Does Corporate Social Responsibility Performance Affect the Quality of Digital Communications?
Is a company that has a strong corporate social responsibility (CSR) reputation more likely to be a better user of digital media? Are its web sites and other digital communications more useful and have better content? We might expect a connection between sustainability performance and the communication of a company’s CSR program. But is there also a broader connection that demonstrates that a company that has a sophisticated digital communications strategy and strong CSR/sustainability programs will have necessarily incorporated communication of their CSR program into their communications strategy?
We compared CSRHub data on perceived CSR performance for 14,441 companies and Investis data on the digital communications performance of 937 companies. We found we could explain 39% of the variation in digital communications quality for 845 overlapping companies. We found that good policies on employee compensation, employee training/health/safety, energy and climate change, and on environment policy were correlated with better digital communications performance. On the other hand, strong human rights and supply chain strategies and resource management programs seemed to be connected to weaker digital communications performance.
These results are consistent with data CSRHub has collected on the correlation between sustainability performance and brand strength or reputational risk. Certain sustainability programs seem to be well understood and accepted by consumers, suppliers, employees and other stakeholders who learn about them. Other programs are not as well understood and may not directly contribute to success in these areas—although they may help with things such as reducing credit costs.
Source: CRH HUB – By Bahar Gidwani