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Imageries of Corporate Social Responsibility: Visual Recontextualization and Field-Level Meaning

Markus A. Höllerer · Dennis Clemens Jancsary · Renate Elisabeth Meyer · Oliver Vettori

66 citations0/0 files storedEmerald Group Publishing Limited eBooks

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Management and Organizational Studies Corporate Social Responsibility Reporting Corporate Social Responsibility and Sustainability

Abstract

In this paper, we explore how corporations use visual artifacts to translate and recontextualize a globally theorized managerial concept (CSR) into a local setting (Austria). In our analysis of the field-level visual discourse, we analyze over 1,600 images in stand-alone CSR reports of publicly traded corporations. We borrow from framing analysis and structural linguistics to show how the meaning structure underlying a multifaceted construct like CSR is constituted by no more than a relatively small number of fundamental dimensions and rhetorical standpoints (topoi). We introduce the concept of imageries-of-practice to embrace the critical role that shared visual language plays in the construction of meaning and the emergence of field-level logics. In particular, we argue that imageries-of-practice, compared to verbal vocabularies, are just as well equipped to link locally resonating symbolic representations and globally diffusing practices, thus expressing both the material and ideational dimension of institutional logics in processes of translation. We find that visual rhetoric used in the Austrian discourse emphasizes the qualities of CSR as a bridging concept, and facilitates the mediation of inconsistencies in several ways: By translating abstract global ideas into concrete local knowledge, imageries-of-practice aid in mediating spatial oppositions; by linking the past, present, and future, they bridge time; by mediating between different institutional spheres and their divergent logics, they appease ideational oppositions and reduce institutional complexity; and, finally, by connecting questionable claims with representations of authenticity, they aid in overcoming credibility gaps.

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References

2000Framing Processes and Social Movements: An Overview and Assessment 1986Frame Alignment Processes, Micromobilization, and Movement Participation 1999Corporate Social Responsibility 1989Media Discourse and Public Opinion on Nuclear Power: A Constructionist Approach 2008“Implicit” and “Explicit” CSR: A Conceptual Framework for a Comparative Understanding of Corporate Social Responsibility 1991Bringing Society Back In : Symbols, Practices, and Institutional Contradictions 2011Institutional Complexity and Organizational Responses 2006Institutions and Institutional Work

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