A Semiotic approach to evaluating the quality and veracity of CSR reporting (original) (raw)
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Insights Regarding the Applicability of Semiotics to CSR Communication Research
The chapter argues for a linguistic based theory and analytical tool – Semiotics in evaluating the quality and authenticity of Corporate Social Responsibility Reports (CSRR). Despite the proliferation of studies on CSR communication, there is lack of consensus and cardinal methodological base for evaluating the quality of CSRR. Over the decades, the findings from the enormous studies on the subject have remained conflicting, unintegrated and often pedestrian or overlapping. Drawing on Semiotics – a linguistic-based theoretical and analytical tool, this chapter explores an alternative perspective to evaluating the quality and veracity of CSR reports. The author proposed a two-phased model that employed the Greimas semiotics narrative schema and the semiotic square of veridiction in drawing meanings from CSRR. The chapter advances CSR communication research by introducing a fundamental theoretical methodology.
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Despite the proliferation of studies on corporate social responsibility (CSR), there is a lack of consensus and a cardinal methodological base for research on the quality of CSR communication. Over the decades, studies in this space have remained conflicting, unintegrated, and sometimes overlapping. Drawing on semiotics—a linguistic-based theoretical and analytical tool, our article explores an alternative perspective to evaluating the quality and reliability of sustainability reports. Our article advances CSR communication research by introducing a theoretical-cum-methodological perspective which provides unique insights into how to evaluate the quality of CSR communication. Particularly, we illustrate the application of our proposed methodology on selected U.K. FTSE 100 companies. Our two-phased analysis employed the Greimas Canonical Narrative Schema and the Semiotic Square of Veridiction in drawing meanings from selected sustainability/CSR reports. In addition, we present a dist...
CSR Communication from a Rhetorical and Semiotic Perspective - draft version March 2022
The Routledge Handbook of Corporate Social Responsibility Communication, 2022
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