources, and strategies to approach the revision task. Our training seemed to reduce the cognitive effort linked with lexical choices. Furthermore, it provided some students with procedural knowledge on how to approach the revision task in a more efficient way. We also observed a general tendency to rewrite (rather than revise) CSR content despite the higher cognitive effort required by rewriting. We discuss implications for training, limitations, and future research avenues.

Assessing the Influencing Factors of Electronic Word-of-Mouth on CSR Issues. A Case of Hospotality Service Industry of China.

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) information can be effectively disseminated via social media in a variety of industries, including the hospitality sector. In the same way, the media has a significant impact on CSR because the news media helps companies achieve their CSR goals. Prior research has not examined the main factors that influence electronic word of mouth (eWOM) on media coverage of CSR issues via social networking websites. For the purpose of examining the most significant predictors of intention to share or comment on negative CSR news reported by one media outlet on a specific social networking site (SNS). 677 Wechat users in China were surveyed in order to test the proposed model empirically. According to the findings of the study, eWOM intentions are positively influenced by environmental CSR content, and advertisement related CSR content. It also confirmed that the value of information is positively influenced by the credibility of the source. The variables interpersonal influencer impact and privacy concerns had no significant relationship, nor did they have any significant relationship with the intentions to share and comment on Wechat. Further the study findings suggest the theoretical and managerial policy recommendation for decision makers.

Accessible Communication of Corporate Social Responsibility: Development and Preliminary Evaluation of an Online Module

Communicating clearly about their socially responsible activities is becoming increasingly important for companies, as a growing number of stakeholders with different goals, knowledge, and language skills seek information on corporate social responsibility (CSR). Furthermore, the ability to communicate clearly is particularly appreciated in the workplace. To fill a gap in CSR communication training, this article describes the development and preliminary evaluation of an interdisciplinary and multimodal online module whose goal is to train Dutch-speaking business students in the production of accessible CSR content in English. After presenting our module, we discuss its implications for future training and for corporate communication.

РОЗВИТОК КОРПОРАТИВНОЇ СОЦІАЛЬНОЇ ВІДПОВІДАЛЬНОСТІ У ДІЯЛЬНОСТІ СУЧАСНОЇ УКРАЇНСЬКОЇ КОМПАНІЇ

Today the Ukrainian business environment is characterized by continuous transformation processes, which contributes to the permanent change of operating conditions of companies.The active development of Ukrainian business poses new challenges to domestic companies for change and innovation, which are directly related to the need of using the concept of socially responsible business. The intensification of competition in the Ukrainian market is forcing companies to improve their current business processes and intensify new effective management tools. In the system of modern management such a tool is corporate social responsibility. Most Ukrainian businesses have already realized that in order to achieve sustainable development, increase competitiveness, increase market share and improve reputation, it is necessary to make a positive business contribution to the development of corporate social responsibility, which will include economic, environmental and social factors. Such a strategy will serve to create favorable conditions for successful business in the long run. Theoretical bases of formation of corporate and social responsibility are investigated. The evolution of CSR is considered. The necessity and efficiency of implementation of the concept of socially responsible business are determined. The current state of the Ukrainian CSR market is analyzed. The stages of development of corporate social responsibility are determined. Trends and key directions for the development of CSR in the activities of a modern Ukrainian company have been formed. The purpose of the article is to study the content of corporate social responsibility, justify the need to intensify the position of socially responsible company and determine the main social activities of business for the development of CSR in the activities of modern Ukrainian companies.

Analysis of Twitter posts for evaluation of Corporate Social Responsibility in the leather industry

Leather industry is facing the consequences of their historic lack of communication and now are under an increasing pressure to communicate their position and policies with regards to corporate social responsibility (CSR), informing consumers about the corporations’ good intentions and actions to recover clarity and be able to affirm without doubts that responsibly manufactured leather is sustainable. Under this context, this paper aims to examine CSR communication in the leather sector on Twitter identifying the main topics of CSR and the main participants in the creation of content and thus contribute to the development of CSR strategies for the leather industry. A software framework has been implemented in order to manage big text data in the study of CSR and sentiment computational content analysis to classify the tweets as positive, negative, or neutral. The results show that the general public associates leather with the environment, sustainability, and fashion. The general opinion about the leather industry’s CSR is rather neutral. Nonetheless, negative opinions occupy a close second place, and positive opinions are rare. Lastly, alternative bio-materials sneak in the industry reshaping the opinions to more positive ones.

Development of the corporate social responsibility of industrial enterprises in the Voronezh Region: institutional and organisational aspects

Subject. The current decade has been recognised by the world community as “a decade of decisive actions” aimed at combating numerous social and environmental issues. Solving these problems is impossible without mobilising the efforts of the business community. In this regard, corporate social responsibility (CSR) becomes highly important as well as the issue of integrating its principles into business activities. Since the industrial sector is characterised by the most significant impact on the environment and the local community and involves substantial labour resources, the implementation of CSR by industrial enterprises is of particular interest. Purpose. An analysis and assessment of the prospects for the development of corporate social responsibility among industrial enterprises in the Voronezh Region. Methods. The study involved a quantitative strategy for collecting and analysing information. The empirical basis was data from a survey carried out at 30 industrial enterprises in the Voronezh Region. Results. The empirical study allowed shaping the big picture of how CSR is understood and implemented by industrial enterprises in the Voronezh Region in terms of: the composition of the main CSR programmes and addressees; international and national CSR standards used in the activities and the formation of internal institutions for the CSR development; the nature and forms of interaction between enterprises, the state, and non-profit organisations; and assessing the prospects and barriers to the development of CSR. Conclusions. The social responsibility of non-public regional industrial enterprises remains fragmentary. There is a gap between the actual CSR content, its understanding by the management personnel of enterprises, and the current implementation of social programmes in practice. All activities of industrial enterprises in the field of CSR continue their technical and technological processes or business processes. Enterprises pay little attention to non-production activities. Enterprises are not interested in disclosing information about their activities, reducing any adverse impact they have on the environment, contributing to the sustainability of the territories where they are located, and the formation of civil society. Businesses act as closed systems that exist outside society. In order to develop the CSR of regional industrial enterprises, a set of measures (financial and economic, organisational, informational, and educational) has been proposed, which ensures the relevance of the content of regional industrial policy.

CSR Education in Economia Aziendale Curricula: An Overview

In the last few years, policymakers have underlined the need for new soft and hard skills about corporate social responsibility (CSR). The main debate about CSR education has been driven by the 2030 Agenda, which explicitly recognized Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) as having a pivotal role. In particular, many academics started to develop qualitative and quantitative studies to evaluate the integration of CSR contents in business schools’ curricula. The paper aims to contribute to the existing debate through the analysis of the contribution provided by Italian HEIs to CSR Education. In particular, we adopted qualitative methods to evaluate the specific contribution provided by Economia Aziendale scholars.

Corporate social responsibility disclosure on the websites of coffee chains in Turkey

PurposeCoffee is among the primary products that attract the public attention to the social and environmental responsibilities of companies. Coffee shops have a big carbon footprint because of their daily operations. With the rising consciousness about sustainability in developing countries, online disclosure of corporate social responsibility (CSR) is becoming increasingly important for not only multinational but also local coffee chains. The purpose of this study is to analyze the extent to which coffee chains include CSR on their websites.Design/methodology/approachTurkey, which is a large emerging economy with an expanding coffee chain market, is selected as the research context. The CSR disclosure on the websites of coffee chains is examined by content analysis according to CSR dimensions. A sample of 27 coffee chains with more than ten stores is included in the analysis.FindingsForeign coffee chains disclose more information on the environment and fair trade than local coffee chains. On the other hand, CSR content in websites of foreign and local coffee chains does not differ significantly in human resources and community dimensions. Foreign coffee chains have comparatively longer brand history, more rooted brands and larger networks than local coffee chains.Originality/valueTo the best of the author’s knowledge, this study is the first that used a content analysis about CSR on the websites of coffee chains in Turkey. Findings contribute to the understanding of CSR disclosure in the coffee chain industry and can be beneficial for researchers and managers in other emerging markets.

An examination of the determining factors of users’ intentions to share corporate CSR content on Facebook

ABSTRACT Corporate social responsibility (CSR) has become an essential concept in the context of the hospitality industry, where it is considered as a significant factor in competition and firms’ survival. However, little is known about the factors that influence electronic word of mouth (eWOM) regarding CSR communication through social media in the hotel context. This research proposes a comprehensive model including expressive information sharing, environmental consciousness, homophily and attitude towards sharing firms’ content (both commercial information and about environmental CSR issues) as predictors of individuals’ intention to share firms’ content on a specific social networking site (SNS). To test the model empirically, Facebook users were surveyed in Spain. Empirical testing confirms most of the hypothesized effects except the influence of expressive information sharing on attitude towards sharing firms’ environmental CSR content, the impact of homophily on attitude towards sharing firms’ commercial content, and the influence of this variable on intentions to share content on Facebook.

Governance in banks using not-for-profit organisations to deliver their corporate social responsibility

Orientation: Little exists in academic literature on the governance framework underlying the relationship between not-for-profit organisations (NPOs) delivering corporate social responsibility (CSR) on behalf of donors.Research purpose: The purpose of this study was to examine community value created by four leading South African retail banks through their CSR initiatives implemented by NPOs.Motivation for the study: This study was motivated by the need to assess banks’ public disclosure of their CSR efforts in terms of community upliftment.Research design, approach and method: A qualitative, exploratory approach was adopted, using content analysis of CSR projects and bank NPOs, which have been given as public disclosure on the banks’ websites. Purposeful, one-on-one, interviews were then undertaken with NPOs and the CSR community recipients and content analysis was again used to identify key themes.Main findings: The findings of this study indicate that banks do not adopt standardised reporting to the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE) and therefore the measure of success for community upliftment is impossible to gauge.Practical/managerial implications: This study proposes a need for the development of a standardised CSR measurement framework for use by the JSE.Contribution/value-add: The study highlighted the critical role of CSR governance in creating community upliftment.

Impact of Corporate Social Responsibility in mining industries

The mining sector plays a fundamental role in the global economy since it provides vital raw materials and energy for a large number of industries but mining activities are commonly criticized due to the effects on workers’ health and local communities, and are seen as a threat to society in general. For these reasons, companies have to deal with the compatibility between the productive activity and the Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). Under this context, this paper aims to examine CSR communication in the mining sector on Twitter and identify the main topics of CSR and the main participants in the creation of content. A software framework has been developed in order to manage big text data in the study of CSR and sentiment computational content analysis to classify the tweets as positive, negative or neutral. Twitter was chosen since it is one of the three most commonly used social network sites by mining companies for information sharing and stakeholder engagement. The data collection period was from February 2019 to December 2019 and it resulted in 2,000,000 Twitter posts. The results show the CSR debate is increasingly growing in developing countries and in countries with a bad reputation of environmental and health mining conditions. The debate is mainly centered on the impact of mining industries on the land, and many stakeholders advocate for more environmental responsibility since they consider that mining activities are still controversial.Also, results reveal that the mining sector should improve the CSR disclosure and adopt a stakeholder engagement strategy grounded in the corporate stakeholder relationship perspective, the two-way symmetrical communication, and the dialogic theory of public relations. Social network sites such as Twitter can lead to positive outcomes for companies since they are not only a way to advertise what the company does with regards to CSR, but also to receive input from other for their CSR activities.

CSR disclosure on Twitter: Evidence from the UK

Ongoing advancements in technology have dramatically changed the disclosure media that companies adopt. Such disclosure media have evolved from traditional paper-based ones to the internet as the new platform for disclosing information on companies’ designated websites; however, the new media for disclosures are currently social media platforms. Among the important disclosures that companies make are Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) disclosures. These are now deemed indispensable due to growing social awareness among societies. While a significant body of the literature is dedicated to studying CSR disclosures and their determinants on the traditional media, studies examining CSR disclosures on social media are quite few. Hence, the aim of this paper is to investigate corporate social media accounts for CSR disclosures, as well as identify their determinants. The sample of the study is comprised of tweets posted on the Twitter accounts belonging to the FTSE 350 constituents. Topic modeling, an unsupervised machine learning approach, is applied to identify CSR disclosure tweets and regressions are run to identify the determinants of CSR disclosure on Twitter. The utilization of topic modeling to reveal CSR content on social media is considered a new approach to mainstream CSR disclosure literature; as such, this paper examines the new phenomenon of CSR disclosures on social media using new research methods. Results show that the popularity of Twitter as a CSR disclosure platform has risen significantly over the past few years. The paper also provides evidence that the presence of women on company boards, especially non-executive women, is positively associated with the extent of CSR disclosure on Twitter. Results highlight the importance of board independence for CSR disclosure in a social media disclosure context, complementing other disclosure platforms. Larger firms are also found to disclose more CSR information on Twitter compared to smaller ones indicating that firm size plays an important role determining a company’s level of CSR disclosure on social media.

Social media as stakeholder engagement tool: CSR communication failure in the oil and gas sector

AbstractThis article explores to what extent oil and gas companies use social media to engage with stakeholders on Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) strategies. Drawing from the analysis of oil and gas megaproject facing the local community's protects, the research aims to highlight the level of stakeholder interaction on CSR's actions disclosed by social media. The study considers the Trans Adriatic Pipeline experience and the degree of interactions between the company and its stakeholders. According to Carroll's pyramid, the contents of Tweets were analyzed with the assistance of the statistics software program “TwitteR” and classified by their content. The analysis of the engagement practices on Twitter reveals that legitimization is influenced by the CSR contents proposed by the firms and the phase of megaproject development. Results suggest that social media communication does not always respond to stakeholder claims that should be periodically monitored through adequate stakeholder engagement tools.