Understand corporate social responsibility from an agenda setting perspective: a cross-national analysis of newspaper using computer-assisted content analysis

Abstract

Purpose This study aims to explore multifaceted corporate social responsibility (CSR) covered in popular English newspapers in the UK, USA, mainland China and Hong Kong from 2000 to 2016 via a computer-assisted analytical approach. This study moves the understanding of CSR away from corporate self-reporting to the mass media and raises interesting questions about the role of the news media in presenting CSR as a multifaceted, socially constructed concept. Design/methodology/approach Data were retrieved from CSR-related news articles from 2000 to 2016 that were archived in the LexisNexis database. Guided by the theoretical framework of agenda setting, a computer-assisted content analysis (Latent Dirichlet Allocation) was used to analyze 4,487 CSR-related articles from both business and non-business news sources. Analysis of variance was used to compare salient CSR topics in each country/region. Findings This study identifies newspapers as an alternate to corporations’ attempts to distribute CSR information and construct CSR meaning. The findings revealed that the news communicates a variety of CSR issues that are aligned or beyond what CSR was defined in corporate CSR reporting, as suggested in previous studies. In addition, CSR news coverages differ between the business and nonbusiness news sources. Furthermore, the media tone of CSR coverage significantly differed across the regions and between the business and nonbusiness newspapers. Social implications Emerging topics in CSR news coverage, such as business education, could help companies identify untapped CSR realms in the market. Originality/value This study contributes to CSR communication research by adding a non-corporate perspective regarding what CSR means and should be focused on. The news media presents CSR using a heterogeneous approach as they not only provide surface reports on corporations’ CSR activities but also offer in-depth discussions.

From Reactionary to Revelatory: CSR Reporting in Response to the Global Refugee Crisis

“…We found that technology companies were not only among the most engaged in CSR programming, echoing recent findings (Wang & Cooper, 2022) but also had the most coupled programs. Such companies may rely on CSR communication to obtain legitimacy (Zhang & Dong, 2021) in reporting coupled programs in response to the crisis, or position themselves as industry leaders by extending beyond the institutional expectations dictated by industry-advocacy fit (Lammers & Barbour, 2006; O’Connor & Shumate, 2010).…”

“…Therefore, we relied on a more inductive approach to time in our study. Rather than focusing on studies from year-to-year during a period of increased refugee activity (United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, 2021), we considered the role of media in highlighting this issue (Yang & Saffer, 2019; Zhang & Dong, 2021) and the suggestion that international media coverage of refugee issues increased in late 2015 (Trilling, 2019). Therefore, we split our time period into three periods intended to capture the years leading up to and following peak coverage.…”

“…Although research suggests that controversy can be a deterrent for a corporation’s CSR work (Shabana et al, 2017), other research suggest that some organizations are interested in controversial issues even if they fall outside of advocacy fit (Parcha & Kingsley Westerman, 2020; Vogler & Eisenegger, 2021). This indicates that some corporations might pursue issues such as refugee needs that receive public attention or media coverage (Yang & Saffer, 2019; Zhang & Dong, 2021), even if they are not necessarily directly related to corporate work. Organizations that are perceived as industry leaders because of their prominence or size may also feel more freedom to deviate from expectations (Lammers & Barbour, 2006) by engaging a different social issue from their peers, or a social issue on which there is no broad consensus.…”

Wrinkles in a CSR story: mismatched agendas in fast fashion service brands' CSR reputation

“…Moreover, we restricted our data collection to a recent three-year period (2018, 2019 and 2020). Zhang and Dong (2021, p. 269) state that “ as CSR has rapidly developed in the past decade, up-to-date data must be incorporated into the analysis ”.…”

“…Businesses try to build their own CSR reputation by means of CSR reports and press releases (Lee, 2016;Pollach, 2015). Simultaneously, the news media highlight various CSR topics through news reporting (Zhang and Dong, 2021). The salience and tone of this news reporting has a positive relationship with corporate reputation (Vogler and Eisenegger, 2021).…”