Is environmental protection a central issue to the business strategy of high profile companies? Content analysis of website corporate communication

Abstract

The paper focuses on exploring the way high profile companies with direct environmental impact use the website corporate communication to report on their environmental policies and practices. Employing a semantic analysis based on computer-aided techniques (VOSviewer), the paper aims to identify the themes revealed by the terms’ frequency and co-occurrence from sustainability reports that indicate how central environmental protection is integrated to business strategy. The findings pinpoint to substantial differences of approach regarding the extent and content of environmental disclosure. State-owned enterprises and privatized firms display poor environmental reporting due to their long past of non-accountability and the weak motivation to engage in legitimacy building. On the contrary, MNEs are aware of the role of corporate communication in enhancing organizational legitimacy, thus their reporting encompasses a wider range of issues related to environmental protection. Corporate disclosure is wellstructured in three major themes regarding environmental policy, environmental management system and social impact. Although MNEs acknowledge their environmental footprint and show a strong commitment to reduce the negative externalities, the themes relevant to the environmental management system display less connectivity and semantic coherence.