Corporate social responsibility in the energy industry: A content analysis of leading energy companies' websites.

摘要

This study aimed at investigating the content of leading energy corporations' communications about corporate social responsibility (CSR). The specific purpose was to explore how the leading energy corporations communicate CSR activities as three distinctive approaches on their websites, to compare the differences among the three approaches, and to investigate the relationship between the information on the websites that addresses stakeholder relationship and the financial performance.;Drawing on the theories and instruments from corporate social responsibility literature, this study explored the performance of CSR through a content analysis of leading energy corporations' websites. The results showed that leading energy corporations employed diverse means to build the good image of socially responsible corporations, and they exhibited strong commitments to employees, shareholders, and the natural environment. Qualitative results showed that leading energy corporations crafted and disseminated information in different levels and formats, and widely adopted visualized information. Differences worth underlining were the fact that leading energy corporations do not display the same eagerness to communicate with stakeholders using these three approaches. The ethical business conduct approach was emphasized the most and the strategic public philanthropy approach was the least.;Further, this study found that there was no statistically significant correlation between the information on websites that addresses stakeholder relations and company financial performance (ROIC) among the leading energy corporations. The results suggested that there was little variation among their web-based CSR information, especially stakeholders' information. Finally, the findings of this study suggested that stakeholder communication in CSR had been ingrained in leading energy corporations' norms and values.