Date of Award

January 2015

Degree Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Science (MS)

Department

Public Relations

Advisor(s)

Joon Soo Lim

Keywords

China, Corporate social responsibility, Corporate Website, CSR communication, United States

Subject Categories

Social and Behavioral Sciences

Abstract

This paper uses content analysis to compare corporate social responsibility (CSR) communication strategies on the websites of Fortune 500 companies both in China and the United States. This study aims to determine how CSR communication strategies differ between China and the United States by comparing the purpose, main stakeholders, types of CSR programs, compliance with the International CSR standards, and the existence of CSR annual reports. This study is based on recent discussion and theory-building efforts in public relations literature regarding evolving CSR practices. The overarching theoretical framework will be the so-called stakeholder theory and CSR communication strategy. The results will show that U.S. companies have a more mature development of CSR communication on their websites than do Chinese companies; Chinese companies are still engaged in Stakeholder information strategies, while U.S. companies disclose CSR information by using different communication strategies; although there's no significant difference in CSR annual reporting between Chinese and U.S. companies, the framework for CSR reporting standards in China is still at a very rudimentary stage.

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Open Access

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