stakeholder inclusiveness as argument pro homine in csr reports

44
STAKEHOLDER INCLUSIVENESS AND ARGUMENT PRO HOMINE Craig E. Carroll

Upload: craig-carroll

Post on 09-Dec-2014

157 views

Category:

Presentations & Public Speaking


1 download

DESCRIPTION

Cite as: Carroll, CE. (2014, May) " Stakeholder inclusiveness as argument pro homine in CSR reports." International Communication Association, Seattle, WA.

TRANSCRIPT

Page 1: Stakeholder inclusiveness as argument pro homine in CSR reports

STAKEHOLDER

INCLUSIVENESS AND

ARGUMENT PRO HOMINECraig E. Carroll

Page 2: Stakeholder inclusiveness as argument pro homine in CSR reports

STAKEHOLDER ENGAGEMENT

Inherent Part of CSR

• Characteristic of corporate social

responsibility

• To what extent can CSR exist

authentically, without stakeholder

engagement?

Instrumental part of transparency and disclosure

• A means to ensure that transparency exists or

that transparency improves

• Organizations report on their CSR strengths

and weaknesses in CSR annual reports.

• Stakeholder engagement is one area where

companies are expected to disclose their

progress.

Page 3: Stakeholder inclusiveness as argument pro homine in CSR reports

STAKEHOLDER INCLUSIVENESS

• A firm “should identify its stakeholders and explain in the report how it has responded to

their reasonable expectations and interests” (Global Reporting Initiative, 2011, p. 10).

Page 4: Stakeholder inclusiveness as argument pro homine in CSR reports

THE FUNCTION OF TRANSPARENCY

To allow those who do not have direct experience with a firm

to see or inspect for themselves what is going on inside the firm

On issues, actions, and decision-making procedures about which they seek first-hand information

to make informed decisions and judgments

CSR Reports are designed to make companies more transparent.Carroll, C. E., & Einwiller, S. A. (2014). Disclosure alignment and transparency signaling in

CSR reporting. In R. P. Hart (Ed.), Communication and Language Analysis in the Corporate World (pp. 249-270). Hershey, PA: IGI-Global.

Page 5: Stakeholder inclusiveness as argument pro homine in CSR reports

IN CSR REPORTS…A RESPONSE TO SOCIETY’S DEMANDS…

Companies seek to reveal themselves as:

•Transparent, with little or nothing

to hide;

•Rule-followers, meeting the

demands of their stakeholders,

We suggest they are engaging in-

•Transparency signaling refers to organizational efforts to

demonstrate transparency

•Disclosure alignment:

conforming to CSR reporting guidelines and

expectations

Carroll, C. E., & Einwiller, S. A. (2014). Disclosure alignment and transparency signaling in CSR reporting. In R. P. Hart (Ed.), Communication and Language Analysis in the Corporate World (pp. 249-270). Hershey, PA: IGI-Global.

Page 6: Stakeholder inclusiveness as argument pro homine in CSR reports

TRANSPARENCY SIGNALINGPositive (+) Transparency Signals

• Signals whose presence suggests transparency.

The more positive transparency signals, the more the organization can claim

transparency (and the more audiences will/should perceive transparency).

Negative (-) Transparency Signals

• Signals whose presence suggests a lack of

transparency.

• Negative transparency signals are minimized,

moderated, or absent for one claim transparency.

The less negative transparency signals, the more the organization can claim

transparency (and the less audiences will/should perceive transparency).

Carroll, C. E., & Einwiller, S. A. (2014). Disclosure alignment and transparency signaling in CSR reporting. In R. P. Hart (Ed.), Communication and Language Analysis in the Corporate World (pp. 249-270). Hershey, PA: IGI-Global.

Page 7: Stakeholder inclusiveness as argument pro homine in CSR reports

TRANSPARENCY SIGNALINGPositive (+)

Transparency Signals

•Balance

• Individual ownership (taking ownership of one’s message)

•Guidance and direction (specify who, what, when, where)

•Accuracy

•Concreteness

• Timeliness

• Stakeholder Inclusiveness

Negative (-)

Transparency Signals

• Anti-balance

• Ambivalence

• Assortment

• Attachment

• Adornment

I Suggest that…

Has two dimensions

“Big Acts” of Transparency The 5 As to Avoid

Stakeholder Inclusiveness is a

“Positive” Transparency Signal

Carroll, C. E., & Einwiller, S. A. (2014). Disclosure alignment and transparency signaling in CSR reporting. In R. P. Hart (Ed.), Communication and Language Analysis in the Corporate World (pp. 249-270). Hershey, PA: IGI-Global.

Page 8: Stakeholder inclusiveness as argument pro homine in CSR reports

DISCLOSURE ALIGNMENTCSR Report Contents

1. Materiality

2. Stakeholder Inclusiveness

3. 6 Topics of CSR

CSR Report Quality

1. Timeliness

2. Balance

3. Clarity

4. Accuracy

5. Reliability

We Suggest…

Carroll, C. E., & Einwiller, S. A. (2014). Disclosure alignment and transparency signaling in CSR reporting. In R. P. Hart (Ed.), Communication and Language Analysis in the Corporate World (pp. 249-270). Hershey, PA: IGI-Global.

Has two dimensions

Stakeholder Inclusiveness

is an indicator of Disclosure Alignment

with the Global Reporting Initiative’s CSR Report Contents

Page 9: Stakeholder inclusiveness as argument pro homine in CSR reports

3 PERSPECTIVES ON TRANSPARENCY & DISCLOSURE ALIGNMENTWhere do transparency and disclosure alignment exist? Who gets to say?

Transparency as a claim

Transparency as meeting defined criteriaTransparency as a perception, opinion, judgment, or evaluation

Page 10: Stakeholder inclusiveness as argument pro homine in CSR reports

WHAT IS THE “RIGHT” AMOUNT OF TRANSPARENCY SIGNALS AND DISCLOSURE ALIGNMENT?

Goldilocks’ “Not too hot, not too cold. Just right.”Medium

Excessive. Information overload. “Jamming”/overloading the system. Saying so much that you say nothing at all.

High

Insufficient. Lacking in detail.LowA “high” amount of

stakeholder inclusiveness offers

the potential for “Argument Pro

Homine.”

Page 11: Stakeholder inclusiveness as argument pro homine in CSR reports

HOW DO WE “KNOW” WHAT THE RIGHT AMOUNT IS?

• One organization’s (communicative) behavior

over time

• A set of organizations’ (communicative)

behavior at any one time

• A set of organizations’ (communicative)

behavior over time

“NO!”

Expectations established based upon comparisons Do we have such points of comparison?

A NORMATIVE APPROACH

Page 12: Stakeholder inclusiveness as argument pro homine in CSR reports

A MOVE

FROM AUTHENTICITY

TO AUTHENTICATION…

Page 13: Stakeholder inclusiveness as argument pro homine in CSR reports

Truth

Lies

Truthlike

What makes truthiness so much more dangerous than lies is that for one to lie, one must know the truth (at least respect it enough to know what the truth is).

Truthiness has no regard or respect for the truth at all.

“how do we detect when an organization is being

“truthy”?

Page 14: Stakeholder inclusiveness as argument pro homine in CSR reports

ARGUMENT PRO HOMINE

• To argue pro homine is to argue for the person as evidence rather than presenting the argument or evidence directly.

• An argument pro homine is the inverse of the ad hominem argument.

• It is concerned by the frequent casual insertion of any CAMPUS into organizational discourse without concern for context, relevance, or materiality.

• Is it name dropping?

Page 15: Stakeholder inclusiveness as argument pro homine in CSR reports

ARGUMENT PRO HOMINE

• Predicate 1: Firm A asserts CSR claim 1.

• Predicate 2: CAMPUS (Constituent, Audience, Market, Public, User, Stakeholder) B—which has been predetermined as credible, competent, legitimate or reputable—co-occurs with Claim 1.

• Therefore, Proposition 1 is true.

Page 16: Stakeholder inclusiveness as argument pro homine in CSR reports

ARGUMENT PRO HOMINE

• Pro homine arguments embody the halo effect, a cognitive bias in which the perception of one trait is influenced by the perception of an unrelated trait.

• An example of the halo effect is treating an attractive person as more intelligent or more honest than an unattractive person.

Page 17: Stakeholder inclusiveness as argument pro homine in CSR reports

EXAMPLE FROM THE NYT…“Dozens of prominent Republicans

[emphasis added] signed a soon-to-be-filed amicus brief… arguing for a constitutional right to same-sex marriage."

“Legal analysts said the brief had the potential to sway conservative justices as much for the prominent names attached to it as for its legal arguments.”

Stohlberg, S. G. (2013). Republicans Sign Brief in Support of Gay Marriage, The New York Times, p. A1. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/26/us/politics/prominent-republicans-sign-brief-in-support-of-gay-marriage.html?_r=0

Demonstrating the persuasive power of argument pro homine,

Page 18: Stakeholder inclusiveness as argument pro homine in CSR reports

INSTITUTIONAL RHETORIC

• Language matters.

• Language signals institutional values.

• Language patterns are of special importance

Hart, R. P. (2014). Communication and Language Analysis in the Corporate World. Hershey, PA: IGI-Global.

Page 19: Stakeholder inclusiveness as argument pro homine in CSR reports

METHODSStakeholder Inclusiveness as Argument Pro Homine

in CSR Reports

Page 20: Stakeholder inclusiveness as argument pro homine in CSR reports

SAMPLE

Firms

• U.S. Firms listed in Global Forbes

2000

• 36 firms

• 24 publicly subscribing to GRI

• 22 not publicly subscribing

Texts

• CSR Annual Reports from 2011

• PDFs downloaded from corporate

websites

• Corporate Register.com

Page 21: Stakeholder inclusiveness as argument pro homine in CSR reports

DICTION 6.0Background

• 35 theoretically-derived, mutually

exclusive keyword dictionaries

• 10,000 words

• most robust rhetorical understanding of

the text.

• “IF you could only ask 5 questions of a

text, these would be the five.”

Hart, R. P., & Carroll, C. E. (2011). DICTION 6.0. Austin, TX USA: Digitext, Inc.www.dictionsoftware.ccom

Page 22: Stakeholder inclusiveness as argument pro homine in CSR reports

KEY ASSUMPTIONS

1. Institutional actors (evenly sophisticated ones like PR professionals and corporate

attorney) rarely monitor their lexical decisions.

2. That they have no ability at all to monitor (all of) their lexical patterns.

3. That they think they have control over such matters

Hart, R. P. (2014). Communication and Language Analysis in the Corporate World. Hershey, PA: IGI-Global.

Page 23: Stakeholder inclusiveness as argument pro homine in CSR reports

ASSUMPTIONS ABOUT TONE(1) Families of words have their own distinctive valence but

become mutually implicative when combined; (2) tone becomes more identifiable when word families are

commingled; (3) tone becomes more forceful when these families are

repeatedly commingled; and (4) lexical layering explains differences among rhetorical genres—

how a poem can be distinguished from a movie script, for example (Ishizaki & Kaufer, 2012).

Hart, R. P., Childers, J. P., & Lind, C. J. (2013). Political Tone: How Leaders Talk and Why. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.

Page 24: Stakeholder inclusiveness as argument pro homine in CSR reports

TONE IS THE PRODUCT OF…

1)individual word choices that…

2)cumulatively build up…

3)to produce patterned expectations…

4)telling an audience something important…

5)about the author's outlook on things.

Hart, R. P., Childers, J. P., & Lind, C. J. (2013). Political Tone: How Leaders Talk and Why. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.

Page 25: Stakeholder inclusiveness as argument pro homine in CSR reports

POLITICS…

It is also a world of poorly understood words,

“Politics is a world of words.

Hart, R. P., Childers, J. P., & Lind, C. J. (2013). Political Tone: How Leaders Talk and Why. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.

poorly remembered words,

and poorly theorized words.”

Page 26: Stakeholder inclusiveness as argument pro homine in CSR reports

• People are “gist processors”…taking what they need and leaving the rest.

• People listen for context (yes), but they also listen for lexical weight.

• People do their own “dictionary look ups”

Hart, R. P., Childers, J. P., & Lind, C. J. (2013). Political Tone: How Leaders Talk and Why. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.

Page 27: Stakeholder inclusiveness as argument pro homine in CSR reports

DICTION 6.0Norms Drawn from Hart’s prior DICTION analyses of over 20,000 texts

• Political speeches• News coverage • Advertisements• Religious sermons• Scientific reports• Corporate press releases• Corporate financial reports• Public policy speeches• Social protest movements

Hart, R. P., & Carroll, C. E. (2011). DICTION 6.0. Austin, TX USA: Digitext, Inc. www.dictionsoftware.com

Page 28: Stakeholder inclusiveness as argument pro homine in CSR reports

 DICTION

CSR Report Content  1. Materiality + Insistence

+ Centrality 

2. Stakeholder inclusiveness

+ Cooperation + Collectives + Human Interest – Diversity

 

Report Quality    1. Balance + Hardship

+ Accomplishment – Praise– Satisfaction

 

2. Timeliness + Present Concern  3. Accuracy + Numerical Terms  4. Clarity – Ambivalence  5. Reliability + Inspiration  

DICTIONPositive Transparency Signals1. Balance + Hardship

+ Accomplishment2. Timeliness +Present Concern3. Accuracy +Numerical Terms4. Individual Ownership +Self–reference5. Guidance + Familiarity6. Concreteness + Concreteness7. Stakeholder + Cooperation Inclusiveness + Collectives   + Human Interest   – DiversityNegative Transparency Signals

 

1. Anti-balance – Praise – Satisfaction

2. Ambivalence (Anti-clarity)

– Ambivalence

3. Assortment – Variety4. Attachment – Rapport5. Adornment – Embellishment

Carroll, C. E., & Einwiller, S. A. (2014). Disclosure alignment and transparency signaling in CSR reporting. In R. P. Hart (Ed.), Communication and Language Analysis in the Corporate World (pp. 249-270). Hershey, PA: IGI-Global.

Page 29: Stakeholder inclusiveness as argument pro homine in CSR reports

DICTION NORMS

Norms from…

Scientific Reporting

Religious Sermons

Government

Reports

Social Protest

Speeches

Public Relations

Press Releases

Corporate Financial Reports

Hart, R. P., & Carroll, C. E. (2011). DICTION 6.0. Austin, TX USA: Digitext, Inc. www.dictionsoftware.com

Page 30: Stakeholder inclusiveness as argument pro homine in CSR reports

PROCEDURESStakeholder Inclusiveness as Argument Pro Homine

in CSR Reports

Page 31: Stakeholder inclusiveness as argument pro homine in CSR reports

STEPS1.Scored the texts with DICTION,

2.Examined DICTION’s Insistence words

3.Parsed out DICTION’s Insistence words about CAMPUS (topical density)

4.Scored the measure of CAMPUS

5.Compared against DICTION’s norms

6.Compared each CSR Report against the sample

CAMPUS

ConstituentsAudiencesMarketsPublicsUsers

Stakeholders

Page 32: Stakeholder inclusiveness as argument pro homine in CSR reports

AN EXAMPLE OF INSISTENCE

Yak!

Yak! Yak! Yak!

Yak!

Mom when you were growing up

Page 33: Stakeholder inclusiveness as argument pro homine in CSR reports

Mom when you were growing up

AN EXAMPLE OF TOPICAL DENSITY

Clean Your Room!

Wipe off your feet when you come in the house.

Fill the tank up with gas!

Why weren’t you home before midnight?

Get a haircut!

Page 34: Stakeholder inclusiveness as argument pro homine in CSR reports

DICTION’S INSISTENCE MEASUREAND ITS HISTORICAL NORMS

• Insistence counts repeated words within concentrated passages (500-word increments), thereby measuring the degree to which a text stays on-topic (or changes topic) over the course of a text

• Captures all words appearing 3 or more times within a 500 word passage.

Hart, R. P., Childers, J. P., & Lind, C. J. (2013). Political Tone: How Leaders Talk and Why. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.

Page 35: Stakeholder inclusiveness as argument pro homine in CSR reports

INSISTENCECount of words appearing 3 or more

times

X Sum of words appearing 3 or more

times + .10

Add scores of the 500 word passages/divided by number of 500-word passages

Page 36: Stakeholder inclusiveness as argument pro homine in CSR reports

CAMPUS TOPICAL DENSITY MEASURE

Count of the eligible CAMPUSIG-nouns

X Sum of the eligible CAMPUSIG-nouns

+ .10Add scores of the 500 word passages/divided by

number of 500-word passages

For each firm’s report:

Page 37: Stakeholder inclusiveness as argument pro homine in CSR reports

2 HUMAN CODERS, W/1 INDEPENDENT REVIEWER

• The two coders had to agree that a word was eligible for the CAMPUS topical density measure.

• A tie breaker.

Page 38: Stakeholder inclusiveness as argument pro homine in CSR reports

COMPARISON OF SCORESCompared against DICTION’s historical norms for insistence (above, within, and below the norms)

Scores standardized.

>+1 Z score: above the norm

<1 to >-1 Z scores: “within” the norm

< -1 Z score: “below” the norm

CAMPUS

ConstituentsAudiencesMarketsPublicsUsers

Stakeholders

Candidate for Argument Pro Homine

InsufficientStakeholder Inclusiveness

Page 39: Stakeholder inclusiveness as argument pro homine in CSR reports

RESULTSStakeholder Inclusiveness as Argument Pro Homine

in CSR Reports

Page 40: Stakeholder inclusiveness as argument pro homine in CSR reports

SUMMARY

Descriptives

• 255 unique CAMPUS terms

• Used 3,555 times

GRI vs non-GRI firms

• Firms declaring public support for the GRI’s reporting principles had slightly more stakeholder inclusiveness, but the difference was marginal (p < .10)

Page 41: Stakeholder inclusiveness as argument pro homine in CSR reports

TOPICAL DENSITY MAPSThe CAMPUS term “employees” had the largest degree of topical density, followed by suppliers, and then customers

The CAMPUS terms with least topical density included girls, elderly, educator, scientist, policy maker, advocates, farmer

Page 42: Stakeholder inclusiveness as argument pro homine in CSR reports

DISTRIBUTION OF FIRMS FOR STAKEHOLDER INCLUSIVENESS TOPICAL DENSITY

Against DICTION’s historical norms

• 35 of 36 firms fell within the normative range for DICTION’s Insistence

• 1 firm fell below the norm.

“Norms” within the sample

• 5 of 36 firms were above the norm (Z score of +1 or higher)

• 25 firms were “within” the norm (Z score

• 6 of 36 firms were below the norm (Z score of -1 or lower)

Page 43: Stakeholder inclusiveness as argument pro homine in CSR reports

CONCLUSIONS

• Presence of pro homine appears when just considering the sample, but not evident when compared against DICTION’s historical norms

• Appeared possible within 5 of 36 firms

Page 44: Stakeholder inclusiveness as argument pro homine in CSR reports

FUTURE RESEARCH

1. Establishment of CSR norms for CAMPUS topical density using larger sample (full Global Forbes 500, and examined over time.

2. CSR reports compared on a per topic basis (Product, Labor, Society, Human Rights, Environment, Economic Performance)

3. Comparing within CAMPUS/stakeholder groups (Employees, Customers, Investors, Community, Partners, Regulators)