Problem: Corporate social responsibility is said to result in strategic and reputational benefits, however, broadcasting it publicly has been proven to be a delicate matter. While stakeholders expect companies to engage in CSR, they do not appreciate if companies communicate their CSR-activities too loudly. Prior research instead suggests that communicating too extensively could cause skepticism from stakeholders. Purpose: This thesis is set to investigate how companies view and handle the challenge of communicating their good deeds, in the specific context of cross-sector collaborations, and how companies balance the need to increase awareness of their social engagements with the risk of inducing skepticism. Method: Primary data has been collected from semi-structured interviews within six case companies from different industries. Conclusion: Our results show that skepticism per se was not perceived as a problem – one reason could be that most companies chose to avoid communicating extensively. While all companies argued for the importance of doing rather than talking, controversial companies in particular expressed an aversion towards bragging about their collaborations. A difference between controversial and neutral industries could be seen in the way they valued communication. Having the right level of communication, demonstrating authenticity by linking cross-sector collaborations to company characteristics, together with the choice of partners and communicating “through” NPOs were seen as important aspects that could help companies to find the balance.

Corporate social irresponsibility (CSI), as an opposite of corporate social responsibility (CSR), refers to corporation’s failure to act responsibly. To address the actions connected to CSR and CSI, corporations need to overcome the challenges of communicating to their stakeholders and to be transparent. Stakeholders have become more skeptical regarding if the corporations are actually living up to the communicated standards. In other words, if corporations are ‘doing as they say’ and if they are ‘walking the talk’.  Purpose: The purpose of this study is to examine how top-listed corporations communicate CSR, as compared with what is communicated in media.  Method: This study used a qualitative content analysis method, by studying sustainability reports from 12 corporations over a five-year period. The study also examined media reports concerning the chosen corporations in order to get another view of the corporation’s CSR activities.  Findings: The findings showed that most of the corporation’s reports regarding CSR were in line with what media reports. There were some corporations, however, which were more aligned with media than others. This differences might be due to the fact that the corporations are acting in different industries which can affect how the corporations are focusing their CSR activities. Practical Implementations: This study can aid the understanding of how well corporations are communicating its CSR activities. It can help the corporations included in the study to understand how well its communication is perceived, as well as, to help stakeholders see if the corporations are ‘doing as they say’.