Acuti Diletta, Bellucci Marco, Manetti Giacomo
Department of Strategy, Marketing and Innovation, University of Portsmouth, Richmond Building, Portsmouth, PO1 3DE UK.
Department of Economics and Management, University of Florence, 9, Via Delle Pandette, 50127 Florence, Italy.
J Bus Ethics. 2023 Mar 8:1-21. doi: 10.1007/s10551-023-05375-3.
The adoption and reporting of CSR policies have important ethical and managerial implications that need scrutiny. This study answers the call of CSR scholars for further studies in controversial sectors by focusing on the voluntary reporting practices of companies that market products or services that generate addiction among consumers. It contributes to the debate on organizational legitimacy and corporate reporting by empirically analyzing whether and how corporations in the tobacco, alcohol and gambling industries disclose their CSR actions and what reactions such disclosures generate in stakeholders. Drawing on legitimacy theory and organizational façades, we apply a consequent mixed-methods design (initiation approach) built on (i) a content analysis of reports prepared by a large set of companies listed on the European, British, US, Canadian, Australian and New Zealand stock exchanges and (ii) an experiment on how different actions taken by the companies (preventive vs. remedial) elicit different perceptions of company hypocrisy and action effectiveness. While previous analyses have focused on "sin" or "harm" industries, this is one of the first to assess how companies account for "addiction", which is more difficult for them to report and legitimate due to long-term negative consequences. This study contributes to the literature on the instrumental use of CSR reporting by empirically investigating how addiction companies shape their organizational façades and manage organizational legitimacy through disclosure. Moreover, the experimental evidence advances the knowledge of how cognitive mechanisms influence stakeholders in terms of legitimacy assessment and the perceived hypocrisy/effectiveness of CSR disclosure.
企业社会责任（CSR）政策的采用和报告具有重要的伦理和管理意义，需要进行审视。本研究回应了CSR学者对争议领域进一步研究的呼吁，聚焦于那些销售会导致消费者成瘾的产品或服务的公司的自愿报告行为。通过实证分析烟草、酒精和博彩行业的公司是否以及如何披露其CSR行动，以及这些披露在利益相关者中引发了何种反应，本研究为有关组织合法性和企业报告的辩论做出了贡献。借鉴合法性理论和组织表象，我们采用了一种后续的混合方法设计（启动方法），该设计基于：（i）对在欧洲、英国、美国、加拿大、澳大利亚和新西兰证券交易所上市的大量公司所编制报告的内容分析，以及（ii）一项关于公司采取的不同行动（预防性行动与补救性行动）如何引发对公司伪善和行动有效性的不同认知的实验。虽然先前的分析集中在“罪恶”或“有害”行业，但本研究是首批评估公司如何解释“成瘾”问题的研究之一，由于长期负面影响，这对它们来说更难报告和合法化。本研究通过实证调查成瘾公司如何塑造其组织表象并通过披露来管理组织合法性，为CSR报告的工具性使用的文献做出了贡献。此外，实验证据推进了关于认知机制如何在合法性评估以及CSR披露的感知伪善/有效性方面影响利益相关者的知识。
