An approach to manage corporate scandals : Legitimizing negative incidents in CSR-reports

• Main Authors: Quader, Mithila, Lidén, Sara
• Format: Others
• Language: English
• Published: Karlstads universitet 2018
• Subjects: Business Administration; Företagsekonomi
• Online Access: http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:kau:diva-68550

Background: The relationship between CSR-reports and legitimacy has been on-going from the very beginning that businesses started to report on sustainability related issues. Prior research suggest that businesses can enhance their competitive edge by maintaining legitimacy through CSR-reports. Therefore, prior research also suggests that businesses can alter how information is disclosed in CSR-reports in order to maintain or enhance their legitimacy. This has caused a tendency amongst businesses to create overly positive and unbalanced reports, but what happens when the lack of negative information backfires? Purpose: The purpose of the paper is to examine how negative information is disclosed before a corporate scandal, and which legitimization strategies are applied to communicate in CSR-reports to restore legitimacy after facing a corporate scandal. Method: The paper has applied a thematic analysis to analyze unobtrusive data gathered from CSR-disclosures from ten companies and media outlets who have reported on the scandal, using a qualitative approach.      Findings: Three key findings were made. CSR-reports are used as a legitimacy tool to disclose negative information. The paper identifies continuous signs of companies shifting focus to maintain or restore legitimacy through the use of strengthened language, the addition of a time-aspect or a new perspective. This finding has led to the last key finding and conclusion of this paper; that an additional strategy can be identified in a majority of the companies – the strategy of shifting focus. Keywords: Legitimacy, CSR-reports, corporate scandals, negative incidents