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An analysis of CSR online communication. : The case of Shell, ExxonMobil, E-ON and Vestas

Corporation Social Responsibility (CSR) has been growing in its importance, which makescompanies under great pressure with the handling of CSR and making it a useful managerial tool.This thesis tries to answer the questions of whether the E.ON Group, Vestas, ExxonMobil, andthe Shell Corporation are using the appropriate CSR communication strategies, and whether ornot a company’s relative environmental friendliness affects the CSR communication strategy ofsaid company, and was written to increase our understanding of CSR communication as aconcept. We adopted an inductive stance, with a constructionist, interpretivist point of view, andso decided to perform qualitative research by way of a comparative case study.We then collected our data from the corporate websites of the two companies, and analyzed itaccording to Carroll’s CSR pyramid, Morsing’ theories on stakeholder communication strategy,and the theory on credibility as defined by Greek philosopher Aristotle. Once analyzed, wecompared the data gathered from the two companies to each other in order to draw ourconclusions.In the end, we concluded that E.ON’s and Vestas’ CSR communication strategy are quitelacking, while Shell’s and Exxon’s CSR communication strategy are quite the successes. Thisthen actually seems to answer our second question, as Shell, who is leagues less environmentallyfriendly than E.ON, devotes a lot more focus towards their CSR communication measures.Moreover, it is through our study that we have discovered a lack of academic theories or modelguiding for a successful use of CSR communication.

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA1/oai:DiVA.org:umu-39782
Date January 2010
CreatorsPhan Nguyen, Thien Thanh, Wall, Kim
PublisherUmeå universitet, Handelshögskolan vid Umeå universitet, Umeå universitet, Handelshögskolan vid Umeå universitet
Source SetsDiVA Archive at Upsalla University
LanguageEnglish
Detected LanguageEnglish
TypeStudent thesis, info:eu-repo/semantics/bachelorThesis, text
Formatapplication/pdf
Rightsinfo:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess

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