Relevance of voluntary environmental and social reporting in the French context: Does CSR assurance matter?

Drawing on the legitimacy theory framework, this study introduces an alternative means to spot “fuzzy reporting” signals as a way to detect greenwashing at the firm level. Its approach is based on the way the sustainability reporting process can mislead stakeholders after critical incidents take place. In order to do so, a single environmental incident, which took place in Colombia, is analyzed in light of what happened before, during and afterwards, with special emphasis on the corporate disclosure process performed by the company involved. Results obtained give support to the assumption that fuzzy reporting can be objectively detected not only through the analysis of annual sustainability reports, but also by tracking other forms of corporate messages when a specific concern is carefully followed. This study’s contribution is two-fold. First, it builds on the theoretical notions of greenwashing and fuzzy reporting by illustrating a practical and objective way to identify some deceiving corporate practices. Second, it empirically evaluates this approach in a sensitive context in order to obtain better illustration and prepare the groundwork for further studies.

Over the years, the number of organizations investing in CSR activities has increased considerably. This increase is partially attributable to the intention of the organizations to give back to the society to repair and reduce the loss their intentional or unintentional actions might have caused to the environment. The government’s decision to make it mandatory for businesses to invest a small part of their net profit in social welfare activities has also helped nudge the organizations towards CSR activities. However, the question whether this investment influences customers’ intention to purchase the product in any manner remains an unresolved paradox. Limited researches have been conducted in this area to explore and establish the relationship if any between CSR and consumer purchase intention. This research focuses on the five different factors of CSR comprising of loyalty, morality, awareness, behavior and environment, which are identified from the previous literature. With the help of these factors, the authors researched and established the relationship between them and consumer purchase intention. In this descriptive research, the research questionnaire was distributed to 1500 respondents, using convenient sampling method, out of which 319 responses were finally obtained for the analysis purpose. After testing the reliability and validity of the data, the five hypotheses were tested using SEM (Structural Equation Modeling). It was found that all the five hypotheses were supported and thereby acknowledged the significant influence of CSR related activities performed by companies on the consumer purchase intention. The CSR driven morality is emerging to be the most important dimension that appears to influence the consumer purchase intentions. These finding will help decision-makers to formulate their promotion activities in such a manner that it aligns with the value system of the consumers and increase the overall consumer base.

Yuhan is a small-and-medium-size pharmaceutical manufacturing company in South Korea (Korea). It is well known in the industry as a paragon of credibility and sustainability. Concerning the small-but-powerful firm’s remarkable triumph, over the past two decades, a number of academics and researchers have examined the model of management within the context of business management. Yet the firm’s corporatist management in terms of validity should be considered beyond the area of business administration. Unlike previous academic works, this paper assesses the Yuhan experiments within the context of corporate corporatism.
The chief argument of this new approach is that corporatism and solidarity grounded Yuhan campaign (stark contrast concepts of neoliberal management) may offer meaningful lessons for the neoliberalism embedded Korean commercial society. While infrastructural conditions of both the public and private sectors are feeble to upheld corporatism, Yuhan style corporate corporatism, as a harbinger of social democratic corporatism, could be an alternative model to supplement such weakness. In rivalry with neoliberal campaigns that persistently creates social polarization and disunity; the solidarism-based Yuhan model would work a solution to overcome threadbare safety net for working and lower middle class in Korean society.