While practice and research show that Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) communication on social media can have positive effects on corporate reputation, brand attitude and purchase intention, ...consumer engagement with CSR posts has been underwhelming. Companies are not successfully tapping into the inherent potential of social media communication. This theoretical review integrates extant CSR and social media communication research to contribute to a better understanding of the processes involved in CSR effectiveness on social media. We develop a theoretical model of CSR social media communication, that takes into account its specific characteristics-sensitivity to peer influences through norm activation, interactivity, viral CSR message propagation through sharing, CSR empowerment, and humane-oriented appeals in CSR posts. The hypothesized framework connects CSR and social media-specific drivers with two social media CSR communication outcomes: i) CSR effectiveness in terms of CSR associations, corporate/brand attitude and purchase behavior, and ii) social media performance indicators related to propagation on the network-social media endorsement and opposition (liking, positive and negative commenting, and sharing of the CSR post). The model explains the resulting relationships through mediation processes based on CSR credibility and motive attribution, psychological consumer empowerment, moral emotions, as well as social identity and norm activation. Self-construal and community identification are identified as consumer-based contingency factors of these effects. The review framework provides an extended process-oriented agenda for future studies. The paper recommends multi-brand experimental field studies in a real-life social media setting and highlights the requirement of industry collaboration. The expected findings will help companies to choose relevant CSR initiatives, design effective CSR posts, boost viral propagation on the network, and counter and avoid social media opposition through negative feedback.
The current study examines the influence of CSR orientation and CSR competencies of hotel managers on their CSR participation. Moreover, the mediating role of CSR commitment in the connection between ...CSR orientation, CSR competencies and CSR participation has also been tested. Data from 324 CEOs (chief executive officers), finance manager, policy makers, and managing directors of 4 stars and 5 stars hotels were collected. Results reveal that CSR orientation and CSR competencies positively predict CSR commitment. Moreover, CSR commitment significantly predicts the CSR participation. The findings of the study also confirm that CSR commitment mediates the relationships between CSR orientation and CSR participation and CSR competencies and CSR participation. The results of the study suggest that managers having control on organizational resources can positively contribute towards CSR activities and successfully respond to the demands of various shareholders by focusing on societal and environmental issues.
Can mandated adoption of corporate social responsibility (CSR) improve firm value? Most CSR adoption is purely voluntary. However, governments regularly encourage CSR adoption with soft regulations ...that vary from simply endorsing and symbolically supporting CSR to requiring the adoption of specific practices. Governments have resisted fully mandating CSR because there is some concern universally that mandated CSR may reduce firm value. There is, however, no empirical clarity as to whether mandated CSR impedes or improves firm value. We address this uncertainty by analyzing the effects of the mandated adoption of CSR that the government of India legislated in 2014. Drawing on a sample of 1,526 publicly traded firms and deploying a combinative analytical framework comprising an event study, regression discontinuity design, and a difference-in-differences technique, we conclude that India’s CSR mandate did, in fact, increase value for all firms bound by the mandate. This value-enhancing effect was greater for foreign firms relative to domestic firms. Our results refute previous research showing that India’s CSR mandate diminished firm value.
Interest in corporate social responsibility (CSR) has grown beyond traditional macro-level research to also consider employee-level outcomes of CSR. This nascent stream has focused on the ...relationship between organizational CSR initiatives and employee outcomes within the organization. Distinguishing between substantive and symbolic CSR (i.e. genuine CSR vs. greenwashing), we argue that to understand employee outcomes requires identifying their underlying attributions of their organizations’ CSR initiatives and the process by which these differential attributions are formed. Integrating theorizing and findings from the organizational behavior, marketing, and strategy literature, we propose a model of employee attribution formation of organizational CSR initiatives as substantive versus symbolic to differentiate the positive outcomes to organizations when causally evaluated as engaging in substantive CSR, from the null or possibly negative employee outcomes when these initiatives are attributed as symbolic. Implications for practice and applications to management are also discussed.
While the idea and terminology of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) stem from the 1950s and companies have been practicing CSR and advertising their engagement for some time, the advertising ...literature has had a late start to this topic. More recently, CSR has become prominent in both advertising practice and research. With a specific focus on the role of the International Journal of Advertising (IJA), this paper aims to provide a historical perspective of how CSR advertising has been covered in the past and which topics are the ones being most intensively discussed at present. Our review uses bibliometric co-citation analysis with CiteSpace to identify the most relevant topics in CSR advertising research and IJA's contribution to these topics. Within the CSR advertising topics identified, we highlight under-researched themes, as well as upcoming trends to suggest future avenues for the further development of CSR advertising research.
Purpose: The purpose of this study is to determine how the practices of corporate social responsibility (CSR) influence the wealth of shareholders of industrial goods producing companies listed on ...the Exchange Group Plc of Nigeria and other developing countries.
Theoretical Framework: The role played by CSR practices in enhancing shareholders’ wealth has attracted the interests of companies’ executives and policy makers all over the world. The theoretical foundations of this research work are provided by the Shareholder Value Theory, the stakeholder theory, the Business Ethics theory and the Agency theory. However, this work is anchored on the shareholder value theory propounded by Milton Friedman in 1970 and this is used to evaluate the influence of corporate social responsibility on shareholders’ wealth.
Design/methodology/approach: The study uses the ex-post facto research design and judgemental sampling technique to select a sample of 10 industrial goods producing firms listed on the Nigerian Exchange Group Plc as at 31st December, 2021. Social responsibility relationships with the society, employees, suppliers, customers, tax authorities and lenders provide the basis for sample selection. Information from the financial statements of the sampled companies was used to compute weighted average cost of capital (WACC), rate of stock turnover, actual corporate tax rate, invested capital, leverage, return on equity (ROE), value of debts and value of equity. This approach facilitates the computation of economic value added (EVA) which is used as proxy for shareholders’ wealth. Firm-year observations of 1,840, ordinary least squares panel data regression, fixed and random effects models, stationarity test, cross-section dependence test and the Hausman test are used for data diagnosis and analysis.
Findings: The research has disclosed that CSR to society positively and significantly influences shareholders’ wealth while CSR to suppliers and lenders have non-significant positive effect on shareholders’ wealth. Contrastingly, it is further revealed that CSR to employees and tax authorities have significant negative effects on shareholders’ wealth while CSR to customers negatively and non-significantly influences shareholders’ wealth.
Research, Practical & Social implications: The implication for managers is that CSR relationship with society is value enhancing in Nigeria’s industrial goods sector while CSR relationships with employees and tax authorities are value destroying. Value enhancing results of the dealings with suppliers and lenders and the value destroying result of the dealings with customers lack sufficient evidence. This research has helped in filling the gap in the existing literature and in serving as the basis for the economic and social development of Nigeria and other developing and developed countries of the world.
Originality/value: This is the first time in the industrial goods sector that we are associating four new corporate social responsibility variables namely, CSR to suppliers, CSR to customers, CSR to tax authorities and CSR to lenders with shareholders’ wealth. This study encourages the revival of CSR to employees and CSR to tax authorities which are currently value destroying in the industrial goods sector of Nigeria.
Growth in CSR-washing claims in recent decades has been dramatic in numerous academic and activist contexts. The discourse, however, has been fragmented, and still lacks an integrated framework of ...the conditions necessary for successful CSR-washing. Theorizing successful CSR-washing as the joint occurrence of five conditions, this paper undertakes a literature review of the empirical evidence for and against each condition. The literature review finds that many of the conditions are either highly contingent, rendering CSR-washing as a complex and fragile outcome. This finding runs counter to the dominant perception in the general public, among activists, and among a vocal contingent of academics that successful CSR-washing is rampant.
Purpose
This study aims to explore the set of corporate social responsibility (CSR) committee attributes that may enhance CSR performance and CSR strategy formation and reduce CSR controversies.AQ1 ...Towards this end, the study also explores the differences between companies with and without CSR committees in terms of these three CSR performance facets.
Design/methodology/approach
The study uses a sample of financial times stock exchange (FTSE) 100 non-financial companies in 2015–2017. Kruskal-Wallis test is conducted to test the differences in CSR performance in firms with CSR board-level committee, CSR management committee and no committees. Additionally, a regression model is used to explore the attributes of CSR committees that lead to better/less CSR performance and CSR strategy/CSR controversies. A two-stage least squares regression model was used as a robustness check.
Findings
Firms with board CSR committee have better CSR performance and CSR strategy and lower CSR controversies than both firms with no CSR committees and firms with a CSR management committee. Regression results show that CSR committees that are predominantly consisting of independent board members, chaired by a female director and setting more meetings have better CSR performance. Additionally, CSR committees were found to have lower CSR controversies when having more independent directors and a chair with CSR expertise. CSR strategy was better with the CSR committee represented by a larger group of members.
Originality/value
This study makes several contributions to the sustainability governance literature and regulatory/guidance interfaces. There is extant literature examining audit committee attributes and their effects on various firm outcomes. The same can be said on the regulations of the audit committee. CSR committees’ composition and benefits are, by far, less regulated and largely under-researched. Hence, this paper is considered an early attempt to explore the CSR performance improvements a CSR committee may bring and the composition that would bring better CSR performance.
As past research has identified frontline employees as the primary communicators of a company's CSR, this paper reports on a large-scale quasi-field experiment aimed at gaining a deeper understanding ...of the levers of successful in-store, pointof-sale, CSR communication. In cooperation with a large international retailer, the authors analyzed the effects of varying in-store CSR communication strategies in 48 unique stores, combining data from a customer survey (N = 38,999), company records of customers' real visits and purchases, and interviews with store managers. Taking into account the nested structure of the data, the authors reveal that CSR-related training of frontline employees bestows its favorable effect on customers and customer behavior only if it is accompanied by the store managers' personal support for CSR.
