Corporate social responsibility communication research : state of the art and recent advances

Abstract

This chapter provides a review of the current state of corporate social responsibility (CSR) communication research and a theoretical framework on related topics. The analysis covers a period of twenty years (from 1997 to 2016) and statistically maps the streams of research advances on CSR communication, identifying top academic journals in the field. Moreover, the authors focus on the importance of CSR communication for businesses, the different approaches to communication, and review the literature dealing with both digital and traditional tools adopted for CSR communication. A discussion on how today's businesses are aware of the importance of communicating CSR to their stakeholders and are implementing both digital and traditional tools in a complementary way for their CSR communication strategy follows; research gaps, limitations, and further directions conclude the chapter. Finally, this chapter provides some inputs about the relevance of this topic for digital business transformation.