Theoretical perspectives on CSR & Communication: Meta-Analysis, Deconstructivism

Author 1:

Garima Agrawal
Hidayatulla National Law University Email: [email protected]

Author 2:

Swati Devikar
Hidayatullah National law university Email: [email protected]

Introduction and meaning of CSR

The word responsibility in the world of business corporations has historically been to make money and increase shareholder value. In other words, corporate financial responsibility has been the sole bottom line driving force. However, in the last decade, a movement defining broader corporate responsibilities for the environment, for local communities, for working conditions, and for ethical practiceshas gathered momentum and taken hold. This new driving force is known as corporate social responsibility (CSR). CSR is also sometimes described as the corporate triple bottom linethe totality of the corporations financial, social, and environmental performance in conducting its business. There is as such no universal definition of corporate social responsibility, it generally refers to transparent business practices that are based on ethical values, compliance with legal requirements, and respect for people, communities, and the environment. Thus,we can say that beyond making profits, companies are responsible for the totality of their impact on people and the planet. People here constitute the companys stakeholders: its employees, customers, business partners, investors, suppliers and vendors, the government, and the community. Increasingly, stakeholders expect that companies should be more environmentally and socially responsible in conducting their business. In the business community, CSR is thus mans that a company should be good neighbor within its host community which can also be called as corporate citizenship,

Maximizing benefits through CSR

CSR should not be viewed as a drain on resources, because carefully implemented CSR policies can help organizations to reap benefits such as:

It can help an organization to win new business. Increase customs trust. It can enhance relationships with customers, suppliers and networks and othe r stakeholders Attract, retain and maintain a happy workforce and be an Employer of Choice Save money on energy and operating costs and manage risk Differentiate yourself from your competitors Generate innovation and learning and enhance your influence Improve your business reputation and standing Provide access to investment and funding opportunities Generate positive publicity and media opportunities due to media interest in ethical business activities

Need to communicate CSR

Needless to say, the business returns to CSR are contingent on stakeholders' awareness of a company's CSR activities. Much of the academic research to date, in its pursuit of insights into the psychological mechanisms and outcomes of CSR-driven stakeholder behaviors, has largely presumed or mandated (e.g. in laboratory studies) CSR awareness on the part of the relevant test populations. However, recent studies with real stakeholders revealed that awareness of a companys CSR activities among its external stakeholders (e.g. consumers) or even among its internal stakeholder (e.g. employees) are typically low, hence constituting a key stumbling block in the company's quest to reap strategic benefits from its CSR activities. Hence it is most needed that the stake holders of a company must be made aware of the CSR activities that the company undertake. Beyond awareness, the next key challenge of CSR communication is how to minimize stakeholder skepticism. While stakeholders claim they want to know about the good deeds of the companies they buy from or invest in, they also quickly become apprehensive of the CSR motives when companies aggressively promote their CSR efforts. In general, stakeholders' attribution of a company's CSR motives may be of two kinds: extrinsic, in which the company is seen as attempting to increase its profits; or intrinsic, in which it is viewed as acting out of a genuine concern for the focal issue. While stronger attributions of intrinsic motives lead stakeholders to make positive inferences about the company's underlying character, and thus react more positively towards the company, perceptions of predominantly extrinsic motives lead to less favorable stakeholder attitudes and behaviors toward the company .

What is CSR communication and what are its elements

CSR Communications is a new discipline of corporate management which integrates marketing, PR, and communications around Corporate Social Responsibility and Stakeholder engagement. This includes:

Cause marketing Social Marketing Corporate Reputation Management CSR and Sustainability Reporting Stakeholder engagement

Thus the above can be called as the various elements of CSR communication; these are explained in detail below: Cause marketing : Cause marketing or cause-related marketing refers to a type of marketing involving the cooperative efforts of a "for profit" business and a non-profit organization for mutual benefit.Joint funding and promotional strategy in which a firm's sales are linked (and a percentage of the sales revenue is donated) to a charity or other public cause. However, unlike philanthropy, money spent in cause- related marketing is considered an expense and is expected to show a return. Benefits of Cause Marketing Differentiates the company from its competitors Lower employee turnover rate Assists in developing a closer relationship with current and potential customers Enhances the companys positive image and visibility to its customers Showcases current, new and upcoming products and services Assists in unloading obsolete inventory Allows a company to compete more effectively against bigger firms that have larger advertising budgets Promotes loyalty to doing good will within the community Both long term and short term sales see boosted figures Ability to capture ongoing media attention for cause marketing campaign (pre-campaign, during the campaign and post campaignheightening sales opportunities and brand awareness) Halo Effect Yearly tax write off benefits Social marketing : Social marketing is the systematic application of marketing, along with other concepts and techniques, to achieve specific behavioral goals for a social good. Social marketing can be applied to promote merit goods, or to make a society avoid demerit goods and thus to promote society's well being as a whole. For example, this may include asking people not to smoke in public areas, asking them to use seat belts, or prompting to make them follow speed limits. The primary aim of social marketing is social good. Benefits of social marketing :

Better Targeting High Return on Investment Does not require specialization or vast technical skills Works better than online ad campaigns

Increased visibility

Corporate Social Reputation Corporate reputation management relies on external research and perception data to monitor and improve the organizations reputation. CSR and sustainability reporting Sustainability reporting, alternatively known as CSR reporting, is the annual process whereby companies - public, private; large and small - report on their sustainability performance. Reports typically cover social, environmental, economic and ethical performance and incorporate information on a company's environmental impact or carbon footprint, staff satisfaction, community investment etc.

Stakeholders Engagement
While it is generally agreed that companies need to manage their relationships with their stakeholders, the way in which they choose to do so varies considerably. When companies want to communicate with stakeholders about their CSR initiatives, they need to involve those stakeholders in a two-way communication process, defined as an ongoing iterative sense-giving and sense-making process. Companies need to communicate through carefully crafted and increasingly sophisticated processes. Based on empirical illustrations and prior research, the authors argue that managers need to move from informing and responding to involving stakeholders in CSR communication itself. They conclude that managers need to expand the role of stakeholders in corporate CSR communication processes if they want to improve their efforts to build legitimacy, a positive reputation and lasting stakeholder relationships.

What to communicate: message content

A company's CSR message can pertain largely to a social cause itself or to a company's specific involvement in a social cause. To give a hypothetical example (from the realm of CSR advertising), Johnson & Johnson can focus on the dangers of extinction of certain wildlife species and try to persuade consumers to support the World Wildlife Fund's efforts to save those endangered species, and merely identify the company logo as the sponsor in an understated manner. Alternatively, the company can feature its baby shampoo predominantly and promise a 10-cent donation to the World Wildlife Fund for every purchase

However, most CSR communication typically focuses on a company's involvement in various social causes, rather than on the social causes themselves. In this context, there are several factors that the company can emphasize in its CSR communication, such as its commitment to a cause, the impact it has on the cause, why it engages in a particular social initiative (i.e. CSR motives), and the congruity between the cause and the company's business (i.e. CSR fit). We discuss these next.

CSR commitment
A company can focus on its commitment to a social cause in various ways, including donating funds, in-kind contributions or providing other corporate resources such as marketing expertise, human capital (e.g. employee volunteering), and R&D capability dedicated to a cause. There are several aspects of commitment: the amount of input, the durability of the association and the consistency of input A company can choose to focus on one or several aspects of its commitment to a social cause

CSR impact
Instead of focusing on the input side of its involvement in a social cause, a company can focus on the output side of its CSR endeavor, that is, the societal impact, or the actual benefits that have accrued (or will accrue) to the target audience of a social cause. Emphasizing a company's CSR commitment or the social impact of its CSR endeavor is an effective communication strategy because, as suggested by prior research, CSR communication should be factual and avoid the impression of Furthermore, a company's CSR commitment and its social impact also serve as diagnostic cues with regard to its underlying CSR motives. Found that the durability of support for a cause was used as a cue for judging a firm's motives: longer-term commitments were more likely to be seen as driven by a genuine concern for increasing societal/community welfare, while shorter-term campaigns were more likely to be viewed as a way of exploiting the cause for the sake of profit. Similarly, documented positive associations between the perceived societal impact of a company's CSR initiative and consumers' intrinsic attributions, and consequently, consumers' advocacy behaviors toward the company.

CSR motives
In addition to CSR commitment and CSR impact, CSR communication can also focus on CSR motives. As we have stated earlier, one key challenge in CSR communication is to reduce stakeholder skepticism. In light of this, should companies only emphasize altruistic, intrinsic motives, denying business-related motives in their CSR communication? Or should they be honest and acknowledge the business motives underlying their CSR initiatives?Research on CSR attributions shows that consumers often perceive multiple motives, and they understand that companies often seek to achieve certain business goals through their CSR. Acknowledgement of extrinsic, firm-serving motives in its CSR message will actually enhance the credibility of a company's CSR communication and inhibit stakeholder skepticism, which underlies the potential boomerang effect of CSR communication. Therefore, a company should emphasize the convergence of social and business interests, and frankly acknowledge that its CSR endeavors are beneficial to both society and itself .

CSR fit
Another important factor to communicate is CSR fit, or the perceived congruence between a social issue and the company's business. Stakeholders often expect companies to sponsor only those social issues that have a good fit, or a logical association, with their core corporate activities . Corporate social responsibility fit may result from common associations that a brand shares with the cause, such as product dimensions (e.g. a herbal products brand sponsors the protection of rain forests), affinity with specific target segments (e.g. Avon fights breast cancer), or corporate image associations created by the brand's past conduct in a specific social domain . Corporate social responsibility fit is important because it affects stakeholders' CSR attributions.According to the two-stage model of attributions, consumers will first attribute CSR activities to dispositional motives (i.e. intrinsic motives), and then correct this inference, if they allocate sufficient processing capabilities and engage in more effortful elaboration by considering alternative, contextual factors (e.g. competitive pressure, financial motivations). Low CSR fit, owing to the lack of logical connection between a social issue and a company's business, is likely to increase cognitive elaboration and make extrinsic motives more salient, thereby reducing stakeholders' positive reactions to a company's CSR activities. Therefore, a company should highlight the CSR fit of its social initiative if there is congruence between the social issue and its business. When a company does not have a good natural fit with the social cause it supports, it should elaborate on the rationale for its social initiative to increase perceived fit. Interestingly.

Where to communicate: message channels

There are a variety of communication channels through which information about a company's CSR activities or record can be disseminated. A company can communicate its CSR activities through official documents, such as an annual corporate responsibility report or press releases, and dedicate a section of its official corporate website to CSR; it can also use TV commercials, magazine or billboard advertisements, and product packaging to communicate its CSR initiatives. Corporate responsibility reporting has gone mainstream: nearly 80% of the largest 250 companies worldwide issued corporate responsibility reports, up from about 50% in 2005 . In addition to corporate responsibility reporting and dedicating a section of corporate websites to CSR, companies also use traditional advertising channels to communicate their CSR activities. For example, Diet Coke has been running TV commercials on its CSR initiative to help raise women's awareness about heart disease, and the brand has also set up a website, to communicate the brand's involvement in the cause and various ways for consumers to get involved. Companies can also use product packaging to communicate its CSR initiativesA counterpoint to such company-controlled CSR communication channels is the large and increasing number of external communicators of CSR (e.g. media, customers, monitoring groups, consumer forums/blogs) that

are not entirely controlled by the company. A company can control the content of CSR communication through its own corporate communication channels Moreover, there is likely to be a trade-off between the controllability and credibility of CSR communication; the less controllable the communicator is, the more credible it is, and vice versa. Stakeholders will probably perceive the company as more self-interested than other non-corporate sources in CSR communication. Since individuals are often more critical of messages from sources they perceive to be biased or self-interested, CSR communication via corporate sources will trigger more skepticism and have less credibility than non-corporate sources. Therefore, although getting media co-operation is often difficult, companies should try hard to get positive media coverage from independent, unbiased sources, such as editorial coverage on television or in the press. It would greatly enhance a company's CSR associations if it were reported positively by specialty publications such as Business Ethics, or if it received a good CSR rating by independent organizations such as Fortune magazine. Another powerful stakeholder group, consumers, can also serve as an informal yet highly credible CSR communication channel. In particular, the power of consumer word-of-mouth has been greatly magnified given the popularity and vast reach of Internet communication media such as blogs, chat rooms and social media sites (e.g. Facebook). Companies such as Stonyfield Farm and Ben & Jerry's have been benefiting from consumer ambassadors who raved, in the virtual world, about their social responsibility endeavors.Companies can be proactive in using social media to engage consumers to be their CSR advocates. Timberland, a company that is known for its environmental stewardship, launched the Earthkeeper campaign in 2008 to recruit one million people to become part of an online network designed to inspire real environmental behavior change. As part of the Earthkeeper program, Timberland launched an innovative global network of online social networking tools, including a strong Facebook presence, a YouTube Earthkeeper Brand Channel and a richly populated Earth keeper blog, as well as an Earthkeeper product collection which serves as the pinnacle expression of the company's environmental commitment . Through this campaign, Timberland not only effectively communicates its sustainability initiative, but also engages consumers to spread the word about this initiative and, importantly, the company's involvement in this initiative. Having discussed the challenges related to message content and message challenge, we now highlight a set of context-specific factors pertaining to both the stakeholder and the company, which either amplify or dampen the effectiveness of a company's CSR communication efforts.

Conclusion
The business case of CSR has been amply documented by a large body of multidisciplinary academic research. Owing to the identity-revealing nature of CSR activities, by investing in social initiatives, a company will be able not only to generate favorable stakeholder attitudes and behaviors (e.g. purchase, seeking employment, investing in the company), but also, over the long run, to build corporate/brand image, strengthen stakeholdercompany relationships, and enhance stakeholders' advocacy behaviors for the company (e.g. word-of-mouth, employee organizational commitment and citizenship behavior). However, stakeholders' low awareness of and skepticism towards companies CSR activities are critical impediments in companies' attempts to maximize

business benefits from their CSR investment, pointing to an urgent need for both academicians and practitioners to get a deeper understanding of how to communicate CSR more effectively to stakeholders. Corporate social responsibility communication is a very delicate matter. While stakeholders claim they want to know about the good deeds of the companies they interact with, they can easily become leery of extrinsic motives when companies promote their CSR efforts. Corporate social responsibility communication can have a backlash effect if stakeholders become suspicious and perceive predominantly extrinsic motives in companies' social initiatives. Hence a key challenge of CSR communication is to overcome stakeholder skepticism and to generate favorable CSR attributions. This paper has reviewed and synthesized relevant literatures on CSR and communication in general to present a conceptual framework of CSR communication. Different aspects of CSR communication have been analyzed, from message content and communication channels to company- and stakeholder-specific factors that influence the effectiveness of CSR communication. The discussion of the key aspects of CSR communication also opens up several avenues for future research.

References

David Crowther and Renu Jatana .International dimension of Corporate soCial responsibility vol I ,ICFAI university press Renu Jatana & David Crowther CSR theory and praCtiCe with Case studies,Deep and deep publications pvt ltd David Crowther and renu jatana Representations of soial responsibility (vol I,)ICfai university press Dipak das and Sanjay Kumar Singh. Corporatization and Corporate social responsibility, SBS publishers and distributors Pvt. ltd new Delhi http://corporateethics.wordpress.com

http://www.asocio.org/policy/Corporate%20Social%20Responsibility.pdf