The construction of corporate social responsibility in network societies: A communication view

Journal of Business Ethics

Volumn 115, Issue 4, 2013, Pages 681-692

  Schultz, Friederike ^a,b   Castelló, Itziar ^c   Morsing, Mette ^a  

^a Copenhagen Business School ^*  (Denmark)

^b VU UNIVERSITY AMSTERDAM   (Netherlands)

^c UNIVERSIDAD CARLOS III DE MADRID   (Spain)

Author keywords

CCO; Communication; Corporate social responsibility; Legitimacy; Network society

Indexed keywords

EID: 84880945067     PISSN: 01674544     EISSN: 15730697     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1007/s10551-013-1826-8     Document Type: Article

References (121)

1. Aras, G., & Crowther, D. (2009). Corporate sustainability reporting: A study in disingenuity? Journal of Business Ethics, 87, 279–288.
2. Århus (2013). The 1st International CSR Communication Conference, Århus University, 18–20 September, 2013.
3. Amsterdam (2011). CSR Communication Conference, VU University Amsterdam, 26–28 October, 2011.
4. Ashcraft, K. L., Kuhn, T. R., & Cooren, F. (2009). Constitutional amendments: ‘‘materializing’’ organizational communication. The Academy of Management Annals, 3(1), 1–64.
5. Ashforth, B., & Gibbs, B. (1990). The double-edge of organizational legitimation. Organization Science, 1, 177–194.
6. Baden, C. (2010). Communication, contextualization, and cognition: Patterns & processes of frames’ influence on people’s interpretations of the EU constitution. The Netherlands: Eburon, Delft.
7. Bakhtin, M. M. (1981). Epic and novel. In M. Holquist (Ed.), The dialogic imagination: Four essays. Austin: University of Texas Press.
8. Barley, S. R., & Kunda, G. (1992). Design and devotion: Surges of rational and normative ideologies of control in managerial discourse. Administrative Science Quarterly, 37, 363–399.
9. Basu, K., & Palazzo, G. (2008). Corporate social responsibility: A process model of sensemaking. Academy of Management Review, 33(1), 122–136.
10. Benkler, Y. (2006). The wealth of networks. How social production transforms markets and freedom. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
11. Bennett, W. L. (2003). New media power: The internet and global activism. Oxford: Rowman & Littlefield.
12. Bhattacharya, C. B., & Sen, S. (2004). Doing better at doing good: When, why and how consumers respond to corporate social initiatives. California Management Review, 47(1), 9–24.
13. Blaschke, S., Schoeneborn, D., & Seild, D. (2012). Organizations as networks of communication episodes: Turning the network perspective inside out. Organization Studies, 33(7), 879–906.
14. Brammer, S. J., & Pavelin, S. (2006). Corporate reputation and social performance: The importance of fit. Journal of Management Studies, 43(3), 436–455.
15. Bronn, P. S., & Vrioni, A. B. (2001). Corporate social responsibility and cause-related marketing: An overview. International Journal of Advertising, 20, 207–222.
16. Capriotti, P. (2011). Communicating corporate social responsibility through the internet and social media. In Ø. Ihlen, J. L. Bartlett, & S. May (Eds.), The handbook of communication and corporate social responsibility. New York: Wiley.
17. Carroll, A. B. (1979). A three-dimensional conceptual model of corporate performance. Academy of Management Review, 4(4), 497–505.
18. Carroll, C. E., & McCombs, M. E. (2003). Agenda-setting effects of business news on the public’s images and opinions about major corporations. Corporate Reputation Review, 6(1), 36–46.
19. Caruana, R., & Crane, A. (2008). Constructing consumer responsibility: Exploring the role of corporate communications. Organization Studies, 29(12), 1495–1519.
20. Casselman, B. (2010). Chevron ad campaign answers critics hard-on. Wall Street Journal, October 18.
21. Castelló, I., & Galang, R. (2012). Looking for new forms of legitimacy in Asia. Business and Society. doi:10.1177/0007650312469864.
22. Castelló, I., & Lozano, J. M. (2011). Searching for new forms of legitimacy through corporate responsibility rhetoric. Journal of Business Ethics, 100(1), 11–29.
23. Castells, M. (2000). The rise of the network society. Oxford: Blackwell.
24. Castells, M. (2007). Communication, power and counter-power in the network society. International Journal of Communication, 1, 238–266.
25. Chen, C. C., & Meindl, J. R. (1991). The construction of leadership images in the popular press: The case of Donald Burr and people express. Administrative Science Quarterly, 36(4), 521–551.
26. Chouliaraki, L., & Morsing, M. (2010). Media, organizations, and identity. London: Palgrave MacMillan.
27. Christensen, L. T., & Cheney, G. (2000). Self-absorption and self-seduction in the Corporate Identity Game. In M. Schultz, M. J. Hatch, & M. H. Larsen (Eds.), The expressive organization. Linking identity, reputation and the corporate brand (pp. 246–270). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
28. Christensen, L. T., & Cheney, G. (2011). Interrogating the Communicative dimensions of corporate social responsibility. In Ø. Ihlen, J. Bartlett, & S. May (Eds.), Handbook of communication and corporate social responsibility (pp. 491–504). Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell.
29. Christensen, L. T., & Cornelissen, J. (2011). Bridging corporate and organizational communication: Review, development and a look to the future. Management Communication Quarterly, 25(3), 383–414.
30. Christensen, L. T., Morsing, M., & Cheney, G. (2008). Corporate communications: Convention, complexity and critique. London: Sage.
31. Christensen, L. T., Morsing, M., & Thyssen, O. (2013). CSR as aspirational talk. Organization, 20(3), 372–393.
32. Cooren, F. (1999). The organizing property of communication. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company.
33. Copenhagen. (2011). Social media for social purposes conference. Copenhagen Business School.
34. Cramer, J., Jonker, J., & van der Heijden, A. (2004). Making sense of corporate social responsibility. Journal of Business Ethics, 55, 215–222.
35. Cramer, J., van der Heijden, A., & Jonker, J. (2006). Corporate social responsibility: Making sense through thinking and acting. Business Ethics: A European Review, 15(4), 380–389.
36. Crane, A., & Matten, D. (2010). Business ethics. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
37. Crane, A., Matten, D., & Moon, J. (2008). Corporations and citizenship. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
38. De Cock, C. (1998). Organisational change and discourse: Hegemony, resistance and reconstitution. M@n@gement, 1(1), 1–22.
39. Deetz, S. (1992). Democracy in an age of corporate colonization: Developments in communication and the politics of everyday life. State University of New York.
40. Deetz, S. (1995). Transforming communication, transforming business: Building responsive and responsible workplaces. Creskill, NJ: Hampton Press.
41. Djelic, M., & Quack, S. (2012). The power of ‘limited liability’— Transnational communities and cross-border governance. In C. Marquis, M. Lounsbury, & R. Greenwood (Eds.), Communities and organizations. research in the sociology of organization (pp. 73–109).
42. Eisenegger, M., & Schranz, M. (2011). CSR—Moralisierung des reputations managements. In J. von Raupp, S. Jarolimek, F. Schultz, & F. Wiesbaden (Eds.), Handbuch Corporate Social Responsibility, Kommunikationswissenschaftliche Grundlagen und empirische Fallstudien (pp. 71–96).
43. Elving, W., Golob, U., Nielsen, A. E., Podnar, K., Schultz, F., & Thomson, C. (forthcoming). CSR and communication: The communication of the ethical position of an organization. Corporate Communications: An International Journal.
44. Esrock, S., & Leichty, G. (1998). Social responsibility and corporate web pages: Self-presentation or agenda-setting? Public Relations Review, 24(3), 305–319.
45. Etzioni, A. (1988). The moral dimension. Towards a new economics. New York: The Free Press.
46. Fernando, M. (2010). Corporate social responsibility in the wake of the Asian Tsunami: Effect of time on the genuineness of CSR initiatives. European Management Journal, 8(1), 68–79.
47. Fieseler, C., Fleck, M., & Meckel, M. (2010). Corporate social responsibility in the blogosphere. Journal of Business Ethics, 91, 599–614.
48. Flohr, A., Rieth, L., Schwindenhammer, S., & Wolf, K. D. (2010). The role of business in global governance: Corporations as norm entrepreneurs. Basingstoke: Palgrave MacMillan.
49. Fombrun, C. (2005). Building corporate reputation through CSR initiatives: Evolving standards. Corporate Reputation Review, 8(1), 7–11.
50. Freeman, R. E. (1984). Strategic management: A stakeholder approach. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice Hall.
51. Freeman, R. E., Harrison, J. S., Wicks A. C., Parmar, B. L., & de Colle, S. (2010). Stakeholder theory: The state of the art. Cambridge University Press.
52. Friedland, L. A., Hove, T., & Rojas, H. (2006). The networked public sphere. Javnost—The Public, 13(4), 5–26.
53. Gardberg, N., & Fombrun, C. (2006). Corporate citizenship: Creating intangible assets across institutional environments. Academy of Management Review, 31, 329–346.
54. Garriga, E., & Melé, D. (2004). Corporate social responsibility theories: Mapping the territory. Journal of Business Ethics, 53, 51–71.
55. Ghoshal, S. (2005). Bad management theories are destroying good management practices. Academy of Management Learning & Education, 4(1), 75–91.
56. Giroux, H. (2006). It was such a handy term: Management fashions and pragmatic ambiguity. Journal of Management Studies, 43(6), 1227–1260.
57. Göbbels, M. (2002). Reframing corporate social responsibility: The contemporary conception of a fuzzy notion. Rotterdam: Erasmus University Rotterdam.
58. Gond, J. P., & Matten, D. (2007). Rethinking the business-society interface: Beyond the functionalist gap, ICCSR Research Paper Series. Nottingham: Nottingham University Business School.
59. Gond, J. P., Kang, J., & Moon, J. (2011). The government of self-regulation: On the comparative dynamics of corporate social responsibility. Economy and Society, 40(4), 640–671.
60. Guthey, E., & Morsing, M. (forthcoming). CSR and the mediated emergence of strategic ambiguity CSR. Journal of Business Ethics.
61. Haack, P., Schoeneborn, D., & Wickert, C. (2012). Talking the talk, moral entrapment, creeping commitment? Exploring narrative dynamics in corporate responsibility standardization. Organization Studies, 33(5–6), 815–845.
62. Habermas, J. (1984). The theory of communicative action: Vol. 1. Reasons and the Rationalization of Society. Boston, MA: Bacon Press.
63. Habermas, J. (2001). The postnational constellation. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
64. Hayward, M., & Rindova, V. (2004). Believing one’s own press: The causes and consequences of CEO celebrity. Strategic Management Journal, 25(7), 637–653.
65. Holder-Webb, L., Cohen, J. R., Nath, L., & Wood, D. (2009). The supply of corporate social responsibility disclosures among U.S. firms. Journal of Business Ethics, 84(4), 497–527.
66. Hooghiemstra, R. (2000). Corporation communication and impression management—New perspectives why companies engage in corporate social reporting. Journal of Business Ethics, 27, 55–68.
67. Ihlen, Ø., Bartlett, J., & May, S. (2011). The handbook of communication and corporate social responsibility. London: Wiley-Blackwell.
68. Jahdi, K. S., & Acikdilli, G. (2009). Marketing communications and corporate social responsibility (CSR): Marriage of convenience or shotgun wedding? Journal of Business Ethics, 88, 103–113.
69. Jensen, M. C., & Meckling, W. H. (1976). Theory of the firm: Managerial behaviour, agency cost and ownership structure. Journal of Financial Economic, 3(2), 305–360.
70. Jones, T. M. (1995). Instrumental stakeholder theory: A synthesis of ethics and economics. Academy of Management Review, 20(2), 404–437.
71. Koschmann, M. A., Kuhn, T. R., & Pfarrer, M. D. (2012). A communicative framework of value in cross-sector partnerships. Academy of Management Review, 37(3), 332–354.
72. Kotler, P., & Lee, N. (2005). Corporate social responsibility. Doing the most good for your company and your cause. New Jersey
73. Krotz, F. (2007). Mediatisierung: Fallstudien zum Wandel von Kommunikation. Wiesbaden: VS-Verlag.
74. Latour, B. (2005). Reassembling the social: An introduction to actor-network-theory. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
75. Laufer, W. (2003). Social accountability and corporate greenwashing. Journal of Business Ethics, 43, 250–261.
76. Leitch, S., & Davenport, S. (2007). Strategic ambiguity as a discourse practice: The role of keywords in the discourse on ‘‘Sustainable’’ biotechnology. Discourse Studies, 9(1), 43–61.
77. Lozano, J. M. (2005). Towards the relational corporation: From managing stakeholder relationship to building stakeholder relationships (Waiting for Copernicus). Corporate Governance, 5(2), 60–77.
78. Margolis, J., & Walsh, J. (2003). Misery loves companies: Rethinking social initiatives by business. Administrative Science Quarterly, 48, 268–305.
79. Matten, D., & Moon, J. (2008). Implicit and explicit CSR: A conceptual framework for a comparative understanding of corporate social responsibility. Academy of Management Review, 33(2), 404–424.
80. May, S. (2011). Organizational communication and corporate social responsibility. In Ø. Ihlen, J. L. Bartlett, & S. May (Eds.), The handbook of communication and corporate social responsibility (pp. 87–109). Oxford, UK: Wiley-Blackwell.
81. May S., Cheney, G., & Roper, J. (Eds.) (2007). The debate over corporate social responsibility. New York: Oxford University Press.
82. Meyer, J., & Rowan, B. (1977). Institutionalized organizations: Formal structure as myth and ceremony. American Journal of Sociology, 83, 340–363.
83. Mitchell, R. K., Angle, B. R., & Wood, D. (1997). Toward a theory of stakeholder identification and salience: Defining the principle of who and what really counts. Academy of Management Review, 22(4), 853–865.
84. Monge, P. R., & Contractor, N. S. (2001). Emergence of communication networks. In F. M. Jatblin & L. L. Utnam (Eds.), The new handbook of organizational communication: Advances in theory, research, and methods. New York: Sage.
85. Moon, J., & Vogel, D. (2008). Corporate social responsibility, government, and civil society. In A. Crane, A. McWilliams, D. Matten, J. Moon, & D. Siegel (Eds.), The Oxford handbook of corporate social responsibility. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
86. Morsing, M., & Beckmann, S. (Eds). (2006). Strategic CSR Communication. Copenhagen: DJØF Publishers.
87. Morsing, M., & Schultz, M. (2006). Corporate social responsibility communication: Stakeholder information, response and involvement strategies. Business Ethics: A European Review, 15(4), 323–338.
88. Mutch, N., & Aitken, R. (2009). Being fair and being seen to be fair: Corporate reputation and CSR partnerships. Australasian Marketing Journal, 17(2), 92–98.
89. Nijhof, A., & Jeurissen, R. (2006). Editorial: A sensemaking perspective on corporate social responsibility: Introduction to the special issue. Business Ethics: A European Review, 15(4), 316–322.
90. Orlitzky, M., Schmidt, F., & Reynes, S. (2003). Corporate social and financial performance: A meta-analysis. Organizational Studies, 24, 195–216.
91. Palazzo, G., & Scherer, A. (2006). Corporative legitimacy as deliberation: A communicative framework. Journal of Business Ethics, 66, 71–88.
92. Papacharissi, Z. (2010). A private sphere, democracy in a digital age. Malden, MA: Polity Press.
93. Phillips, N., & Hardy, C. (1997). Managing multiple identities: Discourse legitimacy and resources in the UK refugee system. Organization, 4(2), 159–185.
94. Pomering, A. (2011). Communicating corporate social responsibility through corporate image advertising. In Ø. Ihlen, J. L. Bartlett, & S. May (Eds.), The handbook of communication and corporate social responsibility (pp. 379–398). Sussex: Wiley-Blackwell.
95. Porter, M. E., & Kramer, M. (2006). Strategy and society: The link between competitive advantage and corporate social responsibility. Harvard Business Review, 84(12).
96. Porter, M., & Kramer, M. (2011). Creating shared value. Harvard Business Review.
97. Putnam, L. L., & Nicotera, A. M. (2008). Building theories of organization: The constitutive role of communication. Oxford: Routledge.
98. Raupp, J., Jarolimek, S., & Schultz, F. (2011). Handbuch CSR. Kommunikationswissenschaftliche Grundlagen, disziplinäre Zugänge und methodische Herausforderungen. Mit Glossar. Wiesbaden: VS-Verlag.
99. Scherer, A., & Palazzo, G. (2007). Toward a political conception of corporate responsibility: Business and society seen from a Habermasian perspective. Academy of Management Review, 32(4), 1096–1120.
100. Scherer, A. G., & Palazzo, G. (2011). The new political role of business in a globalized world—A review of a new perspective on CSR and its implications for the firm, governance, and democracy. Journal of Management Studies, 48(4), 889–931.
101. Schoeneborn, D., & Trittin, H. (2013). Transcending transmission: Towards a constitutive perspective on CSR communication. Corporate Communications: An International Journal, 18(2), 193–211.
102. Schultz, F. (2011). Moral—Kommunikation—Organisation. Funktionen und Implikationen normativer Konzepte und Theorien des 20. und 21. Jahrhunderts. Wiesbaden: VS-Verlag.
103. Schultz, F. (2013). Corporate social responsibility, reputation, and moral communication: A constructivist view. In C. Carroll (Ed.), Handbook of communication and corporate reputation (pp. 362–375). Wiley Blackwell.
104. Schultz, F., Utz, S., & Göritz, A. (2011). Is the medium the message? Perceptions of and reactions to crisis communication via twitter, blogs and traditional media. Public Relations Review, 37(1), 20–27.
105. Schultz, F., & Wehmeier, S. (2010). Institutionalization of corporate social responsibility within corporate communications. Combining institutional, sensemaking and communication perspectives. Corporate Communications: An international Journal, 15(1), 9–29.
106. Sen, S., & Bhattacharya, C. B. (2001). Does doing good always lead to doing better? Consumer reactions to corporate social responsibility. Journal of Marketing Research, XXXVIII, 225–243.
107. Shamir, R. (2008). The age of responsibilization: On market-embedded morality. Economy and Society, 37(1), 1–19.
108. Suchman, M. (1995). Managing legitimacy: Strategic and institutional approaches. Academy of Management Review, 20, 21–571.
109. Sundaram, A. K., & Inkpen, A. C. (2004). The corporate objective revisited. Organization Science, 15, 350–363.
110. Taylor, J. R., & Van Every, E. J. (2000). The emergent organization: Communication as its site and surface. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
111. Turban, D. B., & Greening, D. W. (1997). Corporate social performance and organizational attractiveness to prospective employees. Academy of Management Journal, 40(3), 658–672.
112. Vallaster, C., Lindgreen, A., & Maon, F. (2012). Strategically leveraging corporate social responsibility: A corporate branding perspective. California Management Review, 54(3), 34–60.
113. Vogel, D. (2005). Is there a market for virtue? The business case for corporate social responsibility. California Management Review, 47(Summer), 19–45.
114. Waddock, S., & Googins, B. (2011). The paradoxes of communicating corporate social responsibility. In Ø. Ihlen, J. L. Bartlett, & S. May (Eds.), The handbook of communication and corporate social responsibility (pp. 23–44). Sussex: Wiley-Blackwell.
115. Waddock, S., & Graves, B. (1997). The corporate social performance—Financial performance link. Strategic Management Journal, 18(4), 303–319.
116. Wang, S., & Groth, P. (2010). Measuring the dynamic bi-directional influence between content and social networks. Paper presented at 9th International Semantic Web Conference.
117. Wehmeier, S., & Schultz, F. (2011). Corporate communication and corporate social responsibility: A storytelling perspective. In O. Ihlen, J. Bartlett, & S. May (Eds.), Handbook of communication and corporate social responsibility (pp. 467–488). Boston, MA: Wiley-Blackwell.
118. Weick, K. (1979). The social psychology of organizing. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley.
119. Weick, K. (1995). Sensemaking in organizations. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
120. Wiggins, J. (2008). Arla says melamine scandal has cut China sales by half. Financial Times, November 10.
121. Young, I. M. (2006). Responsibility and global justice: A social connection model. Social Philosophy & Policy Foundation.