دانلود رایگان مقاله انگلیسی مسئولیت اجتماعی شرکت های فراملی: واقعیت، داستان یا شکست؟ - امرالد 2018

ABSTRACT

Purpose
Contemporary debates on Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) are framed in a global context; however, there is ample evidence that national and institutional frameworks define CSR practices. Questions about the activities of Transnational Companies (TNCs) in their host countries further highlight growing CSR concerns, developments and challenges in specific regions. Our aim in this chapter is to examine the theoretical arguments on the relationship between context and CSR, looking at the role of situational conditions in driving responsible corporate behaviour in a global environment. Design/methodology/approach
Drawing on discourse analytic concepts, we use insights derived from our comparative research on transnational companies’ (European and non-European) self-presentations of CSR-related actions in a developing country, Ghana, to illuminate our argument. Findings
The discussions demonstrate that context relationships are crucial in CSR practices since they contribute to a wide variety of implicit meanings that provide in-depth understanding of companies’ responsibilities in specific regions. Our empirical analysis showed that linguistic categories of the TNCs related more to responsibilities that focused on ethos than logos, which suggests credible CSR messages to a large extent. Originality/value
The chapter contributes to the emerging literature on the context-specific nature of CSR in two important ways. First, it provides insights to further the debate on the utility of balancing local and global requirements in corporate CSR actions. Second, our linguistic-based model of analysing CSR communication content, which we demonstrate from our study, offers a novel approach to assess companies’ real intentions, motives and perspectives on CSR in the wake of growing corporate scandals.

CONCLUSION

In these times of lost stakeholder trust, company executives that ‘walk the talk’ or look beyond the traditional measure of economic success to incorporate a responsibility mind-set that truly adheres to the triple bottom line concept reap long-term business benefits. Clearly, the collapse of Enron and the tarnished VW brand are few examples that show that unethical business practices become unmasked in the course of time, with damaging effects that are enduring. In the light of this, we contend that corporate social and environmental disclosure of TNCs merit thoughtful consideration. Untruthful or misleading CSR claims only have short-term results. Overall, our chapter demonstrates that firm, country and global level factors are important considerations in CSR discourses, and these have useful implications for researchers to be mindful of transporting Western concepts and models in developing country contexts and vice versa. Our proposed linguistic framework further has implications for CSR communication theory and practice. The framework does not only provide a lens for managers, companies, rating agencies and other stakeholders to ascertain the fit between social/environmental claims and actual actions, it is also a useful starting point for researchers to build upon to help improve companies’ communications about CSR. In general our empirical illustration revealed linguistic categories related more to responsibilities that focused on ethos than logos, and by presenting arguments this way, companies’ CSR messages are highly perceived as being credible (Ihlen, 2011). At the same time, one may also argue that, from critical and stakeholder skepticism perspectives, emphasising too much ethos actions may be perceived as covering up lapses, which means that logos strategies could be the most preferred by companies in their effort to gain credibility. Obviously, the study has some limitations which provide avenues for further research.