Program Title

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) Governance: A Comparative Study on How Corporations Handle and Communicate Their CSR Practices in Hong Kong, and Germany

Program Period

January 2012 to July 2013

Program Team

Coordinator:
Dr. Regina Chen, Assistant Professor, Department of Communication Studies, HKBU
Research Collaborators:
Prof. Ansgar Zerfass, Professor of Communication Management, University of Leipzig, Germany
Dr. Flora Hung, Assistant Professor, Department of Communication Studies, HKBU

Program Objectives

Corporations globally have long practiced CSR programs but now the practice is put on a high priority on the corporate agendas due to the demands in their political and economic environments. Top management and public relations professionals are faced with the challenges of setting the scope and objectives of the CSR program as well as developing and managing the CSR activities to make them most valuable to the society. At the same time, they deal with the issues of communicating the activities in a transparent and effectively way that can attain the success of the CSR practice by getting their stakeholders’ acceptance and support. As a result, the demand for systematically reflected strategies and associated regulatory frameworks for the CSR practice is greater than ever. Current public relations research on CSR mainly focus on the strategies for CSR activities and the factors affecting the practice, such as corporate industry, corporate culture, local culture, stakeholder demands, etc. This comparative study expands the public relations literature on (1) the framework that governs corporate CSR activities and (2) communication about CSR activities in a cross-cultural context by exploring the following aspects:

1.     Strategies for the CSR practice and communication;
2.     Identification of existing regulatory frameworks (e.g., CSR policy and governance structure) for the CSR practice and communication;
3.     Factors affecting the existence of CSR frameworks;
4.     Tools and applications in CSR communication;
5.     Stakeholders’ needs of and responses to CSR communication;
6.     Cultural influence on stakeholder perceptions of the CSR practice and communication.