Persuasive language of responsible organisation? A critical discourse analysis of corporate social responsibility (CSR) reports of Nigerian oil companies
Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal
ISSN: 0951-3574
Article publication date: 15 November 2019
Issue publication date: 19 November 2019
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to investigate how language (choice) in CSR reports of leading oil companies in Nigeria is used to portray an image of “responsible organisation”.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper draws insights from communication studies (persuasion theory) and critical discourse analysis (CDA) studies to discursively unpack all those subtle and visible, yet equally invisible, linguistic strategies (micro-level elements): wording (single words), phrases and chains of words (clauses/sentences). These linguistic strategies (micro-level elements) proxy organisational discourses (meso-level elements), which are reflective of wider social practices (macro-level elements). The authors base the investigation on CSR reports of six leading oil companies in Nigeria from 2009 to 2012.
Findings
The findings of this study reveal that (leading) Nigerian oil companies linguistically use CSR reports to persuasively construct and portray the image of “responsible organisation” in the eyes of wider stakeholders (the communities) despite serious criticism of their corporate (ir) responsibility.
Originality/value
As opposed to the previous content analysis based studies, this paper contributes to the emerging stream of CDA studies on CSR reporting by providing a finer-grained linguistic analytical schema couched in Fairclough’s (2003) approach to CDA (and persuasion theory). This helps to unravel how persuasive language/discourse of responsible organisation is enacted and reproduced. The authors thus respond to the calls for theoretical plurality in CSR reporting research by introducing persuasion theory from communication studies literature which has hitherto been rarely applied.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
Earlier versions of this paper have been presented at a staff seminar at Aston University, 9th September, 2015, the European Business Ethics Network [eben] Research Conference at Copenhagen Business School, 1-3 October, 2015, APIRA Conference, 13-15 July, 2016, Melbourne, Australia and MedAR/AF Joint Conference, Yonsei University, Seoul, South Korea, 25-26 April, 2019. The authors acknowledge the helpful comments received from the participants. The authors would like to thank Professor George Frynas for his written comments on an earlier version of the paper. Finally, the editorial guidance provided by Professor Lee Parker in the finalisation of this paper is gratefully acknowledged.
Citation
Nwagbara, U. and Belal, A. (2019), "Persuasive language of responsible organisation? A critical discourse analysis of corporate social responsibility (CSR) reports of Nigerian oil companies", Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal, Vol. 32 No. 8, pp. 2395-2420. https://doi.org/10.1108/AAAJ-03-2016-2485
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2019, Emerald Publishing Limited