How Fine is it to Admit you Were Fined? A Corpus-Assisted Discourse Analysis of Compliance Communication in CSR Reports

In the last decades, Corporate Social Responsibility reporting practices have grown exponentially, complementing the information disclosed in financial accounts and enabling stakeholders to estimate the intangible value drivers and the overall triple bottom line achievements. The emergent genre has an intrinsic hybrid nature (Bhatia 2004), combining informative and promotional purposes, partly disclosing data and partly trying to build an ethical corporate image and reputation in order to increase profitability. Reporting has been criticised for being a mere tick mark exercise and a whitewashing technique. Balance should nevertheless be among the basic principles ensuring a report transparency, publishing both positive and negative aspects of the company’s operations, admitting challenges and missed targets, poor performance or noncompliance with laws or regulations, issues causing conflicts or image damage. Such an honest presentation would enable a reasoned assessment of the overall performance and enhance corporate credibility (Gazdar 2007; GRI). The present study, part of a larger research project, is conducted on CorSus, a corpus of sustainability reports in English issued between 2008 and 2011 by oil and electric companies operating in emerging and industrial countries. Being energy production and use a sensitive industrial area, which is based on limited resources and still a major cause of risk of incidents and contamination, energy companies are subject to extensive legal requirements. A corpus-assisted discourse analysis is carried out on CorSus, with the aid of the analytical tool of the Appraisal Framework (Martin and White 2005). The paper focuses on the attitude adopted to communicate regulatory compliance, to report breaches and consequent penalties and to promote their commitments and activities going beyond the basic demands. In particular, the investigation aims at unveiling how words are non-neutrally used by the selected companies to construct discourses and views, to create and communicate a trustworthy and ethical image to stakeholders and ultimately to attract investors.