Making Sustainability Heard - Investor Relations Role in Communicating Corporate Responsibility
Type
conference paper
Date Issued
2008-08-12
Author(s)
Abstract
Despite its current popularity in research as well as public debate, the concept of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) has always been somewhat vague. The lack of a common understanding may explain some of the controversy surrounding the issue of CSR. Given this ambiguity and controversy, any public company engaging in CSR activities needs to explain and justify its choice of programs and policies to its relevant stakeholders. One of the most crucial stakeholder groups in this respect are the professional capital market participants covering a company, since their perceptions and judgements directly impact a company’s resource base, and thereby its strategic options. The communication of CSR activities to these stakeholders can only be expected to be successful if their perspective is adequately understood by the company. This paper presents an explorative empirical survey of 42 European equity analysts. Based on qualitative, in-depth interviews with this core stakeholder group, the perception of CSR issues on capital markets is described and differentiated. Furthermore, suggestions on how to appropriately frame CSR issues in capital market communication are derived. We believe that the insights provided by this survey may help foster greater acceptance for CSR activities by the financial community.
Language
English
Keywords
Corporate Social Responsibility
Investor Relations
HSG Classification
contribution to scientific community
Refereed
Yes
Book title
Academy of Management Annual Meeting Proceedings
Publisher
The George Washington University School of Business
Publisher place
Washington
Event Title
Academy of Management Annual Meeting (AOM) 2008
Event Location
Anaheim, CA
Event Date
08.-13.08.2008
Subject(s)
Division(s)
Eprints ID
43903