Uncovering frames and motives in corporate and media messages regarding CSR communication in the luxury industry sector
Melanie Theresa Göttler 12312738
Master Thesis University of Amsterdam Graduate School of Communication Master’s programme Communication Science
mw. dr. Anne Kroon 28 June 2019
Abstract
The general social and ethical commitment of society has increased considerably in recent years. With that, more pressure is put on organizations to communicate information about their engagement in corporate social responsibility (CSR). Regarding the fashion industry, the emphasis in current research mostly lies on the fast-fashion industry, hence the luxury sector has not been explored much regarding their CSR communication and needs to receive more attention. This study shows to what extent luxury industry organizations are framing the issue of CSR in their corporate messages and how the framing relates to international coverage regarding CSR in news and magazines. This quantitative manual content analysed 103 corporate and 148 media messages, showing how organizations and media frame the CSR issue to uncover differences and effects that frames can have on the occurrence of intrinsic or extrinsic motives, voiced by mass media and organizational communication. Five issue-specific frames, an environmental sustainability frame, a social sustainability frame, a
philanthropy frame, a strategic-economical frame, and a legal frame, were developed to cover different aspects of CSR. Additionally, intrinsic and extrinsic motives are expected to reveal motivations behind CSR communication. There was a significant difference found between corporate and media messages for the environmental sustainability frame and the strategic-economical frame. CSR engagement framed as environmentally, socially or philanthropy positively predicts the use of intrinsic motives, whereas the strategic-economical frame as well as the message type positively predict the use of extrinsic motives. The results suggest that there is some type of frame alignment between corporate and media messages, especially regarding the legal frame. This indicates that organizations might have a successful impact on media coverage in regard to which issues are covered, and that corporate messages resonate in media coverage. This study adds to research on framing theory in regard to CSR
With that, society can be educated about how organizations of the luxury industry frame their CSR communication. In general, this study provides insight into the framing of corporate messages of luxury industry organizations and the media messages that referred to that as well as uncovering the differences between the message types.
Introduction
The general social and ethical commitment of society has increased considerably in recent years, putting more pressure on companies to communicate information about their corporate social responsibility (CSR) and including this topic in their corporate identity and philosophy (Pérez & Rodríguez del Bosque, 2011). The arising demand for CSR has been communicated especially via media messages, trying to make an impact and force companies to adopt a more sustainable approach in their overall corporate strategy to maintain their corporate legitimacy, image and reputation (Du, Bhattacharya & Sen, 2010; Stanaland, Lwin & Murphy, 2011; Lunenberg, Gosselt & De Jong, 2016). CSR communication is discussed by a diverse set of actors, and not only organizations but also media play an important role in CSR communication (Du et al., 2010). Several industry sectors are part of the ongoing debate about effective CSR activities, like the fashion industry. Since the overall target in media and research lies mostly on fast-fashion industry, the luxury sector has not been explored that much regarding their CSR communication and needs to receive more attention.
In general, the luxury industry has a huge share in the worldwide fashion sector and creates a revenue of over 94,635 million US$, and the global luxury goods market is expected to grow more and more (Statista, 2018). Positive and negative outcomes come with this growth. On the one hand, the luxury industry organizations create a major income to governments by their taxes and provide employment for many people. New arts,
craftsmanship, and innovations are developed and supported through such organizations. On the other hand, the luxury industry has negative impacts as well. The consumption of luxury goods can have a harmful effect on the environment, e.g. by producing waste or reducing resources. Additionally, working conditions, especially in the textile industry are often bad and mostly the organizations’ profit. Thus, the luxury industry is a huge, diverse and conflicting business, that creates both advantages and disadvantages for humanity and the
planet whereas at first sight, the connection of CSR communication and luxury organizations might seem unnatural (Wong & Dhanesh, 2016; 2017). The study contributes to this research gap as it fully draws its attention only on corporations from the luxury sector, henceforth making it able to analyse how the different corporations frame the CSR issue. Moreover, a rather one-sided take, either on the media side or the organizational side, has been approached in research (Wong & Dhanesh, 2016, 2017) whereas it is important to receive an in-depth understanding of CSR in the luxury fashion industry.
The study addresses two important gaps in the literature: first, the study investigates the organizational framing of CSR issues in corporate messages. Secondly, the study explores the relation with the media and how the media frames CSR issues in their media messages. On the one hand, a content analysis of corporate messages dealing with CSR topics, like annual CSR reports or relevant press releases, uncovers how the luxury industry corporations are framing the issue of CSR in their corporate communication. This reflects the corporate standpoint on CSR communication. On the other hand, an analysis of international media messages regarding CSR and those corporations gives an insight into the framing of media messages and the frame alignment between the media and the organizations.
Furthermore, the study adds to the scholarly debate of CSR communication as it firstly gives an insight into how corporations of the luxury industry are framing the issue of CSR in comparison with how the media frames the issue of CSR. Secondly, it contributes to the previous research combining the framing approach and CSR communication.
Besides, organizations of the luxury industry, on the one hand, can learn which frames are covered and thus draw practical and strategic conclusions from the results by analysing their framing. On the other hand, both organizations and media can learn from their opponents and analyse the other’s framing and motives behind their CSR messages.
Both sides, organizations and media, combined give an overall insight into how the luxury industries CSR communications are framed by the organization itself and by the media. Thus, this problem will be answered with the following research question:
To what extent are luxury industry corporations framing the issue of CSR in their corporate communication, and how do they relate to international coverage regarding CSR in news and magazines?
Theoretical framework
CSR and CSR communication
Definitions for CSR vary in different fields. Du et al. (2010) adapted Kotler and Lee (2005) and defined it as “a commitment to improve [societal] well-being through
discretionary business practices and contributions of corporate resources” (p. 8) while others like Aguinis and Glavas (2012) specify CSR as “context-specific organizational actions and policies that take into account stakeholders’ expectations and the triple bottom line of economic, social and environmental performance” (p. 933). In general, CSR can be defined by “means of various responsibilities of organizations toward society” (Van den Heijkant & Vliegenthart, 2018, p. 646), which can be further differentiated into economic, legal, ethical, and philanthropic responsibility (Van den Heijkant & Vliegenthart, 2018; Carroll, 1979; Lee & Carroll, 2011). The paper will adopt this view on CSR.
Engaging regularly with stakeholders on CSR issues, communicating about CSR programmes and activities are crucial parts of corporate CSR communication and thus corporate messages (Crane & Glozer, 2016). It serves different strategic corporate goals, as research showed: stakeholder management, image enhancement, legitimacy, and
accountability, attitude and behavioural change, sensemaking, and identity and meaning creation (Crane & Glozer, 2016). To benefit from these purposes, CSR communication and
corporate messages need to be accessible to external stakeholders and need to have a strategic corporate communication goal behind it (Seele & Lock, 2015). In general, CSR
communication is often more informing than actively engaging and creating a dialogue (Seele & Lock, 2015). Corporations use different tools in a more informative or persuasive way to spread their information (Seele & Lock, 2015). Particularly, those instrumental
communication tools are CSR reports or regularly published press releases, whereas the latter is one of CSR communication’s most important tools (Fifka, 2013; Seele & Lock, 2015). Because of that, this paper will examine CSR reports and press releases concerned with a CSR issue, further referred to as corporate messages.
However, CSR communication includes challenges for corporations: creating an overall stakeholder awareness as well as minimizing stakeholder scepticism (Du et al. 2010). Organizations can be accused of greenwashing (Seele & Gatti, 2017), communicating only half-truths (Devin, 2014) or performing aspirational talk (Christensen, Morsing & Thyssen, 2013). Though these accusations like aspirational talk can also stimulate CSR improvements, the motives behind an organizations CSR effort are of prime importance for society
(Christensen et al., 2013). Stakeholders can perceive a company’s CSR motives firstly as extrinsic, where “a company is seen as attempting to increase its profits” (Du et al., 2010, p. 9) or secondly, as intrinsic motives, where the company acts “out of a genuine concern for the focal issue” (Du et al., 2010, p. 9). This implicates, that the occurrence of intrinsic motives leads to stronger and more positive stakeholder perceptions of the company, while the occurrence of mostly extrinsic motives leads to less positive stakeholder attitudes and behaviours towards the company (Du et al., 2010). Other researches name these motives socially-driven, relating to intrinsic motives versus profit-driven, relating to extrinsic motives, which helps to explain the different motivations (Becker-Olsen & Hill, 2006). Adding to that is Van Marrewijk (2003) who gives three main reasons why corporations engage in CSR:
firstly, they feel obligated to do it, secondly, they are made to do it, and thirdly, they want to do it. The first two add to the extrinsic motives, whereas the latter can be allocated to intrinsic motives.
Taking up these frameworks, examining whether a company uses extrinsic or intrinsic motives in their CSR communication to frame their issues will be an important part of this paper, as well as analysing how the effect of occurrences of certain frames or message types predict the occurrence of motives. Therefore, it is expected that organizations will
communicate their intrinsic motives more intensively than the media would, in order to gain the mentioned benefits that come along, like positive stakeholder perception and a better reputation. Some authors suggest that organizations mainly focus on their “sustainability sweet spot” when engaging in CSR (Savitz & Weber, 2007). According to the authors, this is the common ground between business interests and interest of the public and thus, where “the pursuit of profit blends seamlessly with the pursuit of the common good” (Savitz & Weber, 2007, p. 17). This directly hints to the suggestion that corporate messages contain more intrinsic motives than media messages.
H1: Intrinsic motives are more often present in corporate messages than in media messages.
Media as a noteworthy part of CSR communication
Besides organizations, the mass media is another noteworthy part of CSR
communication. According to stakeholder theory, media is one of the actors in a company’s environment. Therefore, this aspect plays an important role, as stakeholders receive
information about CSR activities mainly via media, which interprets and mediates as well as modifies the information the companies provide (Lunenberg et al., 2016). Corporations are dependent on the media coverage about them as the media are a legitimate source of
perceptions by shaping information in a specific way (Zyglidopoulos, Georgiadis, Caroll & Siegel, 2011; De Vreese, 2005; Van den Heijkant & Vliegenthart, 2018). CSR communication is constantly evolving as it is formed through the media who reinterprets and negotiates their messages (Ihlen & Nitz, 2008). It can be argued that news media plays a huge role in shaping and influencing the society’s awareness, perceptions and interpretations of corporate CSR communication, firstly, by deciding how much emphasis or highlight is put on certain CSR issues and which are left out (Van den Heijkant & Vliegenthart, 2018). Secondly, by putting “information into a context and determin[ing] the frames of reference in which people evaluate the information, understand meanings and even take actions when it is appropriate”, the news media affects the public as well (Van den Heijkant & Vliegenthart, 2018; Hallahan, 1999). The way how CSR is communicated within the media can be seen as a dynamic interaction (Van den Heijkant & Vliegenthart, 2018).
Research already showed that corporate messages can influence media messages (Van den Heijkant & Vliegenthart, 2018; Lee, 2016; Shoemaker & Reese, 1996). The reason for this is that corporate messages are not only accessible to external stakeholders but to media as well (Van den Heijkant & Vliegenthart, 2018; Caroll, 2011; Davis, 2000; Kiousis, Mitrook, Wu & Seltzer, 2006). Previous research has shown that the material has an impact on the actual media coverage in regard to which issues are covered (Strauss & Vliegenthart, 2017). Expecting a difference between the framing and motives of corporate and media messages, this difference will be further investigated in this study.
It can be concluded, that a goal of CSR communication is to have the organizations’ frames been reported about. Media is considered as an important part of CSR, whereas it is interesting to further investigate the framing between organizational CSR communication and the media coverage in relation to that. For this and the already mentioned reasons, two
motives as well as five frames, that were developed, will be used to analyse both the corporate and the media content.
Thus, mass media matters for CSR communication and as the media shapes society’s interpretations of corporate CSR communication, uncovering extrinsic, profit-driven motives is expected to reveal the reason and purpose of CSR communication. The media is critical, and authors suggest seeing them in the role of a watchdog (Vivarta & Canela, 2006). Moreover, Vivarta and Canela (2006) expect the press to take upon the role of a CSR regulator. Based on that, the current study expects the media messages to contain more extrinsic motives as the media puts an emphasis on revealing the more negatively, financial-related reasons. Additionally, as Du et al. (2010) have shown that the occurrence of mostly extrinsic motives leads to less positive stakeholder attitudes and behaviours towards the company, and therefore corporate messages are expected to not contain extrinsic motives.
H2: Extrinsic motives are more often present in media messages than in corporate messages.
Framing
The paper will adapt Entman’s (1933) and Hallahan’s (1999) view on the framing approach in which is stated that media actively shapes information. The concept of framing is defined by Entman (1993) as “to select some aspects of a perceived reality and make them more salient in a communicating text, in such a way as to promote a particular problem definition, causal interpretation, moral evaluation, and/or treatment recommendation”
(Entman, 1993, p. 52). According to Entman (1993), such framing involves the selection and salience of some aspects of an issue and has the possibility to influence the public perception of an issue by having the power of deciding which issues are emphasized and which are not Framing theory helps to analyse the rhetoric organizations perform on social issues, which “employ purposeful and controlled message frames as a key strategy in CSR communication”
(Wong & Dhanesh, 2017, p. 426; Ihlen & Nitz, 2008). According to Goffman (1974), frames structure and thus uncover the different understandings of the social world, determine the contexts and roles of stakeholders as well as their perceptions. Hence, this study expects to reveal the motives and frames behind CSR communication in corporate and media messages.
The framing approach of various researches in regard to CSR communication differentiates CSR into economic, legal, ethical and philanthropic responsibility (Van den Heijkant & Vliegenthart, 2018; Carroll, 1979; Lee & Carroll, 2011). It can be expected that corporations use these diverse forms of CSR in their communication, implicating different CSR frames like an environmental frame, a more social-related frame or a philanthropy frame. Wong and Dhanesh (2017) established different issue-specific frames in their study which were further developed, modified and altered to meet the approach of this study. Their findings showed that the framing reflected an advanced understanding of CSR communication to socially and environmentally conscious stakeholders while at the same time maintaining the alignment between CSR and the standards of luxury industry (Wong & Dhanesh, 2017). Their issue and motivation frames were used to define five distinct frames that will be tested in this study, both on the corporate as well as on the media side. Based on previous research, an environmental sustainability, a social sustainability, a philanthropic, a strategic-economic and a legal frame were developed.
These frames were developed for several reasons. First, various researchers subdivided CSR into economic, legal, ethical and philanthropic responsibility (Van den Heijkant & Vliegenthart, 2018; Carroll, 1979; Lee & Carroll, 2011). Hence, with this subdivision, it is expected that these issues occur in CSR communication. Secondly, by developing five frames, it can be assured that each aspect of CSR is covered and therefore these five issue-specific frames are expected to cover most of these various CSR forms. Lastly, Wong and Dhanesh’s
(2017) frames were already tested in the luxury industry sector and are thus expected to similarly fit into this study.
With the developed frames, the overall framing approach is expected to uncover how luxury industry corporations and mass media are framing the issue of CSR in their messages. A closer look into which frames occur and how strong they are present is expected to reveal how organizations and mass media are contextualizing and perceiving CSR. Additionally, this study also examines the extent in which the frame occurrence differs. Thus, the following research question is expected to show where the emphasis in communicating CSR issues lies and if there are differences between corporate and media messages.
RQ1: How are corporate and media messages framing the issue of CSR and does the extent in which the frames occur differ in corporate and media messages?
Furthermore, as already mentioned, an effect of the occurrence of the frames and the messages type on the likelihood that intrinsic or extrinsic motives occur is expected. Though intrinsic and extrinsic motives are clearly to be distinct from the five frames, an analysis should show their interaction. The motives are expected to reveal the motivation, reasons or purposes behind CSR communication in the messages whereas the frames are issue-specific frames, based on the understanding that a frame is “a certain pattern in a given text that is composed of several elements” (Matthes & Kohring, 2008, p. 263). Combined with Entman’s (1993) framing approach, the authors identified four key elements for issue-specific frames: problem definition, causal interpretation, moral evaluation and treatment recommendation (Matthes & Kohring, 2008; Kozman, 2017). Since the approach of issue-specific frames has also been used and tested by researchers like Wong and Dhanesh (2017) in relation to CSR and the luxury industry, this approach will be adopted in this paper. Resulting from that, it is interesting to examine the effects some frames might have of the use of intrinsic or extrinsic motives in corporate and media messages.
RQ2: Which frames predict the use of intrinsic or extrinsic motives in corporate and media messages?
Method Research design and sample method
The research question and the hypotheses were tested by means of a quantitative, manual content analysis of reports regarding the organizations’ CSR activities and press releases concerned with that topic as well as articles from newspapers, journals or magazines. Data collection
The data for the content analysis was obtained from the organizations’ websites as well as from the online database NexisUni. The extraction process will be described in detail below.
Corporate messages. Though today most of the media coverage tackling CSR focuses on the fast-fashion industry (e.g., brands such as H&M or Zara), LVMH, Louis Vuitton Moët Hennessy, a French luxury conglomerate is currently the largest fashion company worldwide (FashionUnited International, 2018). Therefore, the focus of the study lies on the luxury sector. For selecting the companies, it is necessary to look at the competitive landscape of luxury fashion worldwide: the four global players in this segment are PVH, Phillips-Van Heusen, with 13,2%, followed by LVMH (11,7%), Ralph Lauren (8,5%) and Kering with 6,6% (Statista, 2018). For this reason, those four companies were selected as the main interest groups in this study. All their existing and accessible CSR reports and press releases were systematically explored in order to determine relevant data regarding CSR. The data can be found on the official websites, mostly in the press section or on the company’s website and is accessible to the public. Only publications between January 2013 and December 2018 were examined, as most of the company’s published material was only available for that period. In total, the selection procedure resulted in a sample of (n = 103), LVMH (n = 19), PVH (n = 24), Ralph Lauren (n = 5) and Kering (n = 55).
Table 1.
Overview of sample items of luxury fashion companies.
Company Number of relevant reports Number of press releases concerned with CSR topics
LVMH 10 reports 9 press releases
PVH 5 reports 19 press releases
Ralph Lauren 2 reports 3 press releases
Kering 5 reports 50 press releases
In total 22 reports 81 press releases
Media messages. The other important part of the sample is the media coverage in order to be able to compare media messages and corporate messages regarding corporate communication about CSR. News media publications are the most appropriate types of media for this study since these articles are available as text documents and easily accessible.
Additionally, the fashion and luxury industry might be influenced by magazine and journal publications, so they were included as well. Since all the companies are acting internationally, and two of the companies have their headquarters in the United States, only English items were part of the sample. The articles were obtained by means of the online database
NexisUni. In order to obtain as many relevant articles as possible while avoiding irrelevant articles, a variety of search strings were tested, adjusted and fine-tuned in advance. The following search-string was used: (Corporate Social Responsibility! OR CSR! OR Social Responsibility! OR Corporate Responsibility!) AND (LVMH! OR PVH! OR Kering! OR Ralph Lauren!). The time period ranged from January 1st, 2013 to December 31st, 2018 to be able to compare it to the sample of the luxury fashion industry, resulting in 1795 articles. The sources of the articles were restricted to English news publications, resulting in 1643 articles. Lastly, they were further narrowed down to newspapers or magazines and journals. The database generated results with 165 articles, after sorting out duplicates, a sample of (n = 148) articles were obtained. An overview can be found in Table B1 in the appendix.
As a result, a content analysis with an overall sample of N = 251 (n = 148 media articles, n = 103 corporate messages) was carried out.
Manual codebook measures
For the manual coding of the data, a codebook ensured the valid measurement of the variables. The codebook was divided into two parts. As a first step, the coded data had to be specified in terms of general information about the messages. Detailed instructions are given in the codebook. As a second step, the framing of CSR communication in corporate and media messages was investigated. The relevant descriptives of these measures can be found in Table 2.
Message type. The coded data had to be specified in terms of the message type (1 = corporate messages, 2 = media messages) to be able to differentiate between corporate and media data. This variable was then recoded into a dichotomous dummy variable so it could be better used for further analyses (0 = corporate messages, 1 = media messages).
Motives. First, the motives communicated were tested, where previous research (Du et al., 2010; Becker-Olsen & Hill, 2006; Van Marrewijk, 2003) served as a theoretical
grounding. The motives were measured through dichotomous coding (0 = absent, 1 = present) with detailed instructions in the codebook. In a first step, coders had to indicate whether intrinsic motives were absent or present in the message, and in a second step, whether extrinsic motives were absent or present in the message. Corporate, as well as media messages, were coded and both motives could be present per message.
Intrinsic motives. CSR efforts are not only strategic or economical motivated,
organizations often engage in CSR out of altruistic concerns for the wellbeing of others or as a moral duty. Intrinsic motives are the mentioning or reporting about activities or efforts that arise from their natural and inherent, internal initiative or sake rather than the drive for external, superficial reasons, rewards or acknowledgements. Examples for such activities are donations or partnerships with NGOs.
Extrinsic motives. Here, CSR efforts are motivated by business-oriented issues like money or reputation, as it is known to increase a company’s profitability and therefore a main driver for an organization’s CSR performance. Extrinsic motivation is the reporting or
mentioning of activities or engagement with the drive to engage, perform or support arising out of external, superficial reasons. Reasons for that could be to gain or avoid rewards or acknowledgements, such as reputation, standing, esteem or power, like for example receiving an award for CSR activities.
Frames. Following Wong and Dhanesh’s (2017) frame matrix, five distinct frames were obtained after further developing, modifying and altering their frames to meet the approach of this study. As mentioned before, these frames are issue-specific and therefore expected to cover different aspects of CSR communication. Moreover, Wong and Dhanesh (2017) have already worked successfully with this kind of frames in the luxury industry sector. Hence, these frames were adapted for this study.
Each frame was measured through three dichotomous sub-questions (0 = no/absent, 1 = yes/present) to improve the quality of the coding and to ensure the reliability. Further instructions can be found in the codebook in the appendix. All five developed frames were operationalized as follows: Both corporate and media messages were coded. Multiple frames could be present per message. Consequently, the already mentioned variables are nominal binary ones. In a second step, the sub-questions were recoded into metric variables by calculating their mean value, resulting in 0 = no presence, 0.33 = weak presence, 0.67 = moderate presence, and 1 = strong presence. The recoding was done to receive a better overview of the presence of the frames, as when all three questions were answered with a yes, the frame was stronger present as when only one question was answered with a yes.
Environmental sustainability frame. Based on the environmental frame by Wong and Dhanesh (2017), the environmental sustainability frame examines corporate and media
messages about engagement efforts or activities that are aimed to enhance, preserve, conserve and protect the nature, the environment, flora and fauna as well as natural resources. The frame was coded through three sub-questions which had to be answered with yes or no. The first question asked if the message contained efforts regarding the environment as the flora and fauna, thus the overall planet and nature, the second question asked if the preservation of the planet was mentioned and the third question asked if eco-labels or eco-guidelines were mentioned.
Social sustainability frame. The social sustainability frame is based on parts of the altruistic and the discretionary frame by Wong and Dhanesh (2017). The frame examines corporate and media messages that discuss, report, promote or engage in efforts, activities, programmes or elsewise, that have an impact on the society and social wellbeing, societal or organizational actors, human rights, labour or working conditions and similar. The frame was coded through three sub-questions which had to be answered with yes or no as well. Firstly, it was asked for human rights initiatives like adequate employment, labour practices, diversity, and equity. Secondly, it was asked if the data referred to volunteerism or community
engagement. Lastly, it was asked if activities or efforts with impacts on society and social wellbeing were mentioned.
Philanthropy frame. Influenced by Wong and Dhanesh (2017) altruistic and discretionary frame, the philanthropy frame investigates corporate and media messages on promoting, engaging or discussing efforts or activities that are purely philanthropic and done out of pure care and concern for humanity. This especially includes efforts in art, education, community work, and welfare and is often contributed through raising foundations, donating money and promoting charitable initiatives. With that in mind, three sub-questions were asked to measure the philanthropy frame. The first question was concerned with messages
asked for reporting about charitable activities like donations, gifts or fundraisings. The third question asked for mentioning other philanthropic activities or efforts.
Strategic-economical frame. The strategic-economical frame combines the strategic and economical frames by Wong and Dhanesh (2017). It examines corporate and media messages that report about engagements that both help society and the organization
symbiotically, and are especially concerned with maximizing profits and efficiency as well as external aspects like an organization’s reputation and positioning as getting recognition for CSR efforts strategically helps organizations to gain a certain reputation, positioning and positive evaluation in the minds of their stakeholders. With that in mind, three sub-questions were asked to measure the frame. Firstly, it was asked if the message referred to CSR efforts or activities in a strategical, business-related context. Secondly, if the data referred to
economic aspects that come with CSR efforts or activities and lastly, if the data mentioned CSR efforts in relation to external aspects like reputation, positioning or competitiveness.
Legal frame. Grounding on the legal and ethical frames by Wong and Dhanesh (2017), the legal frame examines corporate and media messages about CSR efforts or
activities that meet legal regulations, standards, and other laws. Three sub-questions measured the legal frame. Firstly, it was asked if the message mentioned legal standards in regard to CSR, secondly, if the message mentioned that CSR efforts are in accordance with the highest standards and regulations and lastly if the message is referring to other guidelines or
regulations.
After constructing the codebook, it was uploaded into the research platform Qualtrics, which helped to reliable code the content for the manual content analysis, avoid errors and speed up the coding process.
Table 2. Descriptive statistics (N = 251) Variable M Mdn Modus SD Message type .59 1.00 1 .49 Intrinsic motives .57 1.00 1 .50 Extrinsic motives .31 .00 0 .47
Environmental sustainability frame .24 .00 .00 .36 Social sustainability frame .30 .00 .00 .38
Philanthropy frame .16 .00 .00 .34
Strategic-economical frame .30 .00 .00 .37
Legal frame .08 .00 .00 .23
Intercoder reliability. The sample was divided among two coders and 10% were double-coded to test intercoder reliability (n = 25). Beforehand, a training session was
conducted to familiarize the second coder with the coding sheet and codebook. The reliability was tested for all variables, obtaining results for Cohen’s kappa and Krippendorff’s Alpha which are presented in Table 2. Krippendorff’s alpha was chosen as a suitable measuring method, as it “generalizes across scales of measurement; can be used with any number of observers, with or without missing data; and it satisfies all the important criteria for a good measure of reliability” (Hayes & Krippendorff, 2007, p. 78). Since the variables are all binary, the percentage of agreement does not have a value and is not interpreted. As values range from 0 to 1, where 1 is perfect agreement, Krippendorff (2004) suggests that α ≥ .80 is best, and α ≥ .667 is the lowest conceivable limit (p. 241). Only two variables, the environmental sustainability frame and the legal frame, have α ≥ .80 and thus can be considered as a good and therefore adequate agreements between coders. All the other variables have a result between .61 and .80, which can be considered as substantial agreements. All variables could be accepted for further analysis in this study.
Table 3.
Intercoder reliability
Variable Krippendorff’s Alpha Cohen’s Kappa
Intrinsic motives .744 .739
Extrinsic motives .652 .644
Environmental sustainability frame .807 .806
Social sustainability frame .779 .774
Philanthropy frame .729 .699
Strategic-economical frame .705 .699
Legal frame .872 .870
Analytical strategy
SPSS was used for further data analysis. To explore frequencies and the presence of the frames, a descriptive analysis will be conducted. To statistically test the results from the frequency analysis, a one-way multivariate analysis of variance will be examined. By doing so, a first insight into the data will be given and RQ1 will be answered. The MANOVA will be run with message type as an independent variable and the frames as dependent variables. This analysis method was chosen since it meets the requirements for a one-way multivariate analysis of variance, which are a dichotomous independent variable and metric dependent variables. Additionally, this test determines if a difference between the means of two independent groups exists, which are in this study corporate and media messages.
Hypothesis 1 and 2 will be answered by the binomial logistic regression below. The method was chosen to get insights into the association and relationship between the variables and is applicable since the requirements of the method are met.
For answering RQ2, two binomial logistic regressions will be performed to test if the extent in which the frames or the message type occur positively predict the use of intrinsic or extrinsic motives. Logistic regression was examined as the best suitable method regarding the data since the dependent variable has to be nominal and the independent variables can be metric or categorical. As the used variables meet the requirements, the method is applicable.
For testing the first part of RQ2, intrinsic motives is the dependent variable, the five frames, and the message type are considered predictor variables. For testing the second part of RQ2, the dependent variable is extrinsic motives and the five frames, and the message type are considered predictor variables. The distinction between intrinsic and extrinsic motives as separate dependent variables was made as combining these two variables into one would result in losing information because both motives could be present or absent in one message.
Results
Framing CSR communication in corporate and media messages
Descriptive analysis. To begin with, a descriptive analysis was performed to give a first insight into the data and answer RQ1: How are corporate and media messages framing the issue of CSR and does the extent in which the frames occur differ in corporate and media messages?
Frames. To further compare the presences and occurrences of the frames, the descriptives of the frames were analysed (0 = no presence, 0.33 = weak presence, 0.67 = moderate presence, and 1 = strong presence). The strategic-economical frame was used the most in the overall data (N = 251, 41.8%). More specifically, the frame was strongly present in 10.8% of the messages, moderately present in 24.7% and weakly present in 6.4%. The legal frame was used least of all (N = 251, 12.4%), being absent in 87.6% of the messages. The same is true for the strategic-economical frame in corporate messages (n = 103, 80.6%), as this frame was strongly present in 19.4% of the corporate messages, moderately present in 47.6% and weakly present in 13.6% corporate messages. The legal frame occurred least as well (n = 103, 13.6%), as the frame was absent in 86.4% of the corporate messages. Regarding media messages (n = 148), the social sustainability frame was used the most (43.9%), with 4.7% strongly present and 39.2% moderately present. In 11.5% the legal frame occurred least of all in media messages, being absent in 88.5% of media messages.
It can be concluded, that both media and corporate messages least used the legal frame when communicating about CSR, meaning that the legal aspects of CSR and CSR
communication do not matter less for both sides. Since the strategic-economical frame was used most in corporate messages, it can be concluded that for organizations it is the fact that they perform CSR efforts not only to help the society but synergistically to also help the company itself. Corporate CSR messages thus are focused on the organizational performance, the maximization of profits, reputation, positioning, and efficiency that can be reached
through engaging in CSR.
The media is not predominantly framing CSR in the same way as media messages contain the social sustainability frame the most and the environmental sustainability frame second most (n = 148, 21.6%). Therefore, the media coverage focus mainly lies on CSR efforts regarding society, human rights, and environmental issues. The results are summarized in Table 4.
Table 4.
Overview of most and least used frames resulting from frequency analyses
Data Most used frame Least used frame
Corporate + media messages Strategic-economical frame Legal frame Corporate messages Strategic-economical frame Legal frame Media messages Social sustainability frame Legal frame
Differences in the occurrences of the frames. For answering the RQ1 (How are corporate and media messages framing the issue of CSR and does the extent in which the frames occur differ in corporate and media messages?), a one-way multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) was carried out to determine whether a certain frame differed based on the message type. The independent variable was the message type, recoded into a
dichotomous dummy variable with 0 = corporate messages, 1 = media messages. The dependent variables were the five frames, measured from 0 = no presence, 0.33 = weak presence, 0.67 = moderate presence, and 1 = strong presence.
Table 5.
Differences in message type
Corporate messages (n = 103) Media messages (n = 148) ANOVA Mean SD Mean SD p
Environmental sustainability frame .34 .39 .16 .31 .000
Social sustainability frame .28 .41 .31 .36 .534
Philanthropy frame .21 .36 .13 .31 .051
Strategic-economical frame .56 .33 .11 .28 .000
Legal frame .10 .26 .07 .21 .446
Note. MANOVA was performed, resulting in F (5, 249) = 27.976, p = .000, Wilks' Λ = .637, η² = .363.
It should be noted, that there was no homogeneity of variance-covariances matrices, as assessed by Box’s test of equality of covariance matrices (p = .000). Furthermore, it should be noted that groups are not of equal size and that the assumption of equal variances in the population has been violated for the environmental sustainability frame, Levene’s F (1, 249) = 25.88, p = .000, the philanthropy frame, Levene’s F (1, 249) = 11.15, p = .001 and strategic-economical frame, Levene’s F (1, 249) = 12.60, p = .000. The robustness of the findings using Welch’s t-test was tested, as this is applicable when dealing with unequal variances. The findings are largely the same and can be found in Table C1 in the appendix. Thus, there was homogeneity of variances only for the social sustainability frame and the legal frame, as assessed by Levene’s Test of Homogeneity of Variance (p > .005).
The difference in the frames between the message types was statistically significant, F (5, 249) = 27.976, p = .000, Wilks' Λ = .637, η² = .363. Follow-up univariate ANOVAs found a statistically significant, small effect between the message format and the environmental sustainability frame, F (1, 249) = 17.041, p = .000, η² = .064 and a statistically significant, large effect between the message format and the strategic-economical frame, F (1, 249) = 133.165, p = .000, η² = .348. A post-hoc test was not conducted since there are fewer than three groups for message type. The results are summarized in Table 6.
Table 6.
Results of one-way multivariate analysis of variance Dependent variable Sum of
squares df Means Square F p η² Message type Environmental sustainability frame 2.037 1 2.037 17.041 .000 .064 Social sustainability frame .056 1 .056 .389 .534 .002 Philanthropy frame .431 1 .431 3.850 .051 .015 Strategic-economical frame 12.096 1 12.096 133.165. .000 .348
Legal frame .031 1 .031 .583 .446 .002
Error Environmental sustainability frame
29.761 249 .120 Social sustainability frame 35.597 249 .143 Philanthropy frame 27.866 249 .122 Strategic-economical frame 22.617 249 .091
Legal frame 13.434 249 .054
Total Environmental sustainability frame
45.667 251 Social sustainability frame 57.667 251 Philanthropy frame 34.778 251 Strategic-economical frame 56.333 251
Legal frame 15.222 251
It can be concluded, that the extent in which the frames occur in corporate and media messages does not differ except for the environmental sustainability frame and the strategic-economical frame. Looking at the frequency analysis, the environmental sustainability frame occurred within 47.6% in corporate messages whereas only within 21.6% in media messages. As η² shows the effect is considered as a small effect since the majority is no occurrence in corporate messages (n = 103, 52.4%) as well as in media messages (n = 148, 78.4%).
Regarding the strategic-economical frame, the effect size stronger. The frame occurred within 80.6% in corporate messages, whereas only within 14.9% in media messages. The frame distribution and the differences between corporate and media messages are visualized in Figure 1.
Figure 1. Frame distribution extracted from SPSS.
These results of the frequency analysis and the MANOVA suggest that there is a difference in how corporations and media frame the issue of CSR in their messages, especially regarding the environmental sustainability framing and the strategic-economical framing.
The relationship between motives and frames
For testing Hypothesis 1 and 2, as well as RQ2, two binomial logistic regression were performed to ascertain the effects of frames and message type on the likelihood that intrinsic motives or extrinsic motives occur. Assumptions for binomial logistic regression are firstly, that there is one dependent variable that is dichotomous and one or more independent variables either continuous or nominal. Secondly, there must be an independence of
observations, meaning all categories of the dichotomous dependent variable must be mutually exclusive and exhaustive, as well as the nominal independent variable. Thirdly, there must be a bare minimum of 15 cases per independent variable. Lastly, the data must not show
multicollinearity. All required assumptions are met for the following two binomial logistic regressions. Significant outliers are mentioned if present. It must be noted that neither the
frames nor the message type nor the motives are normally distributed, as assessed by Kolmogorov-Smirnov-test, p < .05.
To answer Hypothesis 1, there was no significance found between intrinsic motives and the message type1. Therefore Hypothesis 1 cannot be supported. As a significant relationship between extrinsic motives and intrinsic motives was found, an additional Chi-square test was conducted between the message type and extrinsic motives to exactly answer Hypothesis 2. All expected cell frequencies were greater than five. There was a statistically significant strong negative association found between extrinsic motives and the message type
,
X² (1, N = 251) = 91.28, p = .000, Phi = -.603, V = 603. Only 8.1% of all media messages contained extrinsic motives, whereas 91.9% did not. In comparison with corporate messages, where 65% contained extrinsic motives and 35% did not, extrinsic motives were more often present in corporate messages than in media messages. Therefore, Hypothesis 2 cannot be supported.
Testing RQ2 regarding intrinsic motives, there were three standardized residuals with values of 2.85, 2.85 and 2.55 which were kept in the analysis. The logistic regression model was statistically significant, X² (6) = 141.209, p = .000. The model explained between 57.8 % (Nagelkerke R²) and 43 % (Cox & Snell R²) and correctly classified 86.1% of cases.
Sensitivity was 93.1% and specificity 76.6 %. Four of the six predictor variables were
statistically significant: the environmental sustainability frame, the social sustainability frame, the philanthropy frame positively predicted, and the strategic-economical frame negatively predicted the use of intrinsic motives, as shown in Table 7. That means if the occurrence of the environmental sustainability frame, the social sustainability frame or the philanthropy frame increased, the probability that intrinsic motives occurred increased since Exp(B)>1. But if the occurrence of the strategic-economical frame increased, the probability that intrinsic motives occurred, decreased as Exp(B)<1. Therefore, RQ2 can only be supported in terms of
the environmental sustainability frame, the social sustainability frame and the philanthropy frame. Only these frames positively predict the use of intrinsic motives, whereas the strategical-economical frame negatively predicts the occurrence of intrinsic frames. Table 7.
Binomial logistic regression to predict use of intrinsic motives
Variable B SE Wald df Sig Exp(B)
Environmental sustainability frame
4.219 .683 38.166 1 .000 67.985
Social sustainability frame 3.910 .667 34.363 1 .000 49.883
Philanthropy frame 4.027 .788 26.144 1 .000 56.092
Strategic-economical frame -2.470 .702 12.387 1 .000 .085
Legal frame .028 .894 .001 1 .975 1.028
Message type 1.426 .519 7.545 1 .006 4.160
To answer the extrinsic motives aspect of RQ2 as well as with that Hypothesis 2, a second binomial logistic regression was performed to ascertain the effects of frames and message type on the likelihood that extrinsic motives occur. There were three standardized residuals with values of 5.40, 5.47 and 5.08 which were kept in the analysis. The logistic regression model was statistically significant, X² (6) = 152.101, p = .000. The model explained between 63.8 % (Nagelkerke R²) and 45.4 % (Cox & Snell R²) and correctly classified 83.7 % of cases. Sensitivity was 75.9% and specificity 87.2 %. Two of the six predictor variables were statistically significant: the strategic-economical frame and the message type, as shown in Table 8. That means if the occurrence of the strategic-economical frame and the message type (in that case media messages) increased, the probability that extrinsic motives occurred increased, since Exp(B)>1. Therefore, RQ2 can only be supported in terms of the strategic-economical frame and the message type as only these variables positively predict the use of extrinsic motives.
Table 8.
Binomial logistic regression to predict use of extrinsic motives
Variable B SE Wald df Sig Exp(B)
Environmental sustainability frame
-.069 .599 .013 1 .908 .933
Social sustainability frame -.511 .588 .757 1 .384 .600
Philanthropy frame .118 .612 .037 1 .847 1.126
Strategic-economical frame 3.994 .620 41.534 1 .000 54.256
Legal frame -.955 .883 1.169 1 .280 .385
Message type 2.161 .442 23.858 1 .000 8.678
Conclusion & Discussion
The current study made contribution on theory and aimed to bring together research on CSR communication and framing in the luxury industry. The following will discuss how the findings add to the knowledge on CSR framing in corporate and media messages in the luxury industry.
Firstly, the results point out how corporate and media messages are framing CSR communication and how the extent in which the frames occur differs in corporate and media messages. Since the least used frame is the legal frame both in corporate and media messages, it can be concluded that regulations, standards and the laws do not play an important part in communicating CSR issues. Examining the most used frames, there is a difference between corporate and media messages, whereas in the first, the strategic-economical frame occurred most, and, in the latter, the social sustainability frame occurred most. Since the strategic-economical frame was used most in corporate messages, it can be concluded that for
organizations it is true that they communicate about CSR efforts not only to help the society, but synergistically to also help the company itself. Corporate CSR messages are still focused on the organizational performance, the maximization of profits, reputation, positioning and efficiency that can be reached through engaging in CSR. Organizations focus on their “sustainable sweet spot”, as Savitz and Weber (2007) named it whereas the media is communicating more on the active part of CSR like environmental or social CSR
engagement. Additionally, the results showed that there are certain statistically significant differences between corporate and media messages in the extent to which frames occur. There was a small difference regarding the environmental sustainability frame and a moderate difference regarding the strategic-economical frame. Corporate messages both contained more the environmental sustainability and the strategic-economical frame than media messages.
Since this difference could not be verified for the remaining frames, the results suggest that there is some sort of frame alignment between the remaining frames, especially regarding the legal frame. Furthermore, it underpins researchers that claim that organizations have a successful impact on media coverage in regard to which issues are covered (Strauss & Vliegenthart, 2017), since the social sustainability frame, the philanthropy frame, and the legal frame almost occur the same in corporate and media messages. The results suggest that organizations might have had an effect on these certain frames on the media agenda. Future research could elaborate on these aspects.
The results not only answer RQ1 but the overall research question by showing to what extent luxury industry corporations are framing the issue of CSR in their corporate messages. The media messages thus agree with the framing of corporate messages.
Secondly, research claimed that mass media has a certain power to shape corporate messages and thereby influencing stakeholder’s opinions and perceptions (Zyglidopoulos, Georgiadis, Caroll & Siegel, 2011; De Vreese, 2005; Van den Heijekant & Vliegenthart, 2018). The results suggest that corporate messages resonate in media coverage, but further research should validate this suggestion. The results answer Hypotheses 1 and 2 and add to the research question.
Lastly, the relationship between frames, the message type, and motives ascertains the effects of the occurrences of the frames and the message type on the likelihood that intrinsic or extrinsic motives were communicated. Intrinsic motives occur more often when the environmental sustainability frame, the social sustainability frame or the philanthropy frame
occur, whereas the strategic-economical frame and the message type have an effect on the occurrence of the extrinsic motives. Hence, the results suggest that communicating CSR efforts and activities that can be framed as environmentally or socially sustainable or
philanthropy positively predict the use of intrinsic motives. Communicating CSR efforts and activities that can be framed as strategic-economical CSR engagement as well as the message type positively predict the use of extrinsic motives. This adds new insights into how corporate and media messages are framed and further uncovers the motivations behind CSR
communication. The study offers a new step into demonstrating how motivations and frames are connected. The aforementioned not only answers RQ2 but adds to answering the research question by exactly showing the effects that certain frames and the message types have on the occurrence of motives.
Furthermore, this study adds to existing research in framing CSR communication (Van den Heijkant & Vliegenthart, 2018; Carroll, 1979; Lee & Carroll, 2011) whereas it shows were the emphasis in communicating CSR issues lies. As Goffman (1979) said, the framing approach uncovers the different understandings of the social world. Applied to the context of CSR communication, the results uncover the contexts and issues in which organizations and media are communicating CSR and how they perceive CSR in general.
Future research also needs to consider several limitations of this study. Firstly, the study is limited to analysis of the CSR press releases and reports available at the time of data collection and does not include further information regarding CSR on the organization’s websites. The study is also limited to analysis of the media messages from news media available on NexisUni.
Secondly, only four global players were selected for data collection based on the competitive landscape of luxury fashion worldwide (Statista, 2018). Therefore, the
generalizability in terms of the whole luxury industry sector might not be given. Furthermore, the selected organizations are holding companies or conglomerates, where different brands,
corporations or companies are part of. Since most of the smaller companies refer to their holding company in terms of CSR engagement, it is still applicable to only analyse their parent organizations.
Thirdly, it should be acknowledged that the causal direction between motives and frames should be interpreted with caution as the differentiation between motives and frames could be understood as being too blurry.
Lastly, the data collection process faced missing data and restricted availability, especially regarding the corporate messages which lead to a rather unequally distribution of corporate and media messages. This can be seen when looking at the corporate messages especially in 2013 since not every organization published available CSR press releases or reports on their websites.
The current study will hopefully spark future research on the CSR framing of luxury industry and media. Firstly, another quantitative study with a larger sample should provide more generalizability and should give reliable insight into how luxury industry organizations are framing CSR communication and how this might have changed over the years. A
longitudinal research can provide further interesting insights. Secondly, further qualitative studies should provide thorough and profound results, as for example qualitative content analyses can consider latent content and is therefore often closer to the actual content and meaning of a text.
Besides contributing to theory and the CSR framing regarding the luxury industry, the study contains practical and societal implications. Firstly, it provides a certain awareness of the motivations behind CSR communications and exposes the frames that are used by
corporations and media messages when talking about CSR engagement. Thus, society can be informed and educated about why and how organizations frame their CSR communication and the rationale behind. Since most of the corporate messages contained a strategic-economical frame, society can be aware that organizations are emphasizing this in their
communication. Secondly, practical implications are also made for people working in CSR communication and the luxury industry sector. With the information given in this study, practitioners can rethink their corporate messages and CSR activities and try to shift their focus from the strategic-economical perspective more towards the environmental or social perspective. As the results suggest, the use of these frames positively predicts the use of intrinsic motives, and thus, such CSR engagement would then lead to stronger and more positive stakeholder perceptions of the organization (Du et al., 2010). In contrast, less positive stakeholder attitudes and behaviours towards the company arose from the occurrence of extrinsic motives, which had been positively predicted when the strategic-economical frame was used (Du et al., 2010). Therefore, organizations could be able to manage the relationship with their stakeholders towards a more positive perception.
In sum, this study provided new insights into the framing of corporate and media messages in the luxury industry sector and uncovered the motives used in these messages. The luxury industry sector is mainly framing the CSR issue in a strategical-economical way, whereas the media is mainly focusing on the environmental or social aspects of CSR engagement.
References
Aguinis, H., & Glavas, A. (2012). What we know and don’t know about corporate social responsibility: A review and research agenda. Journal of Management, 38, 932-968. Becker-Olsen, K. L. & Hill, R. P. (2006). The impact of perceived corporate social
responsibility on consumer behavior. Journal of Business Research, 59(1), 45-53. Caroll, C. E. (2011). Media relations and corporate social responsibility. In: Ihlen, O.,
Bartlett, J. & May, S. K. (Eds.). The handbook of communication and corporate social responsibility (423-444). Oxford, UK: Wiley-Blackwell.
Carroll, A. B. (1979). A three-dimensional conceptual model of corporate performance. Academy of Management Review, 4(4), 497-505.
Christensen, L. T., Morsing, M. & Thyssen, O. (2013). CSR as aspirational talk. Organization, 20, 372-393.
Crane, A. & Glozer, S. (2016). Researching Corporate Social Responsibility Communication: Themes, Opportunities and Challenges. Journal of Management Studies, 53(7), 1223 1252.
Davis, A. (2000). Public relations, news production and changing patterns of source access in the British national media. Media, Culture & Society, 22(1), 39-59.
De Vreese, C. H. (2005). News framing: Theory and typology. Information Design Journal & Document Design, 13(1), 51-62.
Devin, B. (2014). Half-truths and dirty secrets: Omissions in CSR communication. Public Relations Review, 42, 226-228.
Du, S., Bhattacharya, C. B., & Sen, S. (2010). Maximizing business returns to corporate social responsibility (CSR): The role of CSR communication. International journal of
management reviews, 12(1), 8-19.
Entman, R. M. (1993). Framing: Toward Clarification of a Fractured Paradigm. Journal of Communication, 43(3), 51-58.
Fifka, M. S. (2013). Corporate responsibility reporting and its determinants in comparative perspective – A review of the empirical literature and a meta-analysis. Business Strategy and the Environment, 22, 1-35.
Goffman, E. (1974). Frame Analysis. Harper & Row: New York, NY.
Hallahan, K. (1999). Seven models of Framing: Implications for public relations. Journal of Public Relations Research, 11(3), 205-242.
Hayes, A. F., & Krippendorff, K. (2007). Answering the Call for a Standard Reliability Ihlen, O. & Nitz, M. (2008). Framing contests in environmental disputes: paying attention to
media and cultural frames. International Journal of Strategic Communication, 2(1), 1-18.
Kiousis, S., Mitrook, M., Wu, X., & Seltzer, T. (2006). First- and second-level agenda-building and agenda-setting effects: Exploring the linkages among candidate news releases, media coverage, and public opinion during the 2002 Florida gubernatorial election. Journal of Public Relations Research, 18(3), 265-285.
Kotler, P. and Lee, N. (2005). Corporate Social Responsibility: Doing the Most Good for Your Company and Your Cause. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley.
Kozman, C. (2017). Measuring issue-specific and generic frames in the media’s coverage of the steroids issue in baseball. Journalism Practice, 11(6), 777-797.
Krippendorff, K. (2004). Reliability in Content Analysis. Human Communication Research, 30(3), 411-433.
Lee, S. Y. (2016). How can companies succeed in forming CSR reputation? Corporate Communications: An International Journal, 21(4), 435-449.
Lee, S. Y., & Carroll, C. E. (2011). The emergence, variation, and evolution of Corporate Social Responsibility in the public sphere, 1980-2004: The exposure of firms to public debate. Journal of Business Ethics, 104(1), 115-131.
Lunenberg, K., Gosselt, J. F. & De Jong, M. D. T. (2016). Framing CSR fit: How corporate social responsibility activities are covered by news media. Public Relations Review, 42, 943-951.
Matthes, J. & and Kohring, M. (2008). The Content Analysis of Media Frames: Toward Improving Reliability and Validity. Journal of Communication, 58(2), 258-279. Measure for Coding Data. Communication Methods and Measures, 1(1), 77-89.
Pérez, A., del Mar García De Los Salmones, M. & López-Gutiérrez, C. (2018). Corporate Social Responsibility in the Media: A Content Analysis of Business News in Spain. Journal of Media Ethics, 33(2), 66-79.
Savitz, A. W. & Weber, K. (2007). Environmental Quality Management, 17(2), 17-28.
Seele, P. & Gatti, L. (2017). Greenwashing Revisited: In Search of a Typology and
Accusation-Based Definition Incorporating Legitimacy Strategies. Business Strategy and the Environment, 26, 239-252.
Seele, P. & Lock, I. (2015). Instrumental and/or Deliberative? A Typology of CSR Communication Tools. Journal of Business Ethics, 131(2), 401-414.
Shoemaker, P. J., & Reese, S. D. (1996). Mediating the message (2nd ed.). White Plains, NY: Longman.
Stanaland, A. J. S., Lwin, M. O., & Murphy, P. E. (2011). Consumer perceptions of the antecedents and consequences of corporate social responsibility. Journal of Business Ethics, 102, 47–55.
Statista (2018). Competitive Landscape in percent. Retrieved from
https://www.statista.com/outlook/21030000/100/luxury-fashion/worldwide#market revenueBrand.
Strauss, N., & Vliegenthart, R. (2017). Reciprocal influence? Investigating implicit frames in press releases and financial newspaper coverage during the German banking crisis. Public Relations Review, 43(2), 392-405.
Van den Heijkant, L. & Vliegenthart, R. (2018). Implicit frames of CSR: The interplay between the news media, organizational PR, and the public. Public Relations Review, 44, 645-655.
Van Marrewijk, M. (2003). Concepts and definitions of CSR and corporate sustainability: Between agency and communion. Journal of Business Ethics, 44(2-3), 95-105.
Vivarta, V. & Canela, G. (2006). Corporate Social Responsibility in Brazil: The Role of the Press as Watchdog. Journal of Corporate Citizenship, 21, 95-106.
Wong, J. Y. & Dhanesh, G. S. (2016). Corporate social responsibility (CSR) for ethical corporate identity management. Framing CSR as a tool for managing the CSR-luxury paradox online. Corporate Communications: An International Journal, 22(4), 420-439.
Wong, J. Y. & Dhanesh, G. S. (2017). Communicating Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) in the Luxury Industry: Managing CSR-Luxury Paradox Online Through Acceptance Strategies of Coexistence and Convergence. Management Communication Quarterly, 31(1), 88-112.
Zyglidopoulos, S. C., Georgiadis, A. P., Caroll, C. E. & Siegel, D. S. (2011). Does media attention drive corporate social responsibility? Journal of Business Research, 65, 1622-1627.
Footnotes
1 Additional Chi-squared cross-tabulation analysis supported that, X² (1, N = 251) = 3.21, p = .073, Phi = -.113, V = .133. All expected cell frequencies were greater than five. Frequency analysis verifies that as well, as regarding intrinsic motives, 64.1% were present in corporate messages and 52.7% in media messages.
Appendix A
Codebook content analysis
This codebook serves as a guideline for coders when coding CSR reports, CSR press releases as well as media articles concerned with CSR topics. The codebook is divided into two segments, with specification of the data as a first step and the framing of CSR
communication as a second step. The aim of the content analysis is to examine both CSR-related data as well as media publications in regard to their CSR communication. The coding was performed through a Qualtrics form. The key reason for this is speeding up the coding process and lowering the amount of errors made.
Step 1 – Specification
As a first step, the data that will be coded must be specified. Therefore, the coding unit is always the whole article or the whole report, meaning both CSR-related reports and media publications will be coded in this section.
V1 mt message type
First, you indicate whether the data you code is a corporate message or a media message. Corporate messages can either be a press release, an annual report or a CSR report. You will find the name of the organization (LVMH, PVH, Kering, Ralph Lauren) on the report. Media messages can either be a newspaper article, a journal article or a magazine article. You will find the name of the publication on the article as well as other indicators.
1 = CSR-related content 2 = Media publication
Regarding only the CSR-related content, you indicate which organization released the report or press release. The organization’s name can be found on one of the first pages. The
organization, which published the report or press release is being coded with a single-digit number, e.g. 2 = PVH.
1 = LVMH 2 = PVH
3 = Ralph Lauren 4 = Kering
V3 pub Media publication
Regarding only media publication, you indicate which newspaper or journal published the article. The name can be found on the top of the article.
V4 date Year of publication
Next, you indicate the year in which the publication was released or is about.
Press releases, as well as media publications, mostly have the exact publication date above or underneath the headings right on the top page.
The reports mostly have the year the report is about on one of the first pages or even on the front page.
Indicate the year of the publication as a whole number. V5 form Form of expression/presentation
Next, look at the data you have and indicate the specific type of expression or presentation. Regarding CSR-related content, the data can be a press release, which is mostly already declared as that on the paper itself, or as “news”. CSR reports are often already names as that
or in terms of “CSR”-synonyms like environmental/sustainability report. Annual reports are always named as that.
Regarding newspaper articles as well as magazine/journal publications count as a media publication.
The form of expression is coded through a single-digit number, e.g. 1 = Press release. 1 = Press release
2 = CSR Report 3 = media publication
Step 2 – Framing CSR Communication
Both corporate and media messages will be coded in this section.
The coding unit are passages or paragraphs. Paragraphs or passages can be differentiated by different sections through headlines, headings, subheadings, blank spaces, which indicate that a new passage is following.
Regarding CSR reports, introduction sections or forewords as well as table of content etc. are not coded. Regarding press releases, sections about the organization are not coded.
V7 intr Intrinsic motives
Efforts in CSR are often assumed to be motivated by financial issues, as it is known to increase a company’s profitability. However, this is not the only driver for engagement in CSR. Organizational engagement in CSR is not only motivated by financial reasons but can also arise out of altruistic concerns for the wellbeing of others or as a moral duty. Thus, communicating intrinsic motives is understood as communicating about a company’s activities, behaviour or selfless reasons for doing something. It arises from their natural and
