Corporate sustainability discourses in a Brazilian business magazine

Denise Franca Barros, Joao Felipe Rammelt Sauerbronn and Alessandra Mello da Costa

Social Responsibility Journal, 2014, vol. 10, issue 1, 4-20

Abstract: Purpose - – This paper seeks to explore corporate social responsibility (CSR) in Brazil through the “evolution” of the sustainability concept in one of the country's leading specialist business publications – the Exame Magazine. The idea is to understand how Exame portrays sustainable development and corporate sustainability in its Sustainable Corporation Guide. Design/methodology/approach - – The authors collected material covering five years of the Exame Sustainable Corporation Guide, from 2005 to 2009. The data were analyzed using discourse analysis. Findings - – The authors consider that the “evolution” promoted in this particular business media discourse on CSR and sustainability assumes, and stands for the economically dominant paradigm. In this sense, it cannot be viewed as an alternative that can realistically protect local environments. Despite the idea of a neutral journalistic approach, the concerns depicted in the publication still rely on profits and the chase for business opportunities. The authors also discuss to what extent this particular publication supports a specific hegemonic discourse. The different sustainability indexes adopted only reproduce practices that are desired and that align with the realities of the so-called developed nations. Research limitations/implications - – The paper focuses on what kind of sustainability discourse is propagated by the business media, and more specifically, by a well-known Guide published by a popular Brazilian business magazine. Through this method of diffusion, a specific kind of CSR and sustainability are drawn up that support the capitalist business model. This analysis can raise issues, such as the existence of a “dark side” of sustainability. Further investigation of the diffusion of the CSR and sustainability relationship in business media discourse, as well as of the uncritical adoption of western CSR models, might invigorate the discussion and provide valuable insights. Originality/value - – There is a distinct lack of studies on sustainability and CSR in emergent economies. Such initiatives can be developed in different ways because emergent countries' contexts may differ. Since Brazil is currently an important player in the economic and political arenas, understanding how the notion of sustainability is being discussed in the Brazilian business media can lead to important implications for corporate practices and organizational relationships with stakeholders, both internally as well as externally.

Keywords: Corporate social responsibility; Brazil; Discourse analysis; Corporate sustainability discourse; Emergent countries; Sustainability rankings (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2014
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.110 ... d&utm_campaign=repec (text/html)
https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.110 ... d&utm_campaign=repec (application/pdf)
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:eme:srjpps:v:10:y:2014:i:1:p:4-20

DOI: 10.1108/SRJ-11-2012-0146

Access Statistics for this article

Social Responsibility Journal is currently edited by Prof David Crowther

More articles in Social Responsibility Journal from Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Emerald Support ().