1st Edition
The Routledge Handbook of Corporate Social Responsibility Communication
Winner of the National Communication Association’s Public Relations Division 2023 Outstanding Book Award
This handbook is a resource for students, faculty, and researchers who are focused on understanding the role communication plays in the formation and execution of corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities.
Bringing together authors who are thought-leaders and emerging scholars from diverse theoretical and methodological perspectives, it examines the issues central to CSR communication including: theoretical underpinnings, form and content of CSR messaging, the boundaries of engagement, and the tensions associated with CSR communication. It offers a unique combination of functional and formative approaches to CSR communication designed to expose readers to a blend of approaches. With attention to issues of diversity, equity, and inclusion, this handbook also explicitly addresses recent societal changes and how those changes will impact CSR communication research and practices in the future.
Offering both a strong introduction to topics for novices as well as a more advanced interrogation of CSR communication for more knowledgeable readers, the handbook is appropriate for advanced students and researchers in public relations, strategic communication, organizational communication, and allied fields.
CSR communication research – praxis and promise
Amy O’Connor
Section I: Mapping the Field of CSR Communication
- CSR communication from a public relations perspective
- Organizational communication and Corporate Social Responsibility: Critical perspectives and reflections on the public good.
- CSR communication from a rhetorical and semiotic perspective
- Communicating CSR across cultures: From a global and local to glocal challenges
- Articulating the value of an institutional perspective in CSR communication research
- Constitutive views on CSR communication: The communicative constitution of responsible organization, organizing, and organizationality
Dennis Schoeneborn, Sarah Glozer, and Hannah Trittin-Ulbrich
- Toward a multi-dimensional network model of CSR initiatives
- A conversation about three key yet underexplored tensions in contemporary notions of CSR communication
- CSR communication message effects
- Visual strategies for CSR communication
- CSR communication and the commodification of compassion
- CSR communication and social media
- CSR and crisis communication: Exploring the research on CSR crisis communication
- Corporate social advocacy
- A conversation about conceptual and methodological challenges in CSR communication research
- CSR communication in stigmatized industries
- Toward a relational CSR model: CSR communication of Global Fortune 100 during the COVID-19 Pandemic
- Corporate social responsibility in small- and medium-sized fast-growth private firms: How it is conceived, enacted, and communicated
- Overcoming the dark side of CSR communication and employee relations
- CSR communication and organizational leadership: How does CSR communication contribute to responsible organizational leadership?
- Organizational history and CSR communication
- A conversation about the communicative constitution of CSR and its implications for organizations and society
- CSR communication and legitimacy creation
- Understanding CSR partnership communication from a portfolio approach
- The collaboration communication conundrum: NGOs as CSR actors, beneficiaries, and adversaries
Jiawei Sophia Fu and Yoori Yang - CSR in the community: Implications for communication, development, and engagement
Vidhi Chaudhri and Asha Kaul - Contesting the meaning and boundaries of "safety" as CSR in the mining industry
- Controversial Corporate social responsibility: The challenge ahead?
- A conversation about the future of CSR communication research
Sora Kim
Steve May
Andrea Catellani and Øyvind Ihlen
Parichart Sthapitanonda and Chanapa Itdhiamornkulchai
Amy O’Connor and John C. Lammers
Aimei Yang and Adam Saffer
Cynthia Stohl and Mette Morsing
Section II: Form and Content of CSR Communication
Hyejoon Rim and Weiting Tao
Sun Young Lee and Sungwon Chung
Urša Golob and Nataša Verk
Hao Xu
W. Timothy Coombs
Barbara Miller Gaither and Lucinda Austin
Amy O’Connor and Holly Overton
Section III: Exploring organizational influences on CSR communication
Tae Ho Lee
Nur Uysal
Peggy Cunningham
Ganga S. Dhanesh
Anne Ellerup Nielsen and Christa Thomsen
Claudia Janssen Danyi
François Cooren and Michelle Shumate
Section IV: Exploring social and stakeholder influences on CSR communication
Holly Overton, Virginia Harrison, and Nicholas Eng
Chuqing Dong and Yiqi Li
Amy O’Connor
Wim J.L. Elving
Christen Buckley, Katie Haejung Kim, Nitzan Navick, and Bennet Schwoon
Biography
Amy O’Connor is an associate professor in the Hubbard School of Journalism & Mass Communication at the University of Minnesota–Twin Cities. Her research explores what CSR means to corporations and stakeholders, how institutional level pressure determines CSR, and how CSR influences stakeholder-organization relationships. Her research is published in diverse disciplinary journals: Business & Society, Management Communication Quarterly, and Public Relations Review.
"An impressive collection of leading thinkers in the CSR space address important topics in this book, including corporate advocacy, CSR crisis, stakeholder engagement, and transparency among a broad range of organization types. This volume is a 'must-have' reference for any scholar or student of CSR."
Denise Sevick Bortree, Director of the Arthur W. Page Center, The Pennsylvania State University, USA
"This is a wonderful compendium of research on CSR communication featuring the world’s leading scholars in the field along with some of the best new voices emerging across the globe. If you only read one book on CSR this year, make it this one."
Andrew Crane, Director of the Centre for Business, Organisations and Society, University of Bath, UK
"This Handbook brings together leading CSR communication scholars to offer a diverse range of perspectives and topical emphases that will guide and inspire research. The Handbook not only captures existing literature; it pushes past the boundaries of existing CSR scholarship to set an exciting agenda for the future."
Joshua B. Barbour, University of Texas at Austin, USA
