The CSR Communications and Reporting Landscape in Developing Countries
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Date
2017
Authors
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Journal ISSN
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Publisher
Springer, Cham
Abstract
Despite the global trends shaping Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR)
Communications and Reporting (CSR C&R), which trends advocate for quality,
reliable and accurate CSR messages, developing countries’ CSR C&R is still
lagging behind. For example, much as the most common channels of CSR C&R
are annual reports, website postings, newsletters, etc., , to a large extent, these CSR
C&R fail to differentiate between material and non-material CSR issues that should
be communicated. This is evidenced by most of the CSR C&R messages from
companies and organizations in these countries, produced and issued to the audiences
at below Global Reporting Initiatives (GRI) 4 minimum standards. In a
promising development though, traces of the relationship between ‘Speech Act
Theory (SAT)’ and ‘Sense-making Theory (SMT)’, have been found to be helpful
in understanding how stakeholders targeted by these CSR messages in developing
countries endeavor to extract and make meaning and use of this information/
message. Hence, as a contribution to knowledge, this chapter provides the ‘Kata-
Nkiko Framework.’ This framework explains the state of Integrated CSR Communications
and Reporting (CSR C&R) in developing countries. Additionally, it
advances critical points, which, if observed, will allow the CSR C&R from these
countries to be credible, and sense can be made out of it. Lastly, from this
framework, a concept, “Sense-Act” of CSR information is fronted in the debate
on CSR C&R for the first time. It is derived from roots of “Sense-making Theory,”
and “Speech Act Theory”.
Description
Keywords
CSR Communications, Landscape, Developing countries
Citation
Katamba, D., & Nkiko, C. M. (2017). The CSR Communications and Reporting Landscape in Developing Countries. In Handbook of Integrated CSR Communication (pp. 343-358). Springer, Cham. DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-44700-1_19