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The purpose of this paper is to examine the framing and rhetorical devices employed by luxury brands to build CSR-based, ethical corporate identities while managing complexities of the CSR-luxury paradox, the perceived clash between the self-transcendent values of CSR, and the self-enhancement values of luxury.

Qualitative frame analysis was conducted to create detailed frame matrices for each dimension of CSR message content, followed by quantitative content analysis to establish the extent of usage of these frames across 43 luxury brand websites in the apparel, beauty, jewelry, and watch categories.

Luxury brands predominantly framed their CSR efforts as discretionary, driven by altruistic motives. They foregrounded brand over social issue and highlighted substantial input into CSR efforts consistently over a period. CSR efforts were put into programs that were congruent with the brands’ business and that conveyed impact in abstract terms, evoking emotions over logic. Such framing across the CSR message-dimensions of issues, motives, importance, commitment, fit, and impact reflected a sophisticated understanding of communicating to a socially and environmentally conscious demographic while simultaneously aligning with the central, enduring, and distinctive characteristics of luxury.

This study contributes to emerging empirical work on CSR as a tool to build ethical corporate identity. This study also adds to the literature on identity management and CSR communication in the luxury industry, a sector that exceeded €1 trillion in retail sales in 2016.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the significance of corporate social responsibility (CSR) as a predictor of organisational commitment of internal publics. More precisely, the study seeks to examine which dimension/s of CSR significantly predict/s which dimension of organisational commitment.

The study uses web‐based survey research method and employs hierarchical multiple regression analysis to explore the predictive ability of four dimensions of CSR on three dimensions of organisational commitment, from the perspective of employees.

The research shows that while the ethical‐legal dimension of CSR is a significant predictor of three dimensions of organisational commitment, the discretionary and economic dimensions of CSR are not.

This was a quantitative study using survey methodology and would benefit from a follow up qualitative study or a set of case studies in multiple industries/countries. Since the results show that ethical‐legal CSR significantly predicts organisational commitment, a relational outcome in relationship management theory, PR practitioners can incorporate ethical‐legal CSR in CSR strategy, implementation and communication, thus enabling the building and maintenance of organization‐public relationships.

This study offers a fine grained investigation of the predictive abilities of four dimensions of CSR on three dimensions of organisational commitment and offers public relations practitioners insight into the specific dimension of CSR that has most impact on multiple dimensions of organisational commitment.