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Exploring Corporations’ Dialogue About CSR in the Digital Era

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Abstract

In this paper, we examined how companies are employing new media to engage in dialogue with their stakeholders about corporate social responsibility (CSR)-related matters. Through a qualitative theory-building study conducted in three stages over a period of 2 years, we discovered that corporations with reputations for CSR have built virtual spaces for dialogue about CSR, but that these spaces remain empty of dialogue. Our theory-building model highlights how the mix of four dialogue processes (i.e. directing, moderating, building open-scripts, and crowd-sourcing multi-dialogue) may allow companies to create open dialogue about CSR initiatives and avoid leaving these spaces empty. Contributions for CSR studies are discussed.

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Acknowledgments

Our research would not have been possible without the financial support provided by the International Association for Business Communicators. Also, we have greatly benefited from the conversations and suggestion of a number of peers or senior scholars. Comments by Stelios Zyglidopoulos (U of Glasgow), Dennis Schoeneborn (Copenhagen Business School), and Michael Etter (Copenhagen Business School) have been of incredible help and guidance while preparing this manuscript. We are also grateful to the participants at the CSR Communication conference at Aarhus School of Business whose comments about our initial ideas were very constructive and helpful in shaping this paper.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. IE Business School, IE University, Maria de Molina 6 1st Floor, 28006, Madrid, Spain

    Laura Illia

  2. Institute of Economics, Management and Communication (IULM University), Carlo Bo, 1, 20143, Milan, Italy

    Stefania Romenti & Grazia Murtarelli

  3. Comillas, (ICAI-ICADE), Alberto Aguilera 23, 28015, Madrid, Spain

    Belén Rodríguez-Cánovas

  4. Stern Business School, NYU, 44 West 4th Street, New York, NY, 10012, USA

    Craig E. Carroll

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  1. Laura Illia
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  2. Stefania Romenti
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  3. Belén Rodríguez-Cánovas
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  4. Grazia Murtarelli
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  5. Craig E. Carroll
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Correspondence to Laura Illia.

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Illia, L., Romenti, S., Rodríguez-Cánovas, B. et al. Exploring Corporations’ Dialogue About CSR in the Digital Era. J Bus Ethics 146, 39–58 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-015-2924-6

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