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The chapter develops a phase model of strategic planning in integrated corporate social responsibility (CSR) communication by presenting CSR as a mindset in communication processes.

The chapter provides rationales for establishing a new phase model of strategic planning in CSR communication by adapting existing models of strategic communications. In this context, the main focus is on the need to involve stakeholders in CSR communication processes (Morsing & Schultz, 2006).

The chapter argues that in the sense of CSR communication, stakeholders should be involved in the strategic planning process from the beginning, with respect to the issues that the corporation and targeted stakeholder groups have in common.

The chapter concentrates on selected key aspects of CSR and CSR communication. In particular the aspects such as reputation, credibility, ethical alignment and stakeholder involvement are considered as prerequisites for understanding the construction of the phase model.

This chapter provides practical implications for developing communication concepts in CSR communication in daily business practice.

This chapter facilitates a comprehensive understanding of strategic CSR communication as part of CSR reflected in the development processes of communication concepts.

This paper aims to propose a typology of corporate communication strategy; to investigate whether the typology is present among Fortune 500 corporations; and to explore whether there is a dominant strategy and industrial differences among them.

A content analysis of all 2008 Fortune 500 corporate web sites was undertaken.

This paper finds that there are three corporate communication strategies used to affect publics' corporate associations: corporate ability (CAb) strategy; corporate social responsibility (CSR) strategy; and a hybrid strategy. The results demonstrate that a majority of corporate public relations for Fortune 500 companies emphasize a CAb communication strategy over a CSR or hybrid strategy, whereas the top 100 Fortune 500 corporations focus on a CSR strategy over the other two strategies. Industrial differences are also found in adopting different corporate strategy among the companies.

The applied value of this research it is that provides convincing and realistic insights about contemporary corporate communication strategy and a valuable set of communicative directives to public relations practitioners managing corporate‐context communications with stakeholders since it explores dominant corporate strategy among Fortune 500 companies.

The purpose of this chapter is to carry out a theoretical review of the state of the art in relation to Latin American Small and Medium Enterprises' (SMEs) communication practices and Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) from 2009 to 2016. A range of recently published papers (2009–2016) is retrieved in a literature search of the Web of Science and Google Scholar under keywords such as ‘CSR’, ‘SME’, ‘Communication’, and ‘CSR in Latin America’. This chapter provides information about CSR in SMEs, indicating what can be found on this topic and how the management of CSR communication can help those firms. It also recognizes the lack of any real formation in SMEs to solve their problems in this area. This chapter emphasizes that, in general terms, SMEs are aware of CSR management opportunities but, because of the aforementioned constraints, their current CSR communications practices are absolutely basic and their management is still limited and short-term. Instead of a generalized exhaustive study, this is an approach to develop new studies in the future. It does not contain empirical results but rather practical information for reflections on CSR and communication in Latin American SMEs. A useful source of information for SME managers. CSR communications policies generate no value unless they have been taken into account in the overall design of corporate CSR policy, particularly if there is no clear vision of how new stakeholders may be more valuable strategically than operationally. This chapter fulfils an identified information/resources need and offers indications for future lines of research.

Institutions and organizations are increasingly using the digital media to communicate with stakeholders on a day-to-day basis and during crisis situations. Therefore, this chapter presents a bibliographic analysis on digital corporate communication technologies. The grounded theory’s inductive approach was used to capture and interpret the findings from Scopus-indexed publications. The articles were scrutinized in their entirety, including their research questions, methodologies and interpretation of the findings. Afterwards, this contribution identifies the opportunities and challenges that emerged during an unprecedented coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak. In conclusion, it implies that there is scope for institutions and organizations to incorporate digital and social media in their crises’ communications and risk management plans. This will enable them to be in a better position to engage in credible and transparent dialogic communications with different stakeholders.

Taking into consideration that the number of reports about pharmaceutical lobbying activities is increasing (Baleta, 2014; Boseley, 2014) and that the cost of drugs has a direct and powerful impact on both public and private healthcare, there is a need to require pharmaceutical companies to report their activity as well as reflect their considerations about the ethical implications of their work. To answer that need, this chapter explores how pharmaceutical companies communicate their corporate social responsibility activities.

This chapter explores how Pfizer, GlaxoSmithKline and Sanofi (all in the top 10 of US foundations by total giving) use their websites to articulate their CSR strategies. In order to achieve this goal, an exploratory research that combines semantic analysis of the way the mission, vision and objectives are integrated in their strategy was conducted. To do so the researchers saved the text about each company’s mission and vision from their main websites (the .com) and saved all the data associated to CSR communication and reporting included on each company website in a word document. One hundred and ninety-one pages of text were thus collected in August 2013 (67 pages of text for GlaxoSmithKline, 38 pages for Sanofi and 87 pages for Pfizer). Wordle and VOSViewer were used to gain insight into the emerging themes from the textual data collected and therefore compare the similarities and differences between the three companies.

Our findings show a strong emphasis on business-related activities for Sanofi and GSK reflected through the vocabulary used. Additionally, the two companies also portray corporate social responsibility as a tool for image and reputation building and for achieving wider yet profit-driven organisational goals. CSR messages therefore are intended to create and consolidate corporate identity. Moreover, whilst their mission focuses on patients, health, care, and access to medicine, the values are also oriented towards profit making and economic criteria. Pfizer on the other hand, although sharing some of the mission and values with the other two companies, presents itself as a more inclusive organisation with a collaborative environment and research-focused culture.

While limited in scope and sample, this chapter raises many valuable questions for future research about the pharmaceutical sector’s understanding and definition of CSR and their differences and similarities in their online discourse and vocabulary in comparison with other profit-driven industries. Moreover, it raises questions about the style and nature of corporate communications and whether this should be consistent with that associated with CSR as well as whether it imposes the creation of a company-ego.

This chapter promotes an alternative exploratory method of online discourses through computer-aided techniques.

Publics are becoming responsible customers that urge firms to improve society. By using social media, corporate social responsibility (CSR) actions could influence organization’s commitment and e-reputation. The purpose of this paper is to look at the influence on e-reputation of communication strategies (i.e. corporate ability and CSR) on social media.

Four international companies (Danone, Renault, Orange and BNP Paribas) were studied and a content analysis was performed: Leximancer for the social media content (between 25 and 50 pages for each company) on a six-month period; and Social Mention for the measurement of e-reputation.

Results show that there is a link between CSR communication strategies and e-reputation. More precisely, by using a corporate ability strategy (focus on product quality or innovation R & D), a company can increase its e-reputation better than on a common CSR communication strategy.

This study is based on only four companies (from four different industries) and would profit from a larger base for analysis. Second, the content the authors analyzed was generated by the company on their own social media.

This exploratory study is one of the first to look at the influence of CSR communication strategies on e-reputation and tries to see how companies’ action on social media can change the way they are perceived by their customers. It completes the current literature by defining how CSR communications strategies should be declined for in order to influence customers.

Purpose – Despite a long-standing interest in the responsibility of organisations, transgressions do occur. This raises questions about how these occur when there is so much focus on the legitimacy of organisations in being responsible. In this chapter, we draw on metaphors of communication as transmission and meaning making to consider the communicative approaches to CSR.

Methodology/approach – This chapter is a conceptual chapter drawing on literature review and cases to illustrate insights.

Findings – We suggest that while transmission models focus on highlighting responsibility, it is within the meaning making approaches that opportunities for responsibility and irresponsibility emerge as organisations and society negotiate the boundaries of organisational behaviours.

Implications – We suggest implications for how the meaning and criteria of ethical corporate behaviour are constructed.

Originality and value – CSR has not been studied extensively through a communication lens. An extensive literature review of various communication approaches to CSR that forms the foundation of this chapter offers important insights into how responsibility and irresponsibility are constituted through communicative efforts of organisations.

This paper seeks to explore whether corporate heritage as a component in planned communications can be important to foster a responsible corporate brand image among consumers.

A research model with three hypotheses was created and tested through linear multiple regression analysis, including 199 brands. The dependent variable, responsible brand image, was obtained from a Swedish consumer survey (n=8,015). The independent variables were measured through content analyses of the brands' webpages.

The findings support that presence of corporate heritage in corporate social responsibility (CSR) communication is positively related to responsible brand image with consumers. It is notable that the results indicate that corporate heritage identity on its own does not influence positive consumer perception on responsibility, unless it is linked to CSR communication.

Previous research has indicated the significance of cultural context on what constitutes effective CSR communication. As this study is limited to a Swedish consumer sample, the authors therefore recommend further research including a wider national context in order to validate the findings.

The study and findings can inspire and inform companies how corporate heritage can be utilised in brand communications to facilitate CSR credibility among consumers.

By introducing history and heritage as a perspective on CSR communication and responsible brand image, the paper adds to the growing literature on corporate heritage identity and branding. The findings also add to the CSR communication literature calling for more knowledge on elements that build effective CSR communication.

This study examines gestures, themes, message copy points and imagery, and strategy motives reflected in corporate advertising appearing in the China Times and United Daily News, two leading newspapers, in the month following the devastating Chin‐Chin earthquake in Taiwan in September 1999. The study identified four possible corporate strategy motives in post‐crisis corporate communications: social responsibility, communal relationship building, enlightened self‐interest and impression management. A content analysis of adverts (n=100) suggested communal relationship building drove corporate advertising endeavours. Corporate philanthropy was the most common gesture described in the adverts, and the most frequent themes and message components focused on the restoration of society. No significant differences were found between companies headquartered in Taiwan versus elsewhere, or between companies headquartered in Asia versus the West. Implications for examining crisis communications and underlying motives behind public relations communications are discussed.