Responding responsibly : Web communication on corporate responsibility in Swedish retail

• There is a growing institutional pressure on retail companies to communicate corporate responsibility (CR) to a variety of stakeholders, but so far, there is scarce research on the topic. This paper focuses on how Sweden’s 206 largest retail companies communicate CR on the Internet, targeting who communicates and on what. The paper suggests that even though many Swedish retail firms communicate on CR, most of them do not. Most CR communication concerns environment and quality while traditional ethical issues get little attention. The study also shows that the frequency and direction of CR communication is clearly related to the retail subsector that the firm belongs to and to the size of the firm. Furthermore, there is no clear tendency that foreign ownership as such affects CR communication. Conceptually, we frame our findings within the ‘travel of ideas’ literature, arguing that in order to understand how retail companies communicate CR, we need to focus on the role of specific actors in the diffusion processes of macro ideas such as CR.

Ämnesord

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Ekonomi och näringsliv -- Företagsekonomi (hsv//swe)

SOCIAL SCIENCES  -- Economics and Business -- Business Administration (hsv//eng)

Nyckelord

Communication

responsibility

retail

diffusion

Business studies

Företagsekonomi

Business Studies

Företagsekonomi

Publikations- och innehållstyp

vet (ämneskategori)

kon (ämneskategori)