Tech Report Number
2008-003
Abstract
The constitutive meanings of responsible corporate environmental citizenship are to be found in global discourses. We use Gubrium and Holstein‘s framework on interpretive practice to study the Corporate Sustainability Reports of multinational automotive companies regarding global warming. We observe three common themes – recognizing the issue of greenhouse gases, acknowledging stakeholders, and being role models for society. However, these themes take on unique meanings vis-à-vis each corporate identity. We utilize our analytic findings to offer theoretic propositions regarding emergent meanings of corporate environmental citizenship. These meanings are important to understand as firm behavior will be based on these socially-constructed meanings.
Keywords
automotive firms, corporate social responsibility, discourse analysis, social construction
Date of this Version
1-1-2008