The role of Corporate Social Responsibility in Organisational Identity Communication, Co-Creation and Orientation

Mohamed Karim Sorour (), Mark Boadu () and Teerooven Soobaroyen ()
Additional contact information
Mohamed Karim Sorour: Northumbria University
Mark Boadu: Department of Business Administration, Faculty of Management Studies, University of Professional Studies
Teerooven Soobaroyen: University of Essex

Journal of Business Ethics, 2021, vol. 173, issue 1, No 6, 89-108

Abstract: Abstract Corporate social responsibility (CSR) research has mainly focused on understanding the antecedents and outcomes of CSR adoption. Yet, little is known about the organisational process of ‘CSR engagement’ and how this would affect organisational identity. We mobilise Basu and Palazzo’s cognitive and linguistic notions of sense-making and Brickson’s organisational identity orientation to frame how rural community banks (RCBs) in Ghana engage with CSR. Drawing from semi-structured interviews with RCB directors, managers and other stakeholders, we conceive of the CSR engagement process as one that allows for the communication and orientation of organisational identity through an ‘informal co-creation’ involving organisational actors and stakeholders. Our findings also emphasise the ‘cultural/political’ modes of justification put forward by RCBs in their CSR engagement. Lastly, we tentatively propose the notion of an ‘opaque context’ to highlight settings that are less concerned about public visibility (i.e. transparency and disclosure), and where the focus is instead on the direct interactions between organisations and stakeholders in a given social context.

Keywords: Corporate social responsibility; Organisational identity; Sense-making (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s10551-020-04481-w Abstract (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:kap:jbuset:v:173:y:2021:i:1:d:10.1007_s10551-020-04481-w

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer. ... cs/journal/10551/PS2

DOI: 10.1007/s10551-020-04481-w

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Business Ethics is currently edited by Michelle Greenwood and R. Edward Freeman

More articles in Journal of Business Ethics from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().