A good company gone bad: An examination of corporate social responsibility agenda-building in times of corporate crisis using machine learning techniques
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate whether or not public relations efforts in corporate social responsibility (CSR) influence the news media in corporate crisis situations.
Design/methodology/approach
The study conducted a content analysis of press releases and news media based on traditional human-coded cross-lag analyses and a machine learning technique, a novel method of big data analysis to test hypotheses.
Findings
Results indicate that CSR press releases indeed influenced the news media. During the crisis point, however, agenda-building was not observed.
Practical implications
Corporations need to continue CSR activities and provide public relations materials consistently even after a crisis, as an agenda-building role could be recovered.
Originality/value
The study examines the relationship between CSR and crisis situations in an agenda-building theoretical framework. The authors introduce agenda-building in the corporate sector with machine learning techniques.
Keywords
Citation
Park, Y.E., Son, H., Yang, S.-U. and Lee, J.K. (2019), "A good company gone bad: An examination of corporate social responsibility agenda-building in times of corporate crisis using machine learning techniques", Journal of Communication Management, Vol. 23 No. 1, pp. 31-51. https://doi.org/10.1108/JCOM-11-2017-0132
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
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