Stakeholder integration in Corporate Social Responsibility communication strategies

Stakeholder integration in Corporate Social

Responsibility communication strategies

Master thesis

Master Information Science

Program Business Information Systems

Michael Frens, 2529011

University of Amsterdam

Faculty of Science

Faculty of Economics and Business

Department Business Studies

Section Information Management

16-11-2014

Supervisor: Drs. Toon Abcouwer

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Corporate Social Responsibility consists of many aspects, one of them being stakeholder integration. Corporate Social Responsibility has become an important topic for a lot of (big) organizations, and a lot of them started communicating about their efforts through a variety of channels. When implementing

Corporate Social Responsibility at the IT department of a large insurance company, I noticed that there was a discrepancy between the actions that were communicated and the actual involvement of stakeholders. This triggered my interest in researching the aspect of stakeholder integration in Corporate Social Responsibility.

A lot of literature has already been written about this subject as a whole, but stakeholder integration isn’t that deeply researched yet. One particular model from the theoretical framework focusing on this aspect formed the basis for the rest of this research, the three CSR communication strategies model (Morsing et al. 2006). This model describes which different strategies exist, with “involvement” as the ideal strategy. This leads to the goal of this research, which is to analyze if current CSR communication strategies benefit from improved stakeholder integration. This is done by analyzing current literature, studying how organizations perform compared to the beliefs from literature, and reviewing the outcome of this confrontation with an expert on the field of Corporate Social Responsibility.

First, the current literature is analyzed to identify the current stance on stakeholder integration. The findings suggest that stakeholder integration has evolved over a long period of time and is indeed an important topic within CSR and that the latest model that can be used to evaluate the current position of organizations on this subject is the CSR three communication strategies model. It is concluded that the “involvement” strategy from this model is the ideal situation.

Then, these findings are used to perform a case study among the top 50 organizations of the Fortune Global 500. The criteria are derived from the three communication strategies model. It is concluded that most organizations are still using the “stakeholder response” strategy. From this confrontation, differences became clear between the current and the desired situation.

The view of an expert is used to verify if these differences. In the interview with this expert, it is verified that these differences are indeed present and the transformation to the “involvement” strategy will decrease these differences. It is concluded that organizations can indeed benefit from improved stakeholder

integration within their CSR communication strategies.

Further research is recommended on the process of transforming to “involvement” strategy, research on other types of organizations than in this research, and the position of stakeholder integration within the concept of CSR.

Keywords: Corporate Social Responsibility, stakeholder, stakeholder integration, communication strategy

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This thesis is the final phase of my master Information studies, track Business Information Systems at the University of Amsterdam. By writing this thesis I have been able to delve deeper into the world of

information representation concerning CSR. I experienced this as a nice opportunity to extend my bachelor thesis, to look for the reason behind certain aspects.

I could not have written this thesis without the help and/or support from a variety of people. Many thanks to all of you, a few I will thank here specifically.

First I would like to thank Toon Abcouwer, thank you for your guidance and help along the road.

Secondly, I want to thank the Claude for showing me their support during the two years we have studied together. You guys have made quite a lot of hours of the lesser interesting subjects much easier to bear. I also want to thank my family for enabling me to do this study without worrying about anything else except for my grades.

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Table of contents

1

Introduction ... 6

1.1

Aim and topic of the thesis ... 6

1.2

Problem statement ... 7

2

Presentation and justification of the methodology / approach ... 8

2.1

Relevance ... 8

2.2

Reason ... 8

2.3

Methods ... 10

2.3.1

Literary research ... 10

2.3.2

Case study ... 10

2.3.3

Interview ... 10

3

Presentation and justification of the theoretical framework and relation with existing knowledge. ... 11

3.1

Theoretical framework ... 11

3.2

Conclusion: ... 16

4

Presentation of research results and their analysis. ... 17

4.1

Method ... 17

4.2

Results ... 19

4.3

Conclusion ... 22

5

Review of results based on theoretical framework ... 23

5.1

Review of results ... 23

5.2

Conclusion ... 26

6

Interview ... 27

6.1

Interview ... 27

6.2

Conclusion ... 32

7

Conclusion and further research ... 33

7.1

Conclusion ... 33

7.2

Limitations ... 34

7.3

Recommendations for further research ... 35

8

Literature (and other resources) references ... 36

9

Appendices ... 37

9.1

Appendix A: Interview ... 37

9.2

Appendix B: Results case study ... 46

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Definitions and abbreviations

In this chapter I will define definitions and abbreviations which are often used throughout my thesis.

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR)

CSR is hard to define in a single definition. This will be further explained in my theoretical framework, but in my opinion it can be described in essence as “A company’s sense of responsibility towards the

community and environment (both ecological and social) in which it operates.”

Stakeholder

Stakeholders can be defined as “any group or individual who can affect or is affected by the achievement of the organization’s objectives” (Freeman, 1984).

Stakeholder integration

The definition of stakeholder integration can be defined as being able to establish collaborative relationships which are positive with a variety of stakeholders (Sharma, S., 1998; Rueda‐Manzanares , 2008).

In the next chapter I will give a brief introduction on my thesis. This introduction will contain my motivation for writing this thesis. It also clarifies the aim and topic of this thesis. Finally the problem statement contains the actual problem statement and the sub questions I want to answer by writing this thesis.

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1 Introduction

For my thesis I would like to perform research on how companies present their information concerning Corporate Social Responsibility. Information concerning Corporate Social Responsibility is very dependent on the values and the culture within an organization. When graduating during my bachelor, during which I designed a plan to implement Corporate Social Responsibility in the policy of large insurance company, it became clear that a lot of organizations do not have a clearly defined structure of their Corporate Social Responsibility information flow. As a result of this, a lot of plans are not adequately transferred into actual actions. Because of this (a part of the) added value which Corporate Social Responsibility has in an

organization will be lost. One of the hot topics back then was greenwashing, the practice of conveying information on your CSR strategy and actions when actually not all of these actions are performed. A lot of companies during my research back then said it was important to integrate stakeholders into a Corporate Social Responsibility strategy, but when we set out to create an implementation plan, I found that

stakeholders in that particular organization were by far not as involved as they should be. In my opinion, this frustrated the process of integrating Corporate Social Responsibility in the company. This triggered me to find out more about this concept. I want to find out if improved stakeholder integration will benefit the Corporate Social Responsibility strategy of companies.

Because of this I would like to find out how fifty organizations (form the Fortune Global 500) present their information concerning Corporate Social Responsibility and what kind of strategy they use. I am interested to see how they have incorporated stakeholder integration and if they convey how this interaction is carried out.

From this research I hope to see if a theoretical framework exists, or can be formed, about how stakeholder integration can be improved within Corporate Social Responsibility. My thesis will consist of two parts. First, provide insight into how organizations currently present their information concerning Corporate Social Responsibility and confront this with a theoretical framework. Secondly, present a reflection on this subject by evaluating the results with an expert on the field of Corporate Social Responsibility.

1.1 Aim and topic of the thesis

The aim of this thesis is twofold. The first goal is to provide insight in how organizations present their information concerning Corporate Social Responsibility by comparing how these organizations currently do this with criteria from or based on the researched literature.

The second part concerns evaluating this results and reflect on them by interviewing an expert in the field of Corporate Social Responsibility. This will give insight in the effect of stakeholder integration within Corporate Social Responsibility. Recent research by Yacht shows that the current way of presentation of Corporate Social Responsibility information leads to the fact that few actions are performed based on the information the organizations present (Yacht, 2011). My research will focus on the question if improved stakeholder integration can have a positive effect on communication strategies.

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1.2 Problem statement

Main question:

Will current CSR communication strategies benefit from improved stakeholder integration? Sub questions:

How does literature describe the Corporate Social Responsibility communication strategy?

To be able to accurately describe the difference between the current and the ideal situation, I will perform a literary study about Corporate Social Responsibility communication strategies. How have they developed and how should they be used nowadays.

How do companies currently present their Corporate Social Responsibility information?

By mapping how companies currently present their Corporate Social Responsibility strategy, a comparison can be made with the theoretical framework.

What arises out of the confrontation between literature and daily practice of Corporate Social Responsibility communication?

From the confrontation the level of stakeholder integration in daily practice will become clear. This output can be used to evaluate with experts in the field of Corporate Social Responsibility.

What are the views of experts on the concept of stakeholder integration within Corporate Social Responsibility?

By evaluating the results from the confrontation a view on the current situation will arise. By reviewing this situation with an expert on the field of Corporate Social Responsibility a conclusion can be given if

improved stakeholder integration will benefit current CSR communication strategies.

The next chapter will describe the methodology and approach used for writing this thesis. I will point out the relevance of the thesis topic, state the reason for writing this thesis and present the research model used in this thesis. Finally I will present the methods which are used during my research phase.

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2 Presentation and justification of the methodology / approach

2.1 Relevance

Organizations often appear having a hard time to convert their annual plans into action. From recent

research performed by Market Response for Yacht, it appears that only nine percent of the researched organizations can get their annual reports to be converted into actions. Less than half of the organizations formulate their report by gaining information top-down as well as bottom-up, 28% of these organizations say they actually use their plans. Only 15% of that gets translated to the different departments within the organization and finally only nine percent of the organizations claim that their employees know what is expected from them based on the annual report (Yacht, 2011).

From this research it becomes clear that there is a need to optimize the conversion process from the ideas in annual reports to actual actions. This research has recently been published and shows that the subject of improving communication on Corporate Social Responsibility this thesis is very relevant.

From the International Business Report 2011 by Grant Thornton it appears that only a quarter of all

European organizations reports about Corporate Social Responsibility (Grant Thornton, 2011). This is being supported by the fact that the transparency policy by the government primarily still leans on self regulation and facilitation (Graafland et al., 2007). Although it has been mandatory to report on Corporate Social Responsibility since a few years, these criteria are still non-committal (Lambooy, 2006). By integrating the presentation of information in an annual report, the current demand of more transparency will be met.

2.2 Reason

Corporate Social Responsibility plays an increasingly important role in our society. Organizations and customers want to behave more responsible towards the society and act like that. To fulfill this need organizations will need to integrate their Corporate Social Responsibility in their business operations. Information plays a large role in these processes. Because Corporate Social Responsibility mostly focuses on the values and the culture of the organization itself, the information concerning often has the same focus (Cramer, 2005).

Because apparently there is a lot of room for improvement, I want to take this opportunity to delve deeper in the aspect of stakeholder integration. Through this research it will become clear if improved stakeholder integration can add value to the current CSR communication strategies

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This leads to the following research model:

In the first phase I will look into literature about Corporate Social Responsibility. I will analyze what the concept of Corporate Social Responsibility actually means and how current literature describes the presentation of information on Corporate Social Responsibility. These theories will form the base for the theoretical framework on which I will write this thesis. By combining these two areas a theoretical

framework will arise which can be used in phase two. In phase two I will compare the top fifty companies out of Europe in the fortune global 500 to the criteria which I have deduced in phase one.

From this comparison differences will arise between the current situation and the theoretical base. These differences then be evaluated by an interview with an expert on the field of Corporate Social Responsibility. The results from these interviews can then be used to write a conclusion on the idea of improved

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2.3 Methods

My research is split up into two phases, a literary study and a case study.

2.3.1 Literary research

In phase one I want to perform a literary research on the following three topics

 Concept of Corporate Social Responsibility

 Literature on presenting information about Corporate Social Responsibility

For the concept of Social responsibility I will look into literature to find a definition of this concept. This definition will be based on findings from the history of CSR, as well as new findings in this area. For information on how the current literature describes how information about Corporate Social Responsibility should be presented I will mainly focus on the models by Schultz, and is predecessors Grunig & Hunt.

2.3.2 Case study

Because I want to investigate in depth how organizations currently present their information I have chosen a qualitative study. Instead of collecting vast amounts of data I want to look closer at a small amount of organizations. A case study suits this goal perfectly. For this case study I will perform research on the top 50 organizations in Europe from the Fortune Global 500 in 2011.

2.3.3 Interview

To evaluate the results of the confrontation between the results from the literary research and the case study, I will perform an interview with an expert on the field of Corporate Social Responsibility. These results will form the base for the conclusion.

In the next chapter I will discuss the theoretical background of this thesis. I will look at the core concept of Corporate Social Responsibility and look at how it transformed through history and how current literature describes Corporate Social Responsibility strategies.

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3 Presentation and justification of the theoretical framework and relation

with existing knowledge.

3.1

Corporate Social Responsibility is such a broad concept that the desire to fit it in one single description should be abandoned (van Marrewijk, 2003). The lack of one universally accepted definition is also recognized by Dahlsrud (Dahlsrud, 2006). Dahlsrud researches how Corporate Social Responsibility is defined by analyzing 37 definitions. He distills five dimensions from these definitions by looking at the content of these 37 definitions. The five dimensions he derived are:

 The environmental dimension

 The social dimension

 The economic dimension

 The stakeholder dimension

 The voluntaries dimension

The existence of these five dimensions strengthen the idea of a broad concept. But this also carries some risks. Morsing describes in his book “ISO 26000: handleiding voor MVO”, a definition of Corporate Social Responsibility by using the ISO 26000 norm. This norm is an international guideline for Corporate Social Responsibility, it can assist organizations in implementing Corporate Social Responsibility into their processes. He also acknowledges the fact that a lot of focus areas and subjects are placed under Corporate Social Responsibility, which can add to the risk that is remains a container concept. However, Moratis also claims that the term “People, Planet, Profit” has added some structure to the Corporate Social

Responsibility chaos. (Moratis et al. 2006). By structuring the concept, a better view on the definition Corporate Social Responsibility can be given. More insight into this structuration can be obtained by looking at the history of Corporate Social Responsibility.

Corporate Social Responsibility is a very hot topic nowadays. Its existence however dates back a long period of time. Grunig and hunt describe in their book about managing public relations that it has origins in public relations. This they illustrate with a saying from Edward L. Bernays: “Public relations is the practice of social responsibility…” (Grunig et al, 1984). The history of public relations itself goes back as early as 1800 B.C. but I will only focus on the period where it had significant relations with Corporate Social

Responsibility.

In the late nineteenth and early in the twentieth century public relations became formalized in many organizations because of the increased impact the business and the public had on each other (Grunig et al., 2009). This is depicted in the model in figure 1.

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Fig. 1

As you can imagine, a company may undertake activities that can have negative consequences for the public. For instance, a clothing company can get their shirts to be manufactured in China by under aged workers. When the public finds out about this, they will likely take action, stop buying the product for instance. Here the need arises to have a decent Corporate Social Responsibility policy. Business and public need to be constructive instead of opposites, this I will now explain by elaborating on the four models of public relations by Grunig and Hunt.

During the history of public relations, four different types of models are used:

Fig. 2

The first model came to life in the period of 1850 to 1900. The second one followed from 1900 till 1920. The third one was developed in 1920, but is largely used still nowadays. The fourth model originated around the 1960-70’s However, this model was starting to be adopted around the time when this book was

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published (Grunig et al, 1984).

In this table you can see percentages of estimated use. These are just rough guesses and not based on research. This data comes from 1984, so these percentages should have changed. Later on we will look at a newer and adopted version for Corporate Social Responsibility from Morsing et al., but they do not have more recent percentages. Seeing the development during the years with for example the topic of feedback, I would expect that the largest percentage of businesses nowadays will be focused on the two way

asymmetric model. This is something we will further look in to during the case study.

In 2006, Morsing et al. wrote a paper in which they developed three strategies for Corporate Social

Responsibility communication. These strategies are based upon the models about public relations by Grunig & Hunt. They have left out the press agentry/publicity model since this one is focused on propaganda, and propaganda is an inappropriate model for Corporate Social Responsibility communication (Morsing et al. 2006). To the three models used, they have added the concept of sense giving and sense making.

Before elaborating on these models, it may be good to review the concept of stakeholder. Freeman describes this concept as follows: Stakeholders can be defined as “any group or individual who can affect or is affected by the achievement of the organization’s objectives” (Freeman, 1984).

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The first strategy is the stakeholder information strategy. This is similar to the public information model by Grunig & Hunt. This model has a one way focus. Unlike the propaganda model, this model does not necessarily have a persuasive intent. Because the company only sends out information, this model is based on sense giving. Stakeholders can only react to the information they are being given, but cannot actively engage in a dialogue with the company. Companies using this model are often focused on conveying the things they do right in a right way to the stakeholders (Morsing et al., 2006).

The second strategy is the stakeholder response strategy. Together with the involvement strategy these are both two way focused. However, in the response strategy the company will not change as a result from the feedback it gets from its stakeholders. It will actually try to convince the stakeholders instead of coming to a mutual understanding. Often the feedback is gathered by a survey or poll, instrument s with which

stakeholders can express their opinion, but not elaborate on it any further. They can influence the company, but only in a passive way. The big risk with this model is that the companies get to hear what they want to hear, since the questions will mainly be asked in such a way that the respondents will approve the chosen strategy. Because the company will try to convince the stakeholders, sense giving still has the upper hand in this strategy (Morsing et al., 2006)

The third strategy is the stakeholder involvement strategy. In this strategy the dialogue between stakeholders and company is the main focus. The processes of sense making and sense giving both take place. Because of that, when necessary the company has to change. To counter this beforehand, stakeholders need to be involved in the process of determining the Corporate Social Responsibility strategy. Instead of focusing on maintaining a tight Corporate Social Responsibility strategy, the focus must now be on maintaining an open dialogue with the stakeholders. This counts for both internal and external stakeholders.

As can be seen, based on this theory stakeholder integration is the core concept of the stakeholder involvement strategy. From looking at this model, it can be said that integrating stakeholders into a Corporate Social Responsibility strategy is a prerequisite to develop it into something with actual added value for an organization.

Stakeholder can be interacted with through numerous ways, but access to these stakeholders have taken a great flight with the introduction of web 2.0. Web 2.0 has given rise to the domain of social media. Social media connects a large group of people and makes it easy for entities like organizations to interact with stakeholders in a fast, dynamic and interactive way. Examples of such social media platforms are:

 YouTube

 Forums

 Blogs

 Facebook

 LinkedIn

Some platforms will be integrated into the case study which is part of this thesis. (Driessen, 2013) Communication through these canals may be easier than old fashioned methods, but this also has its downsides. In a working paper focused on organizing Corporate Social Responsibility in small and large firms, it is suggested that for small firms it is easier to integrate Corporate Social Responsibility into their business processes, while for large organizations it is easier to incorporate Corporate Social Responsibility

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into their communication strategy. While the latter can be seen as an advantage, it also makes it easier to communicate about a Corporate Social Responsibility strategy when in daily practice not much is done with the subject. This is also called “Greenwashing”. By analyzing how the big organizations use the social media canals to integrate with their stakeholders, I hope to get an insight in how the current situation reflects this suggestion.

Based on their research, they say that evidence does suggest that larger organizations are more advanced in reporting on Corporate Social Responsibility, which should reflect in the case study part by analyzing the year reports on CSR. (Baumann-Pauly, 2013)

By now it is clear that based on current literature, it can be suggested that integrating stakeholders into your Corporate Social Responsibility strategy will have a positive impact. But why are stakeholders so

important? As stated before, Freeman says that a stakeholder is any group or individual who can affect or is affected by the achievement of the organization’s objectives. Hence, if organizations practice greenwashing or do not live up to the expectations concerning Corporate Social Responsibility, stakeholders can be negatively influenced. However, this is not only the case with Corporate Social Responsibility, stakeholders can influence organizations on a lot of aspects. Mitchell et al. describes this influence in his influential model of stakeholder’s saliency. This model is shown below:

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As can be seen, the model contains three separate sections:

 Power

 Legitimacy

 Urgency

Power is the ability a stakeholder has to influence other entities. Legitimacy is the level of involvement a stakeholder has, are his actions aligned with the vision he is supposed to have. Urgency means the belief of the stakeholder itself, it determines the level of urgency of his own request/opinion. This is not a rigid model though, it’s dynamic. The three sections can change. They are objective and based on perception, and finally stakeholders do not need to act on an attribute they possess.

Within this model, seven types of stakeholders can be determined:

Dormant Stakeholders - Possess power to influence, but since they have no legitimacy or urgency they

have on interaction or involvement.

Discretionary Stakeholders – The stakeholders which do have legitimacy but lack power and urgency. Demanding Stakeholders – People with urgent issues, but they have no power or legitimacy.

Dominant Stakeholders - The typical stakeholder, mostly connected with organization through formal

mechanisms.

Dangerous Stakeholders – The stakeholder that is both powerful and has claims that are urgent

Dependent Stakeholders – Stakeholders who have no power, and therefore need others to enforce their

will.

Definitive Stakeholders – One of the stakeholder types who gains a missing attribute and thus positions

itself in the center of the three aspects.

In this chapter I have elaborated on what current literature describes on the topic of this thesis. These findings will carry over to my research phase. In the next chapter, this theoretical framework will act as a base on which to perform the case study. The boundaries will be explained, the method defined and the results described.

3.2 Conclusion:

Although Corporate Social Responsibility is a very hot and “new” topic, already quite some literature has been written on this subject. For this thesis, the focus will be stakeholder integration. In this chapter, the importance of stakeholder has been become apparent from multiple sources, but for my research I will be using the “Three CSR communication strategies” model from Morsing et al. This model is based on previous literature and was developed in 2006. The ideal situation based on this theory would be

“stakeholder involvement”. A situation in which stakeholder integration is optimized, thus acknowledging the importance of stakeholder integration on communication strategies.

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4 Presentation of research results and their analysis.

4.1 Method

To find out how organizations currently present their information concerning Corporate Social

Responsibility I have performed a case study. In this case study I looked at the following criteria, which are derived from the model in fig.3. Also, I have added a few criteria for analysis on the activity on social media platforms:

Stakeholder role

I interpreted the stakeholder role as follows. With the information strategy the stakeholders can only support or oppose because they are only given information one-sided by the organization. With the response strategy the stakeholders are not involved in the process of deciding the Corporate Social Responsibility policy, but they can give their opinions through polls and surveys for example.

Organizations can say they involve their stakeholders, but when it is only written as a process and not further accessible for outsiders I considered it to remain a response strategy. With the involvement strategy the stakeholders are actively involved in the decision making process. The organization communicates clearly how they interact with their stakeholders and make it accessible to review this process.

Identification Corporate Social Responsibility Focus

How does the organization decide what their focus within Corporate Social Responsibility will be? With the information strategy the focus is solely decided by the top management. With the response strategy it is still decided by top management but investigated by feedback out of polls, dialogue etc. With the involvement strategy the focus is created with the stakeholders, with ongoing reflection to maintain this involvement.

Strategic communication task

How do the organizations communicate with their stakeholders? With the information strategy they just send information about what they do in a one way manner. With the response strategy they communicate back to the stakeholders how they integrate their concerns. With the involvement strategy they have a frequent dialogue with their stakeholders.

Third party endorsement

Are the stakeholders involved in Corporate Social Responsibility messages the organizations

communicates? In the information strategy this is not needed since the stakeholders themselves are merely informed. In the response strategy the stakeholders are integrated through elements like surveys, rankings and polls. In the involvement strategy the stakeholders themselves are part of the Corporate Social

Responsibility messages.

Scope of info

On which scale do the organizations report their activities? Do they report on their full cycle, including their supply chain, or just their products?

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What type of report do the organizations deliver concerning Corporate Social Responsibility? Is it a separate Corporate Social Responsibility report, is it integrated with the annual financial report?

Type of language

What kind of language do the organizations use to communicate? Do they use a formal type of language or is it structured in a more loose or semi-formal way.

Which social media

What kind of social media do the organizations use. For this I narrowed the use of social media down to the “big three”: Facebook, YouTube and twitter.

Focus business/CSR

What is the scope of the information provided by the organizations within their social media platforms. Is it business focused, Corporate Social Responsibility focused or a combination of these two.

Comments possible

Is it possible to place comments on postings in the organization’s social media?

If yes, reaction within 24 hours

If it is possible to place comments, does the organization react on a comment within 24 hours?

Interaction encouraged

Does the organization encourage people to interact with them? Do they ask questions through social media for instance or ask for opinions?

Link to SM on site

Does the organization have a link to its social media on their website?

Reaction on critics

Does the organization react on critics? Or do they ignore them?

I have reviewed the annual (CSR) reports, websites and social media platforms of the top 50 organizations out of the Fortune Global 500 based on the criteria. The outcome of this study is placed in the diagram in

appendix B.Through these criteria I obtained information about the type of strategy the organizations use,

which channels they use within this strategy and what they try to convey. In the following section I will go into detail with every criteria and its results out of my research. 49 organizations have been used because one was an investment group with no CSR information, it referred to their invested organizations.

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4.2 Results

By analyzing the diagram in appendix B,the following results came up from each criteria:

Stakeholder role

12 of the 49 organizations were positioned in an involvement strategy. Within these 12 organizations the stakeholders were actively engaged in shaping the Corporate Social Responsibility actions and the process of how these stakeholders were engaged was clearly communicated. The rest of the organizations were al positioned in the response strategy. It is interesting to see that a lot of these response oriented organizations communicated that they did a lot to involve their stakeholders in the process of deciding which actions to take, but they gave no evidence of these processes. No stakeholders were enabled to tell their stories, no processes were clearly defined.

Identification of Corporate Social Responsibility focus

Here one company was actually still using the information strategy. They explicitly said that they let their Corporate Social Responsibility focus be determined by their top management. 43 organizations are using the response strategy. They let their top management set the focus, but then they investigate through feedback what the opinion of their stakeholders is. Most of the organizations do this through polls or a single dialogue day. Five organizations were using the involvement strategy. These organizations really interacted with stakeholders to determine their focus, and keep this interaction ongoing.

Strategic communication task

13 of the 49 organizations are using the involvement strategy. They are pro-active in asking stakeholders to start a dialogue.

Third party endorsement

11 organizations use the involvement strategy here. They involve their stakeholders in their messages concerning Corporate Social Responsibility. The other 38 organizations are using the response strategy. The stakeholders are integrated through results of surveys, polls etc. This connects to the fact that a lot of organizations are using the response strategy with the identification of their Corporate Social Responsibility focus.

Scope of info

There was one organization who focused their Corporate Social Responsibility communication solely on their activities. 12 organizations commented on the Corporate Social Responsibility aspects of their products and their impact/activities concerning their environment. The 36 remaining organizations all commented on their full cycle, including their supply chains. This could be related to the fact that most of these

organizations deal with obtaining raw materials like oil. For these organizations it is very important and necessary to regulate their supply chains the right way.

Type of report

When we look at the types of reports that the organizations have published we see acknowledgement of the fact that a large variety of names is used for the same cause. Only six organizations had a web based report,

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all their Corporate Social Responsibility information was located on a different part on their website. They did not publish their information in any kind of report. The 43 remaining organizations all had a separate report to communicate their Corporate Social Responsibility efforts. The names they have for these report vary from CSR-, citizenship-, sustainability- or even progress report.

Type of language

It is interesting to see that even with a very open and not necessarily business minded subject like Corporate Social Responsibility, all the organizations use formal language. I have marked Tesco as semi-formal. The reason is not that they use non-formal language but they use a very fresh design in their report, making it less heavy to read.

Which social media

When switching to social media things got a bit more interesting. Seven of all the organizations used no social media at all. One of them did use twitter, but the last activity dated two years ago thus I put this with the non social media users. Two organizations only used YouTube. 11 of the 49 organizations used two of the big three social media platforms. Twenty organizations were active on all three social media platforms. Nine organizations were active on social media (two on two platforms and seven on three platforms) but only in their own language. Because these large organizations have international customers, I did not include them in the rest of the social media criteria.

Focus business/CSR

Of all the organizations who had their social media in English only three had social media that focused more or fully on CSR. On the other side, six organizations had their social media focused more on business aspects. 21 organizations had their focus on social media divided between CSR and business.

Comments possible?

Only one of all the organizations had entirely disabled the possibility to place comments. There were two who had disabled the option on some YouTube videos. The rest of the organizations had the option to comment enabled within Facebook as well as within YouTube.

Reaction within 24 hours?

Seven organizations replied within 24 hours when somebody posted a question. 11 of the organizations did not react within this time limit. Three organizations did react, but not always within the time limit. For ten organizations this data was not available. Mostly due to the fact that they had no reactions on their social media. Most of the time this was due to mixed languages on social media, or the social media was focused on very local activities.

Interaction encouraged

12 organizations were actively encouraging people to interact with them. This happened mainly on Facebook, presumable because this offers the greatest freedom of interaction. This encouragement took place by posing questions, asking opinions and actively reacting when people started discussing with each other. 17 organizations however were very passive. They just posted information on their social media,

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without trying to engage their stakeholders. With three organizations it was too hard to assess whether they encouraged interaction because they were so mixed in languages they used on their social media.

Link to social media on their website

23 of the organizations had a link to their social media on their websites. Ten had no link to their social media, often these social media sites were locally focused and mixed In languages.

Reaction on critics

Ten organization reacted when somebody posted a critical remark or question on their social media platforms. Seven organizations did not react. Of 15 organizations I could not tell whether they reacted on critics. The biggest reason was that they did not have any reactions on their social media. Most of them also had their social media in mixed languages so it was hard to assess what actually being said.

When looking at the collective result, is strikes me that there is only one organization which can be placed in the involvement strategy on all criteria derived from the model in fig. 3. This organization also has a

powerful platform to connect with stakeholders: http://www.forachangingworld.com, which will be

discussed in the next chapter. When looking at the individual criteria from the model, between 25 and 33 percent of the organizations could be placed in the involvement strategy.

During my research, I also encountered some interesting facts which I will describe here:

 When looking at the social media platforms, eleven organizations had their social media in the

language of the country of origin. Three organizations used a mix of languages on their social media. Two organizations only had social media platforms for their local departments.

 Five organizations did not publish a recent report on their Corporate Social Responsibility activities,

nor incorporated it into other annual reports. One organization published their last report over 2007/2008, one over 2009 and two over 2010. One had no report at all.

 One organization did not mention a single word about Corporate Social Responsibility but gave it

their own concept: “Creating Shared Value”.

 Five organizations had the possibility to interact with them through social media, but no critics

could be found in the postings. With the other organizations, there was at least one post by a critic. This could suggest that there are no active critics linked tot hat organization, or postings are being actively monitored and removed.

 Seven organizations had no interaction with stakeholders through their social media at all.

 Five organizations only commented on local involvement, for instance at villages where they drill

for oil.

 A lot of organizations state how they perform their stakeholder dialogue but show no evidence in

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4.3 Conclusion

In the previous chapter it is stated that the “stakeholder involvement” strategy is the ideal strategy for organizations concerning Corporate Social Responsibility communication. However, by analyzing social media platforms and sustainability reports, it appears that these large organizations currently mostly reside in the center strategy “stakeholder response”. I had expected they would have their strategies more in line with “stakeholder involvement”.

In the next chapter I will take these results and reflect on them using the theory from my theoretical framework. By looking at the differences between the ideal situation and the daily practice, focus areas for evaluation through the interview will become clear.

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5 Review of results based on theoretical framework

5.1 Review of results

In this chapter, I will elaborate on the result from the previous chapter. The theory from chapter three will be held against these findings to see where differences arise. These findings will then be discussed with experts through interviews.

The ideal communication model for stakeholder integration, based on the theory from Morsing et al. would be two-way symmetric communication. Two way-symmetric communication means that there is a

constructive dialogue between stakeholders and organization, and the organization is open to their feedback. As I stated in my theoretical framework Driessen suggests that the introduction of web 2.0 gives organizations the opportunity to interact with stakeholders through social media platforms. I expected that this would be a valuable and effective tool to use in connecting to stakeholders in case of Corporate Social Responsibility. But from my research it seems that only ten of the forty-nine organizations actively use social media to engage with their stakeholders. Actively means in a two-way symmetric communication strategy. This also connects to the concept of sense giving and sense making. When there is no mutual connection, organizations can only give sense to its stakeholders, stakeholders can never make sense themselves. By letting them react and go into discussion with them, organizations and stakeholders will create a process of mutual sense giving and sense making. This will automatically lead to the fact that stakeholders will be able to co-construct Corporate Social Responsibility efforts, this in contrary to how it is done often now, reassuring the stakeholders that the organization handles ethically and socially

responsible. Because theory suggests this is something organizations should do and daily practice shows something else, this will be evaluated with an expert through the interview.

The same goes for the role of stakeholders. As stated above, the ideal situation is one where stakeholders are able to influence the organization. Stakeholders should be involved and able to participate or suggest actions. Where above is connected to social media, the same goes for stakeholder integration itself.

Therefore I had the expectation that when looking at the reports, evidence of interaction would be found, or at least directions to communication portals would be given. When analyzing, it became clear that only twelve organizations were reporting clearly on their stakeholder integration. The role was clearly defined, and the process documented. From the Baumann-Pauly research, it was suggested that larger organizations have an advantage on reporting, so my expectation was that this would reflect in their reports. Other organizations did mention stakeholder integration in their reports but no evidence could be found, this could be an indication that the organization is still operating in a response strategy. Because of the discrepancy between literature and practice, this will be evaluated through the interview as well. When looking at how organizations shape their focus, I was surprised to find that one organization was explicitly saying that they let their focus be determined by their top management, without feedback by for instance polls. Almost all organizations were situated in the response strategy. They let their focus be determined by top management but shaped it by evaluating their focus through polls or dialogue days. However, some organizations did mention they had ongoing dialogues with stakeholders on local level. This off course is easier to realize, since local governance is less complicated than global. However, why these practices aren’t escalated to corporate level is an interesting topic to evaluate through the interview.

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The criteria above demand (in the ideal situation) that stakeholders are triggered to go into discussion. This is where the strategic communication task becomes of importance. To start interacting with stakeholders, organizations need to “establish frequent, systematic and proactive dialogue”. When looking at the reaction time when a stakeholder posted a question through social media, only seven reacted within the first 24 hours. There was also one organization who had disabled the comment options. Besides that, only 23 organizations had links to their social media on their websites. On top of it, almost twenty percent of the organizations had their social media in a local language instead of English. When looking at these findings, it seems that organizations are not yet in a pro-active stance when it comes to starting and maintaining a dialogue with its stakeholders on social media. The reason behind this is an interesting fact to implement in the interview.

Corporate Social Responsibility initiatives need to be endorsed by third-party or external stakeholders, they need to show their support for their initiatives, states Morsing et al. This could be seen in the annual reports. According to Morsing et al., stakeholders themselves should be involved in corporate Corporate Social Responsibility messages. Only eleven organizations presented this throughout their reports though, most of the other organization presented their messages, supported by results from polls, surveys etc. This is typical for the response strategy, but won’t challenge stakeholders into a deeper level of integration. This will be added to the interview topics.

As mentioned before, one organization could be placed in the involvement strategy on all criteria. This organization has a powerful platform called “For a changing world”. The platform can be found at:

http://www.forachangingworld.com and will be used as an example of how organizations could operate based on the theory from the theoretical framework. This will be done by taking a closer look at the platform and comparing it to some criteria from the case study.

When looking at the stakeholder role, this platform gives evidence that stakeholders are involved and participate (numerous activities where stakeholders themselves are engaged, for example: “In that occasion almost 80 managers had the opportunity to know directly the community’s activity and met personally men and women that are living there. The experience was humanly very strong and meaningful, a real social

responsibility commitment.”

http://www.forachangingworld.com/2014/03/san-patrignano-a-fresh-start-for-drug-addicts/#comment-243317). It shows examples of the fact that stakeholders can suggest corporate actions it has a whole section for instance on employee initiatives, as can be seen in the picture below.

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When looking at the strategic communication task, the ideal situation is that the organization invites and establishes frequent, systematic and pro-active dialogue with stakeholders. When looking at the platform, stakeholders are invited to share their ideas, experiences and thoughts. Others can also comment and start a discussion. The “Speak up” option is prominent and also integrates social media as can be seen below.

Also third party endorsement is very clear within this platform, the stakeholders themselves are not only part of the messages here, most of the time they created the messages themselves.

When looking at the image above, another pro for sharing their Corporate Social Responsibility is that they integrate their social media into this platform. Not only Facebook is used, but the dominant others as well (Twitter, YouTube, Flickr) which extends the options for stakeholders to interact with the organization and strengthens the corporate communication department’s task; building relationships.

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5.2

When linking the results from the case study to the theoretical framework, the following differences between desired and current situation become clear.

First, according to Morsing et al. two-way symmetric communication and the concept of sense-giving and sense-making should be pursued. Organizations however mostly still do this one way only.

Secondly, reporting on the ability of stakeholders to participate or suggest actions was also not available with most organizations, or no evidence was given for the statements made in reports.

Third, it also became clear that almost all organizations shape their focus/policy of Corporate Social Responsibility themselves and evaluated it with stakeholders, instead of integrating stakeholders in the development process of the focus/policy.

Fourth, when social media was used to facilitate a dialogue with stakeholders, only a small section of the organizations had a pro-active stance and communicated with stakeholders. Others did not respond, had no decent platform or gave a response in days instead of hours.

Fifth, stakeholders themselves weren’t integrated in most of the communication concerning Corporate Social Responsibility, which conflicts with Morsing et al’s belief that stakeholders themselves need to be part of the organizations messages.

In this chapter, I took a deeper look at the results from the case study. By looking at the criteria from the case study and how this reflected in the results, input has been delivered for the interview. By doing the interview, the differences between daily practice and the ideal situation which is sketched in my theoretical framework can be discussed with an expert from the field of Corporate Social Responsibility. In the next chapter I will lay down my framework for the interview and analyze its results.

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6 Interview

6.1

To discuss the results from my case study, I have performed an interview with an expert on Corporate Social Responsibility. The interview was semi-structured, the guidelines can be found in appendix C. The expert that I have interviewed is Mr. Oene Venema. Oene is the owner of ACVO, a training and consultancy company which has years of experience on training and advising organizations on implementing Corporate Social Responsibility into their business processes. In this chapter I will review the answers on the questions in annex c and their connection with the results of the previous chapters. Before this interview I gave a short introduction on my thesis and the theoretical framework I used, so Oene had more insight in the framework in which this interview is placed.

First I wanted to see what their vision the definition of Corporate Social Responsibility is. Oene responded by saying:

“That’s a tough definition indeed. But our vision is: CSR means that all the decisions you make will not have negative effects on somebody else” 1

This is in line with my theoretical framework, where it is stated that it is hard to find a single definition. However, Oene does bring up another familiar concept:

“You have People, planet, profit”2

But they state that it is better to use performance instead of profit, because profit leans more towards the money aspect:

“Performance is something you have to show. Profit means earning money and done. Performance shows that this goes beyond profit in money.”3

When looking at the phase in which organizations find themselves now, Oene stated the following:

“You have investigated large organizations and you can see that they start communicating. But of all organizations I think 80% is still on the left side, 15% in the middle and 5% on the right. But that is based on my experience. Very few organizations have CSR implemented well. I think you can also see this I some kind of cycle, with early adapters for example.”4

1

_“

neemt, dat die geen negatieve effecten hebben op iemand anders.” 2 _{“Ja dus je hebt people planet profit”}

3 _{“Performance is eigenlijk iets wat ze veel meer, ja je moet het laten zien. Profit is je maakt winst, klaar. Performance} geeft meer aan dat dit gaat verder dan alleen dat stukje winst in geld en dat soort dingen”

4 _{“Nou als je percentages moet benoemen, dan denk ik je hebt bij grote organisaties bekeken en daar zie je dat ze} beginnen te communiceren maar ik denk 80% van de bedrijven in het midden zit, 15% rechts en 5% links, maar dat is een gevoel vanuit de contacten die ik heb. Er zijn maar weinig bedrijven die het goed voor elkaar heeft. Ik denk ook dat je ze in een soort van cyclus kan plaatsen, early adapters bijv”

28 | Stakeholder integration in Corporate Social Responsibility communication strategies

When looking at my research, most of the organizations were placed in the center phase (phases form left to right, information-response-involvement). Oene services a lot of small and medium sized organizations. He also states here that large organizations started communicating. So this could explain the difference in my results and the experiences Oene had. This also relates to the statement that larger organizations have an advantage in reporting on Corporate Social Responsibility (Baumann-Pauly, 2013). He also makes a different comparison, stating that organizations in the first phase are reactive, in the second active and in the third pro-active:

“The second is active, the last one proactive.”5

He says that the majority is reactive, awaiting customer demands:

“He asks this, so I have to do something with it.”6

The other two phases he describes as follows:

“The active are becoming aware and are looking how they can start the dialogue and see opportunities. They want it, and start working on it. The proactive ones know for sure they can earn money with this.”7

When you relate this to the theoretical framework, this can indeed be said. In information strategy, the organizations is passive and seeks no discussion with stakeholders. In the response strategy, the organizations starts integrating stakeholders, while in the involvement strategy the integration of stakeholders is a core concept.

In my research, I focused on sustainability reports and social media. When asked if he saw any other platforms in use for communicating about Corporate Social Responsibility, Oene answered the following:

“I don’t think they are doing this actively. It’s a process of becoming aware.”8

Soon after this, the following is said:

“You can see now, organizations are discovering what it means for them. Awareness is developing now. ”9

“You have to focus internally first. It’s about who you are at first. Because if you first take the step outwards it can be that within your organization things are different than what you are saying, and that is a high risk. If you say something different than you are, people will find out and social media will be a very powerful tool to spread this. That is why honesty and transparency are only possible if you know very well who you are yourself.” 10

5 _{“De tweede is actief, de laatse is pro-actief.”} 6 _{“die vraagt dat, oh daar moet ik mee aan de gang”}

7 _{“En de actieve zijn bewust aan het worden en die kijken inderdaad hoe ze stakeholderdialoog moeten gaan doen en} die zien kansen. Die willen dat, die gaan ermee aan de gang. En de pro-actieve die denken 100% kans dat ik hier geld mee gaan verdienen.”

8 _{“Ik heb niet het idee dat ze daar heel actief mee zijn. Het is een bewustwordingsproces”}

9 _{“en je merkt nu dat bedrijven er achter komen wat het een beetje in houd ten wat het voor hun betekent. Nu komt} pas de bewustwording.”

10 _{“. Het is toch eerst intern gericht. Het is eerst hoe zijn wij. Want als je die stap eerst naar buiten maakt dan is het} intern misschien anders dan wat je zegt, en dat heeft een hoog afbraakrisico. Als jij je anders voor doet dan prikt men daar doorheen en dan is SM weer heel machtig om even te vertellen dat je het ene zegt en het ander doet. Daarom is eerlijk en transparant zijn pas mogelijk als heel goed weet wie je bent.”

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This was used as a bridge for my following question, if Oene recognized the fact from my research that social media was used far from proactive, that often organizations did not react on questions for instance and if he had an explanation for this fact. Oene replied as follows:

“Yes I recognize this. This has to do with the previous statement. If you say you want to gain information but you don’t react on it, you do this as window dressing, “look at us being proactive with our stakeholders”, but if it stops there. It would have been more powerful if they reacted by asking if they could contact the person. But if there is no reaction, you lose belief. Nobody will react anymore. This has a contrary effect, you can only point out positive aspects. You’ve seen it, other people as well. Organizations need to be active. Organizations often say “Oh we need to do this as well” but then you need to be active.”11

This is definitely in line with my case study, and it has been repeatedly stated that if you want to improve your strategy that you have to involve stakeholders. This is also the case for developing a policy, out of my research it appeared that organizations did not give any proof of integrating their stakeholders into this process. So I asked Oene what kind of role organizations give their stakeholders. Are the organizations aware of its importance or is this still neglected. Oene stated the following:

“I think organizations aren’t aware yet. This is something that is arising. Most of the time, things like this come out of urgency”12

When organizations aren’t aware. It could be that they are in fact already doing some of the desired actions. That is why Oene points out that in their training sessions, he hammers on showing what you are doing:

“Also, in our training programs we hammer on the fact that people need to show what they are doing”13

In the reports analyzed in my case study, no evidence could be found for integrating stakeholders into policy development. In other words, if organizations are doing this at all, they are not showing it. Oene goes on about this fact by explaining that if you are integrated in decision making, you are co-owner of a product or service:

“Co-ownership, that is really a mindset. And that is evidence you have to show.”14

He extends this by saying:

“Especially in stakeholder dialogue, the word says it, you need to start a conversation. I think there are a lot of stakeholder monologues.”15

11 _{“Ja ik zie het wel terug. Dit heeft wel te maken met de opsomming van net. As je zegt dat je informatie wil hebben} en je reageert er niet op dan wil je dat niet maar doe je het als window dressing. “Kijk ons eens proactief met

stakeholders zijn”, maar als je er vervolgens niets mee doet. Het was vele sterker geweest als er een reactie bij stond, mogen wij contact me u opnemen. Maar als er geen reactie is dan geloof je het niet meer. Wat krijg je dan, dat niemand meer reageert. Dan heeft het een averechts effect, je mag alleen maar positieve dingen benoemen. Jij hebt het gelijk gezien, iedereen ziet dat. Bedrijven moeten daar actief in zijn. Vaak zeggen mensen “oh dat moeten we ook even doen”, maar je moet er dan wel actief in zijn”

12 _{“ik denk dat bedrijven zich er nog niet bewust van zijn. Dat begint nu te komen. Meestal komen dit soort dingen uit} urgentie.”

13 _{“Ook in onze programma’s hameren we er op dat mensen moeten laten zien wat ze doen.”}

14 _{Mede eigenaarschap, dat is echt een mindset. En dat soort bewijs moet je echt laten zien.}

15 _{“Zeker in de stakeholderdialoog, het woord zegt het al, je moet in gesprek gaan. Ik denk dat er heel veel} stakeholdermonologen zijn.”

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Again, this would acknowledge the fact that a lot of organizations are using the response strategy, in which stakeholders are involved, but not yet in a two way system. That is a next phase, Oene says about this:

“We are now discovering, and when more is known, you are ready to start a dialogue”16

When asked what he thinks is the obstacle for the change to include your stakeholders in developing your policy, Oene says:

“I think that maybe there isn’t even an obstacle, but it’s just the next phase. It’s becoming aware, it’s evaluating, during evaluation you discover points for improvement, perhaps this will require you to get in contact with another person”17

Later on he strengthens his opinion again:

“I think that a lot are still in a phase before, that they are struggling with the question how to deal with this in a good manner”18

All three quotes above are related to the fact that he believes that organizations aren’t necessarily unwilling but just not evolved enough. That could be an explanation for the fact that I couldn’t find evidence in my research of initiatives/actions to include stakeholders. Maybe some organizations are communicating their willingness but are still struggling to really integrate stakeholders in their policy development process. This is also illustrated in one of his later remarks:

“The dialogue for a multinational is of course really different than the dialogue for small/medium organizations. Where the smaller organizations often has more contact with their customers/dealers, multinationals says he does something and hopes all of his employees perform their actions in line with this belief”19

But he does acknowledge the fact that it is harder for larger organizations:

“It’s true of course, such a large organization has to start communicating, but with who? Employees don’t get that yet, when somebody ask questions they think “what are they asking now?” So it will develop itself when people start asking questions.”20

By now it has become clear what the vision is on the current situation. Oene clearly states that in his belief, organizations are one phase away from the desired situation. So what is his view on the future of this subject, how does he see the development of stakeholder integration?

16 _{“Ja we zijn nu gewoon aan het ontdekken en wanneer er meer is, dan kun je ook de dialoog aan gaan.”}

17 _{“: Ik denk dat er misschien niet eens een drempel is maar gewoon de volgende fase. Het is bewust worden, het is} evalueren, tijdens de evaluatie krijg je ook weer verbeterpunten tegen, wellicht dat je in contact moet komen met zo’n persoon.”

18 _{“Ik denk dat er gewoon heel veel nog een fase terug zitten, dat ze er nog tussen hangen met de vraag hoe gaan we} hier op een goede wijze invulling aan geven.”

19 _{“Dus de dialoog voor een multinational is natuurlijk wezenlijk iets anders dan het dialoog van het MKB. Want die} heeft vaak al veel meer een dialoog met de klant en leverancier, terwijl de multinational roept dat hij dat doet en hoopt maar dat zijn medewerkers dat ook allemaal opvolgen.”

20 _{“Het is natuurlijk ook zo, zo’n grote organisatie moet ineens communiceren, maar met wie? En die snappen dat} niet, die denken wat vragen ze me nu. Dat ontstaat dan vanzelf als mensen vragen gaan stellen”