An Evaluation of COMPANY’s CSR Communication via Social Media: Internship Proposal Tea Grzanov Hofstra University 2022, Hempstead NY 11540 Figures:
Introduction:
• The corporate world is facing internal and external pressures to consider their impacts on the environment and society which has led to the concept of corporate social responsibility (CSR). • CSR has become the overhead term for actions that address economic, social, and environmental issues. There are many ways to integrate sustainability practices across a business, from raw materials to community involvement • Insert information about COMPANY including history and past CSR efforts • Motivations include improved reputation, improved legitimacy, competitive advantage, employee attraction, and compliance with regulations • Efforts are communicated through annual reports, third party frameworks, press, social media and can even improve legitimacy • Social media has become an easy way to reach people internationally and offers a low-cost option to receive instant feedback. Two-way communication encourages consumers to engage with the company on any kind of issue. At this time, the company has NUMBER followers across their social media accounts.
Results:
• I expect more non-CSR posts overall on every one of the company’s platforms. And there will be an increase in CSR posts since March 2020 • Total number of posts collected • More posts regarding public health and social justice even if they are not part of the original CSR strategy • I predict that Instagram will become the most used platform with the most two-way communication
Discussion: Cortado and Chalmeta, 2016
• Important for this company to analyze sustainability strategies and incorporate • Recommendations – Emphasis on partnerships with advocacy groups to build trust with consumers
• Recognize consistencies with past studies • Potential limitations – scope – Size of company
• Still lots of distrust and skepticism towards CSR communications • There is lots of value not being utilized in using social media for CSR communication, especially with the two-way methods. • Is a separate specialized CSR account something to keep in mind? A dedicated space to discuss CSR could minimize skepticism in the future
Research Questions and Hypotheses
1. How does COMPANY communicate CSR efforts via social media? 2. How have the posts changes since 2019? H1: CSR messaging will be less frequent overall H2: CSR messaging will significantly increase mid-2020 Cortado and Chalmeta, 2016
Methods:
• I will be taking a qualitative approach to analyze CSR messaging • Regarding the first question, data will be collected from all the company’s social media platforms • A content analysis will be performed after classifying posts of containing CSR information. Categories include but are not limited to environmental stewardship, philanthropic efforts, community involvement, public health commitments, human rights, product responsibility. Mentions of third-party awards and achievements will also be accounted for as CSR efforts • The data will be collected for the duration of the internship in 2022 • Results will be displayed in tables as shown in the figure with frequency of posts compared with the percentage of the total sample. • Further analysis will include comparing present data with previous in same months of 2020 and 2021
Cho et al, 2017
References: 1. 2.
Amazon, 2021
3. 4. 5.
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