How Dutch SMEs communicate about CSR. The case of the UN Global Compact in the Netherlands
| dc.contributor.advisor | Luyckx, J. | |
| dc.contributor.author | Spee, Eline | |
| dc.date.issued | 2018-07-02 | |
| dc.description.abstract | Corporate sustainability initiatives, as the UN Global Compact, are often seen as legitimizing communicational tools. Critics argue that CSR communication has become a key marketing and branding exercise for most organizations and that CSR is used to distract the attention from the usual business of an organization, like increasing profits or reducing costs. However, the effective use of CSR communication can raise stakeholder awareness of the CSR activities of an organisation and enhances its CSR credibility. As a result, organisations can reap legitimacy benefits from its CSR actions. There is, however, a lack of empirical research on how members of the UN Global Compact communicate about their CSR and how this CSR communication is used to create legitimacy towards the outside world. This thesis explores how Dutch SMEs, who are member of the UN Global Compact, use their CSR communication to create organizational legitimacy. This is done by an in-depth case study of four Dutch SMEs based on interviews, documents and media. The findings indicate that these Dutch SMEs use their CSR communication in a one-way direction, for instrumental purposes and mainly to create internal legitimacy. The findings show that the Dutch SMEs do not use their CSR communication as a strategic marketing tool to create external organizational legitimacy. Furthermore, the SMEs do not use their membership of the UN Global Compact to ‘green wash’ their CSR activities. This research contradicts the critical view that CSR is used as a legitimizing communicational tool and advances the understanding of CSR communication and organizational legitimacy in Dutch SMEs. | en_US |
| dc.identifier.uri | http://theses.ubn.ru.nl/handle/123456789/5878 | |
| dc.language.iso | en | en_US |
| dc.thesis.faculty | Faculteit der Managementwetenschappen | en_US |
| dc.thesis.specialisation | Strategic Management | en_US |
| dc.thesis.studyprogramme | Master Business Administration | en_US |
| dc.thesis.type | Master | en_US |
| dc.title | How Dutch SMEs communicate about CSR. The case of the UN Global Compact in the Netherlands | en_US |
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