Master Thesis
Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) Communication on Social Media in the Health Technology Industry: A Case Study of Philips on CSR Communication Strategies and
Stakeholders’ Engagement
Master’s Programme in Communication Science
University of Amsterdam
Student: Ring Lam Chan
Student ID: 12329568
Thesis Supervisor: Dr. James Slevin
26 June 2020
Abstract
The aim of this study is to explore how companies in the health technology industry
communicate CSR and engage their stakeholders on social media with the focus on the
CSR dimension and the effectiveness of CSR communication strategies on stakeholders’
engagement. Previous research suggested that adopting engaging strategy in CSR
communication on social media and incorporating multimedia elements in the content of
the CSR post could elicit more stakeholders’ engagement to the post. Accordingly, this
study addressed hypotheses based on the literature and conducted a quantitative content
analysis to examine the social media posts of a health technology company, Philips, on
social media platforms, namely Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and Yammer. In line with
previous research and the hypotheses, stakeholders tend to engage with CSR posts that use
engaging strategy, and when multimedia elements such as photos, videos and hashtags are
incorporated, stakeholders are more likely to like, comment and share the CSR post.
Evidence presented in this study supported and contributed new insights to the academic
research of CSR communication on social media.
Table of Content
Introduction
Theoretical Background
Corporate social responsibility (CSR) communication and stakeholders
CSR communication strategies
CSR communication on social media
Methodology Sample Codebook Research variables Independent variables Dependent variables Inter-coder reliability Results Discussion
Limitations and Future Research
Conclusion References Appendices Appendix 1 - Codebook 4 8 8 10 13 15 15 17 18 18 20 21 21 25 29 31 32 36 36 Page 3 of 40
Introduction
Corporate social responsibility (CSR) is a significant topic in today’s business world as
consumers become more socially conscious, their concern about the environment and
ethical issues has soared. Stakeholders, both internal and external, more than ever have
higher expectations on organizations’ engagement in CSR activities and disclosure. To
gain support and trust from stakeholders, companies proactively take their interests into
consideration and engage in CSR (Freeman, 2010). Companies have taken part in CSR
initiatives to change the way their business operates, be more transparent and responsible
for the society and sustainable environment. By engaging in CSR activities, companies can
strengthen relationships with stakeholders, engender consumers’ positive attitude and
support behavior (Sen et al., 2006), resulting in better financial performance (Porter &
Kramer, 2006).
In the past decades, companies’ engagement in CSR activities has transformed
from merely meeting regulations for organizational legitimacy to incorporating CSR into
their business strategy and going beyond environmental regulations. Companies
proactively communicate CSR knowledge and information to their stakeholders so as to
gain support from them and achieve better environmental performance (Chang, 2014). As
stakeholders have the ability to influence companies’ CSR actions, CSR communication is
therefore critical in aligning companies’ CSR agenda with stakeholders’ social
expectations and to be perceived as socially responsible organizations (Colleoni, 2013;
Ghosh, 2015). Through effective CSR communication, companies can positively influence
stakeholders’ attitudes towards the company, enhance stakeholders’ advocacy behaviors,
improve corporate’s image and reputation in the long term (Du, Bhattacharya & Sen,
2010). In terms of internal stakeholders, effective CSR communication could help
companies attract talents and increase employees’ motivation and loyalty towards the
company, leading to better financial performance (Ghosh, 2015).
Prior to the existence of social media, companies disclose their CSR efforts to
stakeholders via company websites and annual reports, which tend to have a limited reach.
With the rise of social media platforms that changed information sharing and relationship
building practices, more companies are present on social media to reach a larger customer
group base and to interact with stakeholders. Companies consider social media as a
powerful tool and environment that assists them initiating dialogue and engaging with
stakeholders in two-way communication. Social media platforms enabled users across the
world to interact, exchange information, share knowledge and build relationships. It has
become the main channel for companies to communicate internally and externally
(Lipinska, 2018). Stakeholders are no longer solely the receiver of information
disseminated by the organizations, they could express their opinions and directly engage in
dialogues with the companies via social media (Cho, Furey & Mohr, 2017). Considerable
amount of companies are manage their CSR initiatives on social media (Jeong, Paek &
Lee, 2013), not only it is a channel for companies to communicate CSR messages, it is also
effective in understanding stakeholders’ needs and obtaining their feedback on current
CSR practices (Kucukusta, Perelygina & Lam, 2019).
However, despite having the ability to interact and initiate dialogue with
stakeholders, social media platforms are not widely used by companies for interactive CSR
communication in practice. Organizations are not exploiting the full potential of social
media and their functionality for two-way CSR communication and managing their
relationship with stakeholders (“Ways to exploit Facebook’s capabilities”, 2015). CSR
communication could be a double-edged sword (van Rekom et al., 2014) and it may have a
backlash effect if stakeholders become skeptical on companies’ motives in their initiatives
(Du et al., 2010). Given that social media is not owned media, companies are losing
control over conversations related to them among users and they are often struggling with
the dynamics and risks brought by social media (Castelló et al., 2016). Without the
effective use of social media platforms’ functionality and appropriate communication
strategies to engage stakeholders, CSR communication on social media could easily lead to
a corporate crisis. It is a challenge for companies that adopt CSR in their business strategy
and desire to engage in CSR communication actively on social media.
Aiming to enhance organizational performance through environmentally friendly
technologies, many well-known and successful companies are engaged in CSR (Chang,
2014), and utilize it as a strategy for innovation (Gallego-Álvarez et al., 2011). Companies
in the healthcare industry, specifically, in the medical technology or in other words health
technology sector, are said to have strong financial performance and sustained growth.
They often share a similar mission statement as to help saving lives, improve quality of life
and make the world more sustainable through innovation and that align with the purposes
of CSR giving back to the community and business operating in a more sustainable way.
While investors are interested in their stock market performance, consumers and
employees are interested in their CSR efforts as environmental and social considerations
are incorporated in most of their business strategy (e.g. MedTech Europe). Whereas
companies in the healthcare industry tend to disclose more CSR information to the public
(Giannarakis, 2014), heath technology companies that embrace and value CSR in their
corporate culture and business strategy, are also anticipated to actively disseminate CSR
information to their stakeholders as well. Hence, leading to the main research question of
this study: How do health technology companies communicate corporate social
responsibility (CSR) and engage their stakeholders on social media?
This study aimed to explore how health technology companies utilize social media
platforms to convey CSR and engage their stakeholders. Through conducting a content
analysis on their CSR-related posts on social media platforms, the study examined which
type of communication strategies are commonly used in CSR communication of health
technology companies and their effectiveness by looking at the stakeholders’ engagement
rate, i.e. endorsement rate and diffusion rate, of the posts.
As literature in the CSR communication field often studies companies across
industries and little has been done to relate with the health technology industry, this study
aimed to contribute knowledge on CSR communication in the health technology industry
and improve companies’ implementation of communication strategies used to engage with
stakeholders in CSR-related conversation on social media.
Theoretical Background
Corporate social responsibility (CSR) communication and stakeholders
Corporate social responsibility (CSR) as defined by European Commission (2003) refers to
responsible business practices supporting three principles of sustainable development:
economic growth and prosperity, social cohesion and equity, and environmental integrity
and protection (European Commission, 2003). Companies are encouraged to go beyond
governmental regulations, proactively and voluntarily engage in CSR initiatives to manage
social responsibility issues and meet stakeholders’ expectations, i.e. proactive CSR
approach. As presented in the study of Torugsa, O’Donohue and Hecker (2013) and the
definition addressed by European Commission (2003), the three dimensions of CSR are
described as follows. The economic dimension of proactive CSR refers to initiatives
supporting economic growth and prosperity, with relation to issues such as product quality
and safety, profitability and supply chain management. Social dimension of CSR refers to
initiatives supporting social cohesion and equity, relating to issues such as employees’
well-being, work environment and policies. The environmental dimension of CSR refers to
initiatives supporting management and minimization of the company's ecological and
environmental impact, and focusing on “green” innovation and pollution prevention.
As key stakeholders such as consumers, employees and investors are likely to
reward organizations who are socially responsible, effective CSR communication comes
into play in stakeholders’ acknowledgement of organization’s CSR efforts, it generates
stakeholders’ awareness and minimizes their skepticism towards their CSR initiatives (Du
et al., 2010). Stakeholders are likely to react positively towards messages disclosing
organizations’ ethical and socially responsible initiatives (Morsing & Schultz, 2006), as a
consequence, they are likely to change their attitudes towards the company and their
behavior such as purchasing, employment seeking and investment. As mentioned earlier
there are different types of stakeholder relevant to an organization, i.e. internal
stakeholders (including employees and managers) and external stakeholders (including
consumers and investors). Providing that stakeholders’ expectations and information needs
varies, such as consumers are interested in products’ quality while employees are
interested in employment policies and equal opportunities, they respond differently to
various topics of CSR messages (Du et al., 2010). The requirement for CSR information
disclosed therefore varies and CSR-related messages should be tailored to different
stakeholder groups (Dawkins, 2004).
With regard to stakeholders’ engagement with CSR messages of different topics,
audiences are likely to accept and respond to the CSR message if it is relevant to their
personal life experiences or interests (Kim & Ferguson, 2018). Previous research
discovered topics in the social dimension of CSR significantly elicit audience’s
engagement to CSR messages on social media, such as workplace and well-being of
employees (Abitol & Lee, 2017). As employees are also followers of their company’s
external social media page and topics in the social dimension of CSR are congruent with
their beliefs and interests, it is assumed that stakeholders in general are more likely to
engage with economic-related CSR messages. In light of congruent topics of CSR are
likely to bring out stakeholders’ engagement to CSR posts on social media, this study
address the following hypothesis:
H1: Social-related CSR posts have a higher level of stakeholders’ engagement, in
terms of (a) endorsement and (b) diffusion, than economic and environment-related CSR
posts on social media.
CSR communication strategies
The importance of stakeholders’ involvement in companies’ CSR initiatives is on the rise,
to ensure the company is aware of and their actions are in line with stakeholders’
expectations, it is needed to engage stakeholders in CSR communication. To strengthen the
relationship with stakeholders and maintain their ongoing awareness towards the
company’s CSR efforts, more sophisticated CSR communication strategies covering the
development from monologue to two-way symmetrical dialogue are needed (Morsing &
Schultz, 2006).
Developed from Grunig and Hunt (1984) public relations theory, Morsing and
Schultz (2006) introduced three types of communication strategies which companies could
strategically engage their stakeholders in their CSR communication: stakeholder
information strategy, stakeholder response strategy and stakeholder involvement strategy.
Given the focus on social media, this study investigated the usage and effectiveness of
communication strategies proposed by Etter (2014) which were built on the work of
Morsing and Schultz (2006): Broadcasting strategy, reacting strategy and engaging
strategy. Broadcasting strategy is described as a one-way communication approach in
which companies disseminate specific information to the public on social media and do not
respond to any responses under the post, improvements in mutual understanding and
relationship between the company and its stakeholders are not achieved. Reacting strategy
and Engaging strategy are described as two-way communication asymmetric and
symmetric approach respectively, which company is responsive and interaction with
audience is involved. The difference between reacting and engaging strategies lies in
company respond to questions and remarks from audience with a reactive approach and a
purpose to persuade audience in reacting strategy, and company proactively communicate
with audience, engage them in dialogues and mention specific users in their post, in such
way, companies are able to receive feedbacks from stakeholders and reflect their decisions
and activities.
Corporate public relations practitioners are advised to develop different CSR
communication strategies to demonstrate various CSR topics and encourage stakeholders
in engaging with the company by including both internal and external stakeholders (Cho et
al., 2017). Although little literature explored the association between the type of
communication strategy used in CSR communication and the dimension of CSR disclosed,
given stakeholders have different information needs and react differently to various CSR
topics, companies may utilize different communication strategies tailored to the topic of
CSR messages in stakeholders’ interests. Hence, the following hypothesis is proposed:
H2: The type of communication strategy (broadcasting, reacting, and engaging)
used is associated with the dimension of CSR disclosed (economic, social, and
environmental) in CSR-related posts on social media.
Despite interactive functions and environment offered, due to fear of stakeholders’
skepticism, companies often used social media as non-interactive traditional mass media
when it comes to self-presentation (Insch, 2008). Studies also showed that most companies
use broadcasting strategy for communication on social media and fewer use engaging
strategy (Etter, 2014; Cho et al., 2017), they tend to broadcast positive CSR messages in a
similar approach as traditional advertisement (Colleoni, 2013). In terms of effectiveness of
communication strategies on social media, scholars on the other hand suggested a
dialogue-oriented communication strategy is the most effective, CSR-related posts
adopting an engaging strategy would yield a higher level of stakeholders' engagement
(Cho, Schweickart & Haase, 2014; Etter, 2014). It is suggested that if stakeholders are
engaged in the CSR communication process, awareness of mutual expectations may
enhance, stakeholders may support and contribute more to organizations’ CSR efforts
(Morsing & Schultz, 2006). Social media users are more likely to like or comment on a
post if the message posted by the company is interactive (Saxton & Waters, 2014). Hence,
to examine the effectiveness of communication strategies on stakeholders’ engagement,
this study proposed the following hypothesis regarding the usage of communication
strategies on social media and stakeholders’ engagement on CSR-related posts:
H3: CSR-related posts using engaging strategy have a higher level of stakeholders’
engagement, in terms of (a) endorsement and (b) diffusion, on social media than CSR posts
using broadcasting and reacting strategy.
CSR communication on social media
Scholars addressed the key challenges in CSR communication are raising stakeholders’
awareness towards organizations’ CSR efforts and diminishing their skepticism. Literature
suggested using social media for CSR communication could help minimizing stakeholders’
skepticism towards the message (Du & Vieira, 2012), and enhancing the reach of
information disseminated from organizations and audience engagement. The development
of social media platforms offered features and environment facilitating interactive
communication, collaboration, co-creation and content sharing between users (Furness,
2008).
Social media is now an essential part of people’s lives (McCann & Barlow, 2015).
Apart from external social media, social media for internal usage is also on the rise and it is
a useful means for internal communication (Dreher, 2014), it helps cultivating subcultures
in the organization and strengthen employee relationships (Lipiainen, Karjaluoto &
Nevalainen, 2014). As social media increased consumers’ access to information about
organizations’ social behaviors (Groza, Pronschinske & Walker, 2011), stakeholders could
engage with companies in a timely manner and on a larger scale which posed both new
opportunities and challenges for corporate public relations practitioners (Kollat & Farache,
2017). Organizations could initiate dialogues related to CSR and invite stakeholders to
respond and participate through liking, commenting and sharing the post within their
network on social media platforms, which in turn strengthening the relationship between
the company and stakeholders (Sreejesh, Sarkar & Sarkar, 2019).
Furthermore, social media enables users to include multimedia elements such as
photos, videos, external links and hashtags on their posts other than pure text. Literatures
suggested a combination of multimedia elements could enhance the richness of content
which audiences find more appealing, leading to more effective communication and user
engagement (Daft & Lengel, 1986; Brubaker & Wilson, 2018; Kucukust et al., 2019).
(Add critics on the fucking media richness theory from other studies) In the context of
CSR communication, research has demonstrated audience are more likely to engage with
CSR-related social media posts that incorporated multimedia elements such as links and
photos (Abitol & Lee, 2017). However, researchers have yet to further explore the role of
multimedia elements in the relationship between communication strategies and
stakeholders’ engagement on social media posts. Under the assumption that there is an
association between the type of communication strategy used and stakeholders’
engagement on CSR-related social media posts, this study hypothesized the presence of
multimedia elements other than text affects the strength of the association (e.g.
stakeholders are more likely to engage with the CSR-related social media posts utilizing
broadcasting strategy if photos are present along with text). The hypothesis is outlined as
follow:
H4: Presence of multimedia elements moderates the relationship between the level
of stakeholders’ engagement, in terms of (a) endorsement and (b) diffusion, and the usage
of communication strategy (broadcasting, reacting, and engaging) of CSR-related posts on
social media.
Figure. 1 Hypothesized framework.
Methodology
Sample
To answer the research question, a quantitative content analysis was conducted to analyze
the content of social media posts published by companies in the health technology
industry, and examine the dimensions of CSR-related activities disclosed, the usage of
communication strategies and multimedia elements, and the level of stakeholders’
engagement to the post.
A multinational corporation operating in the health technology industry, Philips,
was selected for the study. Philips is known as one of the biggest electronics companies
and global leaders in health technology in the world. Sustainability is integrated into the
company’s strategy and it is the core of its vision. The company is ambitious into
achieving an objective “improve 3 billion lives per year by 2030”, and has launched
different global programs collaborating with NGOs and initiatives to achieve their goal,
such as their sustainability program “Healthy people, sustainable planet”. Philips ranked #1
on Fortune’s Sustainability All Stars list and #2 on the global Dow Jones Sustainability
Indices list in the Health Care Equipment and Services industry group in 2019 (Philips,
2019). In light of its success, active engagement and recognitions gained for sustainability
performance, Philips was selected in this study to analyze its CSR communication
strategies on social media.
Unlike previous research which analyzed posts on external social media platforms
such as Facebook and Twitter, posts on internal social media platform Yammer, which is
similar to Twitter but with a user group of employees within the organization, was also
included in this study to analyze the company’s overall CSR communication strategies on
social media. Moreover, social media platform LinkedIn, which has a growing popularity
among companies for corporate communication, was also included in the study with an
aim to record the company’s CSR communication strategies targeting professionals on the
site, such as investors, employees and talents, and their engagement to the posts.
The social media posts analyzed in the study were retrieved from Philips’s account
page on the above four platforms. All posts published from 1 August 2019 to 30 April
2020 were retrieved for the data analysis, resulting in a final sample of 572 posts. For the
feasibility of coding, only posts written in English were selected.
Codebook
To analyze the content of Philips’s social media posts systematically and objectively, a
codebook (see Appendix 1) was developed with reference to the study of Morsing and
Schultz (2006), Waters, Burnett, Lamm and Lucas (2009), Torugsa, O’Donohue and
Hecker (2012), Etter (2014), Cho et al. (2014), Abitol and Lee (2017), and Araujo and
Kollat (2018) for the analysis. The codebook consists of 17 variables and questions were
constructed for identifying the presence of CSR content (economic, social and
environmental dimension), communication strategies (broadcasting, reacting and engaging
strategy), multimedia elements (text, photo, video, graphic, link and hashtag),
stakeholders’ engagement to the post (number of likes, comments and shares of post), and
general information of the social media post. The whole text and multimedia elements
enclosed in the post were taken into account for the coding process with the focus of solely
analyzing the content of the post.
Research variables
The questions in the codebook were constructed with regard to the four categories of
research variables (CSR dimension, communication strategy, multimedia element and
stakeholders’ engagement) mentioned in the above theoretical section, they were measured
as follows.
Independent variables
CSR dimension. The presence of CSR content in the social media post was identified and
categorized into three dimensions of CSR according to the CSR definition by European
Commission (2003) and the elements of each dimension discussed in the study of Torugsa
et al. (2012), multimedia such as photos and videos were also taken into account for the
identification. All posts that contained information about economic issues, such as
long-term economic performance, supply chain management, product efficiency, product
quality and safety, and customer satisfaction, were classified as economic-related CSR
posts. All posts that contained information about social issues, such as the society, human
rights, employee well-being, product responsibility and governance, were classified as
social-related CSR posts. All posts that contained information about environmental issues,
such as recycling, eco-efficiency, pollution and waste management, climate change,
ecosystems and energy efficiency, were classified as environment-related CSR posts. All
other posts that did not contain information related to the elements described in the three
dimensions were classified as non CSR-related posts. In total, sixty two percent of the
posts were CSR-related (M = 0.62, SD = 0.49), most of the posts were economic-related (forty-two percent), while twenty-four percent of the CSR-related posts were classified as
environment-related and thirty-three percent were social-related.
CSR communication strategy. The communication strategy used in the post was
identified according to the three strategies suggested in the study of Etter (2014), the
details for identification were adapted from Morsing and Schultz (2006), Etter (2014), and
Araujo and Kollat (2018). All posts in which other users were not approached directly and
were solely replies to other users’ posts, comments or questions, were regarded as using a
reacting strategy. All posts that mentioned other users using tag function, consisted
questions, or used pronouns such as ‘you’ or ‘your’ in the content, were considered as
using engaging strategy. All posts that were solely information dissemination and did not
fall into the other two strategies, were considered as using broadcasting strategy. Since the
sampling unit is at post level, the company’s replies under other users’ posts were not
shown on the account page as a single post published from the company, hence, no posts in
the sample were identified as using reacting strategy. Sixty percent of the posts were
identified as using broadcasting strategy while forty percent of the posts were identified as
using engaging strategy.
Multimedia element. Multimedia element was defined as the format in which the
company used to present information besides text. With reference to the study of Waters et
al. (2009) and Abitol and Lee (2017), the following five types of format were used to
identify the presence of multimedia element: photo ( M = 0.63, SD = 0.48), video (M =
0.12,SD = 0.33), graphic (M = 0.10, SD = 0.30), link (M = 0.82, SD = 0.62), and hashtag (M = 0.60, SD = 0.66). More than sixty percent of the posts were found using photo and hashtag to present information along with text and eighty percent of the posts used link,
while only around ten percent of the posts were found using video and graphic.
Dependent variable
Following Cho et al. (2014), the dependent variable in this study was stakeholders’
engagement to the social media post, defined in terms of endorsement, the behavior of
liking and commenting on the post, and diffusion, the behavior of sharing the post. The
level of endorsement was measured as the total number of likes and comments of the post
(M = 510.57, SD = 4029.35), and the level of diffusion was measured as the number of shares of the post ( M = 22.33, SD = 349.02). Given the variation in the number of followers of the company’s account on each social media platform was large and skewed
numbers of likes, comments and shares of the posts across platforms were found, the level
of endorsement was operationalized as the total number of likes and comments over the
number of followers of the account in the form of percentage ( M = 0.0007, SD = 0.0016), and the level of diffusion was operationalized as the number of shares over the number of
followers of the account in the form of percentage ( M = 0.0001, SD = 0.0003) so as to address the issue and facilitate the data analysis of the hypotheses.
Inter-coder reliability
The sampling unit of 572 social media posts were analyzed and coded by one coder. To
assess the inter-coder reliability of the analysis, 115 social media posts (twenty percent of
the sample) were extracted and coded for the dependent and independent variables in the
codebook in May and June 2020 by the same coder. The average Krippendorff’s alpha
score of 0.91 indicated a sufficient level of inter-coder reliability for the study.
Results
To test the hypotheses addressed in the theoretical section, a number of analyses were
performed to examine the associations among the research variables and the results are
discussed as follows.
With regard to the dimension of CSR discussed in the social media post, hypothesis
1 suggested social-related CSR posts will have a higher level of stakeholder engagement
rate than economic and environment-related CSR posts on social media. A series of
one-way analysis of variance were carried out to assess the influence of CSR dimension to
the level of stakeholder’s engagement to the social media post. Results revealed that there
was a significant difference between the three CSR dimensions on the level of
stakeholder’s engagement, in terms of stakeholder’s endorsement rate, F (2,352) = 17.81, p < .001, and stakeholder’s diffusion rate, F (2,352) = 6.59, p = .002. A Turkey HSD post hoc test indicated the stakeholder’s endorsement rate is significantly higher in
environment-related CSR posts as compared to that of economic-related CSR posts
(Mdifference = 0.15, p <.001) and social-related CSR posts (Mdifference = 0.11, p <.001). No significant difference in the stakeholder’s endorsement rate was found between the
economic-related and social-related CSR posts. On the contrary, the Turkey HSD post hoc
test indicated the stakeholder’s diffusion rate is significantly higher in social-related CSR
posts as compare to that of economic-related CSR posts ( Mdifference = 0.01, p = 0.002) and environment-related CSR posts (Mdifference = 0.01, p = 0.018). No significant difference in the stakeholder’s diffusion rate was established between the economic-related and
environment-related CSR posts. Hence, hypothesis 1 was partially supported (H1b),
social-related CSR posts have a higher level of stakeholder engagement rate, in terms of
diffusion, than economic and environment-related CSR posts on social media. The
Levene’s test results also showed that the assumption of equal variances in the
endorsement rate, F (2, 352) = 11.22, p < .001, and diffusion rate, F (2, 352) = 16.16, p <.001, were rejected.
To examine whether there was an association between the type of communication
strategy used and the dimension of CSR disclosed in the CSR-related social media posts as
proposed in hypothesis 2, crosstabs and chi-square tests were performed. The results
indicated there is a statistically significant but weak association between the two variables,
X2 (2, N = 355) = 16.81, p <.001, V = 0.218. When the CSR-related post was concerning economic or social topics, broadcasting strategy was significantly used more often than
engaging strategy. When the CSR-related post was concerning a topic related to the
environment, engaging strategy was used more often than broadcasting strategy. Therefore,
hypothesis 2 was supported, the type of communication strategy used is associated with the
dimension of CSR disclosed on social media.
Continuing on the communication strategies, hypothesis 3 addressed when the
CSR-related post employed engaging strategy, the stakeholder engagement rate of the post
will be higher than CSR-related post that employed broadcasting and reacting strategy. A
series of independent sample t-test was conducted to examine the effect of the type of
communication strategy used on the level of stakeholder engagement rate of the
CSR-related social media post. As there w The results showed that there was a significant
difference on the level of stakeholder’s endorsement rate between CSR-related posts using
broadcasting and engaging strategies, t (170.57) = -4.68, p < .001, 95% CI [-0.15, -0.06]. The stakeholder’s endorsement rate of CSR-related posts which used engaging strategy ( M = 0.16, SD = 0.27) was significantly higher than that of CSR-related posts which used broadcasting strategy (M = 0.05, SD = 0.08). A significant difference on the level of stakeholder’s diffusion rate between the two types of communication strategies employed
was also found, t (165.60) = -3.64, p <.001, 95% CI [-0.02, -0.01]. The stakeholder’s diffusion rate of CSR-related posts which employed engaging strategy ( M = 0.02, SD = 0.05) was significantly higher than that of CSR-related posts which employed broadcasting
strategy (M = 0.01, SD = 0.01). Therefore, hypothesis 3 was supported, indicating the usage of engaging strategy on CSR-related posts leads to a higher level of stakeholder
engagement rate than broadcasting strategy.
Following the relationship between the type of communication strategy used and
the level of stakeholder engagement rate on CSR-related posts addressed in hypothesis 3,
hypothesis 4 proposed that the relationship is moderated by the presence of multimedia
elements apart from text, i.e. photo, video, graphic, link and hashtag. A series of two-way
analysis of variance was carried out to examine the interaction effect between the type of
communication strategy and presence of multimedia element on stakeholder engagement
rate. In terms of stakeholder’s endorsement rate, there was a statistically significant
interaction effect between the type of communication strategy and presence of multimedia
element such as video, F (1,351) = 11.26, p = 0.001, and hashtag, F (1,351) = 7.86, p = 0.005, on stakeholder engagement rate of the CSR-related post, no significant interaction
effect was found concerning the presence of photo, F (1,351) = 1.50, p = 0.22, graphic, F (1,351) = 0.16, p = 0.69, and link, F (1,351) = 1.56, p = 0.21. The results indicated the presence of video and hashtag positively moderates the association between the type of
communication strategy and the level of stakeholder’s endorsement rate. In terms of
stakeholder’s diffusion rate, there was a statistically significant interaction effect between
the type of communication strategy and presence of photo, F (1,351) = 4.56, p = 0.03, and video, F (1,351) = 35.41, p < .001, no significant interaction effect was found concerning the presence of graphic, F (1,351) = 0.19, p = 0.67, link, F (1,351) = 2.30, p = 0.13, and hashtag, F (1,351) = 3.69, p = 0.06. The analysis results revealed the positive moderating role of photo and video presence in the association between the type of communication
strategy and the level of stakeholder’s diffusion rate. Therefore, hypothesis 4 was partially
supported.
Discussion and Conclusion
As CSR has taken a huge part in the global corporate agenda, effective CSR
communication to stakeholders has become crucial. Without stakeholders’ awareness and
acknowledgement of their CSR efforts, companies may not fully benefit from engaging in
CSR activities. To increase their visibility and interact with stakeholders, numerous
companies are present on social media for corporate communication (Ros-Diego &
Castelló-Martínez, 2011). Social media is the new message channel and is considered as an
essential part in CSR communication. Scholars have suggested several CSR
communication strategies to engage with stakeholders on CSR topics on social media, and
although past research provided evidence to validate the claims concerning the
effectiveness of the communication strategies, little is known about the CSR
communication on social media in the health technology industry.
This study aimed to explore how health technology companies communicate their
CSR and engage their stakeholders in the conversation on social media, with the focus on
the CSR dimension and the effectiveness of CSR communication strategies on
stakeholders’ engagement, a quantitative content analysis was conducted to analyze social
media posts of Philips, a leading multinational corporation in the health technology
industry, on four external and internal social media platforms, namely Twitter, Facebook,
LinkedIn and Yammer. This study contributes additional evidence and insights to
academic research on CSR communication.
With regard to the CSR topics discussed in the social media posts, similar to
previous research about the frequency of CSR topic discussed online (Džupin &
Džupinová, 2019), company in the health technology industry was found communicating
economic dimension of CSR more often than social and environment dimension of CSR on
social media. In line with literature that suggest companies should post CSR messages that
are relevant to the mission or values of the company (Du et al. 2010), the majority of CSR
content posted by the company in this study are congruent with their core business, i.e.
medical device innovation, quality of product, production process and supply chain.
However, when it comes to stakeholders’ engagement to CSR-related posts, in
terms of endorsement (liking and commenting on the post) and diffusion (sharing the post),
contrasting with previous research, the company did not achieve more stakeholder’s
engagement with CSR content in the economic dimension that are congruent with the
industry. Findings in this study revealed that the environment dimension of CSR posts
elicited a higher level of stakeholders’ endorsement than economic dimension and social
dimension of CSR posts, while social dimension of CSR posts elicited a higher level of
stakeholders’ diffusion than the economic and environment dimension of CSR posts.
Partly in line with previous research (Abitol & Lee, 2017), internal and external
stakeholders are more interested in the social dimension of CSR, especially in topics about
human rights and well-being of employees, and they are more likely to share social-related
CSR posts. Moreover, findings showed that stakeholders are also more likely to respond to
CSR posts in the environment dimension, meaning CSR topics concerning the
environment, such as climate change, are relevant to their interests (Kim & Ferguson,
2018).
In regards to the usage of CSR communication strategies on social media, despite
no posts were found using reacting strategy, the findings in this study are in line with
previous research and literature (Etter, 2014; “Ways to exploit Facebook’s capabilities”,
2015; Cho et al., 2014; Saxton & Waters, 2014; Cho et al., 2017) that when it comes to
CSR information dissemination on social media, broadcasting strategy was used more
often, and when it comes to stakeholders’ engagement to the CSR post, engaging strategy
yielded higher level of stakeholders’ endorsement and diffusion than broadcasting strategy.
Stakeholders are more likely to like, comment and share the CSR post when the content is
more interactive (e.g. questions and poll post) or when other organizations are mentioned
in the post. The number of likes and comments of a post are significantly higher when the
post is a collaboration with other companies.
Furthermore, as social media platforms provided users the ability to post
multimedia information along with text, this study examined the moderating role of the
presence of multimedia elements, namely photo, video, graphic, link and hashtag, in the
relationship between the CSR communication and stakeholders’ engagement. Findings
supported the hypothesis that the presence of multimedia moderates the effect of CSR
communication strategy on the level of stakeholders’ engagement, the effect is stronger
when multimedia elements such as photo, video and hashtag are present in the CSR post.
In line with previous research (Abitol & Lee, 2017; Kucukusta et al., 2019), stakeholders
are more likely to like and comment on CSR posts that contained videos and/or hashtags,
while the presence of photos and/or videos led to higher number of shares of the posts.
Information presented in multimedia format are more appealing than pure text, and are
more likely to draw the attention of the audience to the post, social media users tend to
share posts with information aligned with their interest and especially in the format of
photo and video, hence, leading to a higher level of engagement. Furthermore, the function
of hashtag in social media allows users to search for topics of their interest, incorporating
this element in the post (e.g. #climatechange) could help generating more views and
eventually leading to a higher level of engagement.
In light of the findings, communication managers in the health technology industry
should consider posting more CSR information relevant to their business, social and
environment dimension of CSR, which would elicit more stakeholders’ engagement in
discussion on social media. Considering there is an association between the dimension of
CSR discussed and the type of communication strategy used, managers should employ
broadcasting strategy when the information is about economic and social dimension of
CSR, whilst for environment dimension of CSR, managers should employ engaging
strategy in the post, such as asking questions to stakeholders for their opinion on climate
change actions, or collaborating and mentioning other organizations in their CSR
initiatives. Tailoring and using the most suitable communication strategy for the specific
CSR topics would engage stakeholders to the conversion on social media more effectively.
Moreover, managers should utilize functions provided on social media platforms to
a greater extent. Instead of providing only one to two sentences concerning the topic of
CSR and a link leading to the company’s website for the whole article, managers could add
more photos and hashtags to the post, or summarize the article and present it in the format
of a video. The audience may lose interest in reading the post and the full article if the
content is not appealing to them and they have to be directed to another website. In order to
capture the attention of stakeholders and engage them in conversation when
communicating their CSR efforts on social media, companies should incorporate
multimedia elements as support to the CSR content.
Limitations and future research
This study has several limitations that need to be addressed. The first limitation results
from sampling. Given it was a case study with social media posts published by the same
health technology company across different platforms, a sample of 572 posts may not have
fully represented the company’s CSR communication strategies as the selected period of
time was only eight months. Although the selected company is one of the leaders in the
health technology industry, the results generalized could apply to other multinational
corporations in the industry, the generalization may not apply to companies in the industry
with a smaller scale. Future research should consider selecting a longer time frame for
sampling, and including multiple companies in the industry with different company sizes,
for a better generalization of results. Researchers could also examine whether there is a
difference between multinational corporations and small and medium enterprises in the
industry in CSR communication on social media.
The second limitation results from the CSR communication strategies examined
and the sampling unit. One of the communication strategies (reacting strategy) was not
found in the sample, this was explained due to the sampling unit was defined on account’s
post level, company’s reply under other users’ posts were not included since they were not
shown on the platforms as a stand-alone post. Future research should consider redefining
the sampling unit to fully capture all posts, reposts and comments of the companies in
sample for examining their communication strategies, otherwise, future research should
examine different or redefine the communication strategies in the study. Furthermore,
future research should also consider examining the interactivity between the company and
the audience, i.e. analyzing the comment section of posts, to see whether the company
adopted one-way or two-way communication strategies when it comes to interacting with
stakeholders that left a comment under the post.
The final limitation and suggestion for future research concern the variations
between social media platforms. Although this study included posts on four external and
internal social media platforms with the aim to present a general overview of the
company’s CSR communication strategies on social media for all stakeholders, variations
in posts’ content and stakeholders’ engagement of the platforms were not taken into
account, therefore, the effectiveness of CSR communication strategies on stakeholders’
engagement level per social media platform was not examined. Given the characteristics
and user profiles of the social media platforms are different, future research should
consider examining the interaction effect between the social media platform and the CSR
communication strategies on stakeholders’ engagement to the posts, so as to understand
which communication strategy works best on the audience of the social media platforms.
In addition to that, future research should also consider examining the difference in
effectiveness of CSR communication strategies and the topics of CSR discussed between
internal and external social media in general, i.e. the difference in CSR communication to
internal and external stakeholders. As internal and external stakeholders’ interests in CSR
topics vary, companies may have tailored their communication strategies and CSR
information to different types of stakeholders, for instance, social dimension of CSR
concerning workplace are discussed more often on internal social media platform for the
company’s employee while environment dimension of CSR concerning climate change are
discussed more often on external social media platform for customers and investors.
Conclusion
To conclude, the evidence presented in this study contributes to the academic research of
CSR communication in the health technology industry. Companies in this industry are
actively engaging in communicating their CSR efforts to their stakeholders on social
media, and similar to companies in other industries, they communicate the economic
dimension of CSR and use broadcasting strategy more often with the purpose of solely
disseminating information and not engaging stakeholders in conversation about CSR.
Through analyzing the content of social media posts, this findings supported the claim that
engaging strategy elicits higher levels of stakeholders’ engagement to the CSR post, and
with the incorporation of multimedia elements, the effect of communication strategies on
stakeholders’ engagement is stronger. Companies in the health technology industry are
therefore encouraged to adopt engaging strategy and include photos, videos and hashtags
to their social media posts, especially when it is related to social and environment
dimensions of CSR content that are congruent to their core business, so as to communicate
with their stakeholders more effectively.
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Appendix
Appendix 1 – Codebook
Codebook
Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) Communication on Social Media
Introduction
This study analyzes the posts of health technology companies, i.e. Philips, on social media platforms. The goal of the study is to identify the most common communication strategy used by the company to convey corporate social responsibility (CSR) related messages on social media.
Sample
The sample consists of 572 posts from the account page of Philips on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Yammer, which were posted from August 2019 to April 2020.
Coding units
The post on the social media account page served as the coding unit.
General coding rules
- The whole text of the post has to be taken into account for the coding process. - Multimedia elements such as photos and videos that are shared along with the post
have to be taken into account for the coding process. - The focus is only on the content of the social media post.
- Only code what is written or shared on the post. Do not code your own interpretations.
Variables
Category I. General Information
V1 Account name
Document the account name of the social media post provided on top of the post.
V2 Social media platform
Document the social media platform the company used for the post.
1 = Twitter 2 = Facebook 3 = LinkedIn 4 = Yammer
V3 Date of post
Document the date the social media post was published by the company in the form
day-month-year (dd-mm-yy).
V4 Month of post
Document the month the social media post was published by the company in the form of
number (e.g. November as “11”).
V5 Link of post
Document the link to the social media post.
Category II. CSR Content
V6 Does the social media post discuss any of the following dimensions of CSR?
Identify the presence of CSR message in the content of the social media post, including the multimedia enclosed in the post.
0 = No
(Code 0 when the post does not contain information mentioning any elements of the
economic, environmental or social dimension.)
1 = Yes, economic dimension
(Code 1 when the post contains information mentioning economic issues, e.g. long-term economic performance, customer satisfaction, supply chain management, production efficiency, product quality and safety.)
2 = Yes, social dimension
(Code 2 when the post contains information mentioning social issues, e.g. society, human
rights, employee well-being, labor practices, product responsibility and governance.)
3 = Yes, environmental dimension
(Code 3 when the post contains information mentioning environmental issues, e.g. climate
change, recycling, eco-efficiency, ecosystems, pollution, energy efficiency, water management and waste management.)
V7 Is the social media post related to CSR?
Assess the relevance of the social media post to CSR.
0 = No (Code 0 when the post is coded 0 in the previous variable CSR Topic.)
1 = Yes (Code 1 when the post is coded 1, 2 or 3 in the previous variable CSR Topic.)
Category III. Communication Strategy
V8 What is the communication strategy adopted in the content of the social media post?
Identify the communication strategy adopted in the content of the Twitter/Facebook post.
1 = Broadcasting strategy
(Code 1 when the post is solely information dissemination and does not fall into the other two strategies.)
2 = Reactive strategy
(Code 2 when the post is a reply to users’ comment or questions, and users are not approached directly.)
3 = Engagement strategy
(Code 3 when the post has mentioned other users, contained questions or used pronouns such as ‘you’ and ‘your’ in discourse.)
Category IV. Multimedia Element
V9 Does the social media post contain any text? 0 = No
1 = Yes
V10 Does the social media post contain any photo(s)? 0 = No
1 = Yes
V11 Does the social media post contain any video(s)? 0 = No
1 = Yes
V12 Does the social media post contain any graphic(s)? 0 = No
1 = Yes
V13 Does the social media post contain any link(s) to other site(s), such as other social media page, event or company website?
0 = No 1 = Yes
V14 Does the social media post contain any hashtag(s)? 0 = No
1 = Yes
Category V. Stakeholder Engagement
V15 Number of likes
Document the number of likes of the social media post.
V16 Number of comments
Document the number of comments of the social media post.
V17 Number of shares
Document the number of shares of the social media post.
