Accessible Communication of Corporate Social Responsibility: Development and Preliminary Evaluation of an Online Module

Alessandra Rossetti University of Antwerp ; Luuk Van Waes University of Antwerp

Abstract

Communicating clearly about their socially responsible activities is becoming increasingly important for companies, as a growing number of stakeholders with different goals, knowledge, and language skills seek information on corporate social responsibility (CSR). Furthermore, the ability to communicate clearly is particularly appreciated in the workplace. To fill a gap in CSR communication training, this article describes the development and preliminary evaluation of an interdisciplinary and multimodal online module whose goal is to train Dutch-speaking business students in the production of accessible CSR content in English. After presenting our module, we discuss its implications for future training and for corporate communication.

Journal
Business and Professional Communication Quarterly
Published
2022-03-01
DOI
10.1177/23294906221074324
CompPile
Search in CompPile ↗
Open Access
Closed
Topics
Export

Citation Context

Cited by in this index (4)

  1. Business and Professional Communication Quarterly
  2. Business and Professional Communication Quarterly
  3. Business and Professional Communication Quarterly
  4. Business and Professional Communication Quarterly

References (126) · 12 in this index

  1. Abu Bakar A. S., Ameer R. (2011). Readability of corporate social responsibility communication in Malaysia. C…
  2. AccountAbility. (2018). AA1000 accountability principles 2018. https://www.accountability.org/static/6b386394…
  3. 10.1002/bse.531
  4. Ailawadi K. L., Neslin S. A., Luan Y. J., Taylor G. A. (2014). Does retailer CSR enhance behavioral loyalty? …
  5. Amaladoss M. X., Manohar H. L. (2013). Communicating corporate social responsibility: A case of CSR communica…
Show all 126 →
  1. Arfé B., Mason L., Fajardo I. (2018). Simplifying informational text structure for struggling readers. Readin…
  2. Barkaoui K. (2016). What and when second-language learners revise when responding to timed writing tasks on t…
  3. Bingel J. (2018). Personalized and adaptive text simplification [PhD thesis, University of Copenhagen]. Danis…
  4. Bosetti L. (2018). Web-based integrated CSR reporting: An empirical analysis. Symphonya. Emerging Issues in M…
  5. Cahan S. F., De Villiers C., Jeter D. C., Naiker V., Van Staden C. J. (2016). Are CSR disclosures value relev…
  6. Cain K., Oakhill J. (2014). Reading comprehension and vocabulary: Is vocabulary more important for some aspec…
  7. The truth about the new rules of business writing
  8. 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199211593.003.0002
  9. Castagnoli S., Magistro E. (2019). Translating (im)personalisation in corporate discourse: A corpus-based ana…
  10. Catellani A. (2015). Visual aspects of CSR reports: A semiotic and chronological case analysis. In Melo A. D.…
  11. Chaidali P. P., Jones M. J. (2017). It’s a matter of trust: Exploring the perceptions of Integrated Reporting…
  12. Effects of SRSD on students’ metacognitive knowledge, self-efficacy, text revision, and t…
  13. Chen Y., Gao J., Zhang M. (2019). The effect of CSR performance and CSR disclosure readability on investors’ …
  14. Cho C. H., Phillips J. R., Hageman A. M., Patten D. M. (2009). Media richness, user trust, and perceptions of…
  15. Business and Professional Communication Quarterly
  16. Chung S., Lee S. Y. (2019). Visual CSR messages and the effects of emotional valence and arousal on perceived…
  17. Business and Professional Communication Quarterly
  18. Cone Communications. (2015). Cone communications/Ebiquity global CSR study. https://www.conecomm.com/research…
  19. Conijn R., Speltz E. D., van Zaanen M., Van Waes L., Chukharev-Hudilainen E. (2020). A process-oriented datas…
  20. Crossley S. A., Allen D., McNamara D. S. (2012). Text simplification and comprehensible input: A case for an …
  21. Crossley S. A., Yang H. S., McNamara D. S. (2014). What’s so simple about simplified texts? A computational a…
  22. 10.1002/csr.132
  23. Dawkins J. (2004). Corporate responsibility: The communication challenge. Journal of Communication Management…
  24. Devie D., Liman L. P., Tarigan J., Jie F. (2020). Corporate social responsibility, financial performance and …
  25. Du S., Bhattacharya C. B., Sen S. (2010). Maximizing business returns to corporate social responsibility (CSR…
  26. Du S., Yu K. (2021). Do corporate social responsibility reports convey value relevant information? Evidence f…
  27. Du S., Yu K., Bhattacharya C. B., Sen S. (2017). The business case for sustainability reporting: Evidence fro…
  28. Duff A. (2016). Corporate social responsibility reporting in professional accounting firms. British Accountin…
  29. Business and Professional Communication Quarterly
  30. Fadun S. O. (2014). Corporate social responsibility (CSR) practices and stakeholders expectations: The Nigeri…
  31. College Composition and Communication
  32. Farooq M. B., de Villiers C. (2019). Understanding how managers institutionalise sustainability reporting: Ev…
  33. Federal Plain Language Guidelines. (2011). Improving communication from the federal government to the public.…
  34. Fitzgerald J. (1987). Research on revision in writing. Review of Educational Research, 57(4), 481-506. https:…
  35. Fortanier F., Kolk A., Pinkse J. (2011). Harmonization in CSR reporting: MNEs and global CSR standards. Manag…
  36. Fries L., DeCaro M. S., Ramirez G. (2019). The lure of seductive details during lecture learning. Journal of …
  37. Garcia M. M., Greenwood K. (2015). Visualizing CSR: A visual framing analysis of US multinational companies. …
  38. García-Sánchez I.M., Araújo-Bernardo C.A. (2020). What colour is the corporate social responsibility report? …
  39. Global Reporting Initiative Standards. (2020). Consolidated set of GRI sustainability reporting standards 202…
  40. Golob U., Bartlett J. L. (2007). Communicating about corporate social responsibility: A comparative study of …
  41. Graham S. (2018). A revised writer(s)-within-community model of writing. Educational Psychologist, 53(4), 258…
  42. Gunawardhana L. K. P. D., Palaniappan S. (2016). Possibility of using multimedia application for learning. GS…
  43. Written Communication
  44. Advances in applied psycholinguistics. Vol. 2: Reading, writing, and language processing
  45. Helfaya A., Whittington M., Alawattage C. (2019). Exploring the quality of corporate environmental reporting:…
  46. Homer B. D., Plass J. L., Blake L. (2008). The effects of video on cognitive load and social presence in mult…
  47. Husted B. W., Jamali D., Saffar W. (2016). Near and dear? The role of location in CSR engagement. Strategic M…
  48. Ihlen Ø., Bartlett J. L., May S. (2011). Corporate social responsibility and communication. In Ihlen Ø., Bart…
  49. Islam T., Islam R., Pitafi A. H., Xiaobei L., Rehmani M., Irfan M., Mubarak M. S. (2021). The impact of corpo…
  50. Kadayat B. B., Eika E. (2020). Impact of sentence length on the readability of web for screen reader users. I…
  51. Kanbaty M., Hellmann A., He L. (2020). Infographics in corporate sustainability reports: Providing useful inf…
  52. Journal of Writing Research
  53. Journal of Writing Research
  54. Kim S., Ferguson M. T. (2014). Public expectations of CSR communication: What and how to communicate CSR. Pub…
  55. Kim S., Rader S. (2010). What they can do versus how much they care: Assessing corporate communication strate…
  56. Kodagoda N., Wong W., Khan N. (2009). Identifying information seeking behaviours of low and high literacy use…
  57. KPMG. (2016). Carrots & sticks. Global trends in sustainability reporting regulation and policy. https://asse…
  58. Laidroo L. Ööbik U. (2014). Banks’ CSR disclosures—Headquarters versus subsidiaries. Baltic Journal of Manage…
  59. Lee K., Oh W.Y., Kim N. (2013). Social media for socially responsible firms: Analysis of …
  60. Written Communication
  61. Li F. (2008). Annual report readability, current earnings, and earnings persistence. Journal of Accounting an…
  62. Lindgren E., Leijten M., Van Waes L. (2011). Adapting to the reader during writing. Written Language & Litera…
  63. Computer keystroke logging and writing: Methods and applications
  64. Observing writing: Insights from keystroke logging and handwriting
  65. Lonsdale M. D. S. (2014). The effect of text layout on performance: A comparison between types of questions t…
  66. Lourenço I. C., Oliveira J., Branco M. C., Inácio A. S. (2017). Are CSR leaders less prone to engage in impre…
  67. Easy language research: Text and user perspectives
  68. Martínez P., del Bosque I. R. (2013). CSR and customer loyalty: The roles of trust, customer identification w…
  69. Mazzotta R., Bronzetti G., Veltri S. (2020). Are mandatory non-financial disclosures credible? Evidence from …
  70. McNamara D. S., Graesser A. C., Cai Z., Kulikowich J. M. (2011, April). Coh-Metrix easability components: Ali…
  71. Measuring up: Advances in how we assess reading ability
  72. Morhardt J. E. (2010). Corporate social responsibility and sustainability reporting on the internet. Business…
  73. Morkes J., Nielsen J. (1997). Concise, scannable, and objective: How to write for the web. Nielsen Norman Gro…
  74. Muñoz-Miquel A. (2012). From the original article to the summary for patients: Reformulation procedures in in…
  75. Nazari J. A., Hrazdil K., Mahmoudian F. (2017). Assessing social and environmental performance through narrat…
  76. Nilipour A., De Silva T.A., Li X. (2020). The readability of sustainability reporting in New Zealand over tim…
  77. Öberseder M., Schlegelmilch B. B., Murphy P. E. (2013). CSR practices and consumer perceptions. Journal of Bu…
  78. O’Reilly T., McNamara D. S. (2007). Reversing the reverse cohesion effect: Good texts can be better for strat…
  79. O’Reilly T., Wang Z., Sabatini J. (2019). How much knowledge is too little? When a lack of knowledge becomes …
  80. Ozuru Y., Dempsey K., McNamara D. S. (2009). Prior knowledge, reading skill, and text cohesion in the compreh…
  81. Pallasvirta T. (2010). Visual communication in CSR reporting: The use of pictures and colors in six car indus…
  82. Park H., Reber B. H. (2008). Relationship building and the use of web sites: How Fortune 500 corporations use…
  83. Business and Professional Communication Quarterly
  84. Perfetti C., Stafura J. (2014). Word knowledge in a theory of reading comprehension. Scientific Studies of Re…
  85. Pesci C., Costa E. (2014). Content analysis of social and environmental reports of Italian cooperative banks:…
  86. Philippe S., Souchet A. D., Lameras P., Petridis P., Caporal J., Coldeboeuf G., Duzan H. (2020). Multimodal t…
  87. Pimperton H., Nation K. (2010). Suppressing irrelevant information from working memory: Evidence for domain-s…
  88. Porter M. E., Kramer M. R. (2011, January-February). Creating shared value: How to reinvent capitalism—and un…
  89. Ranaut B. (2018). Importance of good business writing skills. International Journal of Language and Linguisti…
  90. Reilly A. H., Larya N. (2018). External communication about sustainability: Corporate social responsibility r…
  91. Rijlaarsdam G., Braaksma M., Couzijn M., Janssen T., Kieft M. H., Broekkamp H., van den Bergh H. (2005). Psyc…
  92. Journal of Writing Research
  93. Rossetti A., Cadwell P., O’Brien S. (2020). “The terms and conditions came back to bite”: Plain language and …
  94. Ruchi T. (2012). Corporate social responsibility communication through websites: Analysis of Indian and multi…
  95. Safari M., Mohaghegh Montazeri M. (2017). The effect of reducing lexical and syntactic complexity of texts on…
  96. Advances in applied psycholinguistics. Volume 2: Reading, writing, and language learning
  97. Scarton C., Aprosio A. P., Tonelli S., Wanton T. M., Specia L. (2017). MUSST: A multilingual syntactic simpli…
  98. Written Communication
  99. Solving problems in technical communication
  100. Sen S., Bhattacharya C. B., Korschun D. (2006). The role of corporate social responsibility in strengthening …
  101. Servaes H., Tamayo A. (2013). The impact of corporate social responsibility on firm value: The role of custom…
  102. Siano A., Conte F., Amabile S., Vollero A., Piciocchi P. (2016). Communicating sustainability: An operational…
  103. Siddharthan A. (2014). A survey of research on text simplification. International Journal of Applied Linguist…
  104. Smeuninx N. (2018). Dear stakeholder. Exploring the language of sustainability reporting: A closer look at re…
  105. Smeuninx N., De Clerck B., Aerts W. (2020). Measuring the readability of sustainability reports: A corpus-bas…
  106. Sprinkle G. B., Maines L. A. (2010). The benefits and costs of corporate social responsibility. Business Hori…
  107. Stevenson M., Schoonen R., de Glopper K. (2006). Revising in two languages: A multi-dimensional comparison of…
  108. Sustainable Business Council, Perceptive, & Porter Novelli. (2019). In good company. How New Zealanders asses…
  109. 10.1177/2329488414525443
  110. Testarmata S., Fortuna F., Ciaburri M. (2018). The communication of corporate social responsibility practices…
  111. Tschopp D., Huefner R. J. (2015). Comparing the evolution of CSR reporting to that of financial reporting. Jo…
  112. Usmani M., Davison J., Napier C. J. (2020). The production of stand-alone sustainability reports: Visual impr…
  113. 10.1007/978-94-007-1048-1_7
  114. Van Waes L., van Weijen D., Leijten M. (2014). Learning to write in an online writing center: The effect of l…
  115. W3C Web Accessibility Initiative. (2021, April 21). Web content accessibility guidelines (WCAG) overview. htt…
  116. 10.4324/9781315576619-8
  117. Research in the Teaching of English
  118. Wang Z., Hsieh T.S., Sarkis J. (2018). CSR performance and the readability of CSR reports: Too good to be tru…
  119. Wei L. (2020). Examining corporate communications of environmental responsibility on corporate websites: Main…
  120. Yeari M., van den Broek P., Oudega M. (2015). Processing and memory of central versus peripheral information …
  121. Zamir F., Saeed A. (2020). Location matters: Impact of geographical proximity to financial centers on corpora…