Title: Communicating on corporate social responsibility: a method to differentiate among socially responsible firms

Authors: Andrée Marie López-Fernández; R. Mansilla

Addresses: EGADE Business School, Tecnologico de Monterrey, Calledel Puente 222. Col. Ejidos de Huipulco, Delegación Tlalpan, C.P. 14380, Distrito Federal, Mexico ' National Autonomous University of Mexico, Av. Universidad 3000, Copilco Universidad, Delegación Coyoacán, C.P. 04510, Distrito Federal, Mexico

Abstract: Corporate social responsibility (CSR) is a strategy that has the potential to impact stakeholders' perspectives of firms and influence their decision making. Therefore, the communication and transparency that a firm has in regards to its engagement in CSR, or the lack thereof, may directly impact a firm's performance. The study's objective is to differentiate between firms that are socially responsible from those that have fallen short in the engagement in CSR; thus, it offers results from a predictive model that differentiates between socially responsible and transparent firms from those that are either not socially responsible or have chosen to not communicate their efforts. In order to do so, content analysis, principal component analysis (PCA) and cluster analysis were employed with a sample of 226 firms to differentiate among the firms' dynamics in corporate social responsibility. Moreover, the study contributes to the understanding of the importance of reporting on corporate social responsibility.

Keywords: corporate social responsibility; CSR reporting; transparency; communication; stakeholders; Mexico; content analysis; principal component analysis; PCA; cluster analysis.

DOI: 10.1504/IJSSOC.2015.073563

International Journal of Sustainable Society, 2015 Vol.7 No.4, pp.392 - 404

Received: 30 Jun 2014
Accepted: 07 Apr 2015
Published online: 12 Dec 2015 *

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