Meta-Analysis of Longitudinal Studies on Online CSR Communication

The concept of corporate social responsibility (CSR) has been changing since its creation.As the concept has been evolving, new definitions were born, and academics and practitioners havechanged their focus over the years. In this paper longitudinal studies dealing with online CSRcommunication are reviewed to explore general tendencies and patterns. Design/methodology/approach: In order to find longitudinal studies on online CSRcommunication within EBSCO Database related papers were sought. In addition, a furtherinvestigation was made with Google Scholar search engine to find more relevant papers aboutonline CSR communication. At the end of the search process, 7 articles were identified. Theselected longitudinal studies together cover a period between 2003 and 2017. Findings: The longitudinal analyses that were selected used similar research methodologies. Allstudies applied a content analysis where researchers were looking for predefined keywords andcategories on corporate websites. Findings suggest, that communicating about CSR activities andprinciples on corporate websites is evident for larger companies in the western world, and it isbecoming the norm in other parts of the world as well. The salience of different CSR topics on thewebsites, however, has been changing, and there are no constant key themes that would have beendominated the online CSR disclosure in the last 15 years. Research/practical implications: By analyzing longitudinal studies researchers and practitionersmay have deeper insights about (online) CSR communication, and they can predict futuretendencies of the field. Originality/value: Although research on internet-based CSR communication is abundant,longitudinal studies are rare. To the best knowledge of the author, this paper presents the firstattempt to perform a comprehensive review of these studies.