Engaging stakeholders through Facebook. The case of Global Compact LEAD participants

Facebook has deeply modified the way people communicate and interact. From a business perspective, Facebook has enormous potential as a means of communication and stakeholder engagement. It enables companies to share contents rapidly and efficiently with a large number of stakeholders worldwide. People can personalise their Facebook profile to receive updates from selected companies. Moreover, people can reply to such posts or simply manifest their approval by liking or sharing the posts. In this way, people also propagate corporate information among their own friends. The dramatic diffusion of Facebook should encourage companies to virtually interact with a network of stakeholders 2.0, using Facebook as a stakeholder engagement tool. The evolution to Web 2.0 goes with a general change in the social and business environment. In today’s world, both policy makers and the public expect that companies work in a sustainable way and consult their stakeholders about corporate strategies, operations and performance. The discussion should concern social and ecological cares as well as economic issues. In this sense, the engagement of the Facebook community could considerable enlarge and improve the dialogue. This paper offers a theoretical and empirical analysis to answer the following research question: do sustainability-oriented companies use Facebook as an effective means of stakeholder engagement? The paper contains an investigation based on UN Global Compact LEAD members, characterised by strong commitment and cooperation with governments, civil society, labour and the UN in order to promote sustainable practices. To evaluate the contribution of Facebook to the dialogue on sustainability, the investigation considered the types of contents published by the LEAD companies on their Facebook pages in 30 days. According to the subject, seven categories of posts emerged from the analysis: human rights and social citizenship; labour; environment; anti-corruption; strategy, business activity and economic performance; news on products and services; other. To evaluate the use of Facebook for stakeholder engagement 2.0, the investigation verified how many “likes”, comments and “shares” each post received and how often the company replied. The analysis showed that some LEAD members did not have a Facebook profile, which is unacceptable nowadays. Moreover, the companies with an official page rarely covered all three perspectives of sustainability (social, environmental, and economic issues). Furthermore, companies rarely replied to stakeholders’ comments. Based on the empirical evidence, most LEAD participants should modify the way they used Facebook. Therefore, the results of this research may help them improve stakeholder engagement 2.0

Peran Social Networking Sites dalam meningkatkan Stakeholder Engagement: A Literature Review

The role of Social Networking Sites in ongoing communication becomes easier, especially to build stakeholder management and stakeholder engagement, provide information, and monitor information to manage the image and reputation of the company. This literature review aims to explore the role of Social Networking Sites in increasing stakeholder engagement. This research method is a literature review that uses journal reference sources sorted by the role of Social Network Sites in increasing Stakeholder Engagement. The results show that Social Network Sites on the platforms Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and Youtube are tools to increase engagement with internal and external stakeholders to create relationships and improve the company's image and reputation. Social Network Sites play a role in building connections, relational relationships between customers, assessing the matrix for stakeholders, assessing company performance, assessing stakeholder participation, assessing marketing strategies, building relationship relationships, and forming customer loyalty. Online activities carried out by stakeholders are related to the image of the company's reputation, so that digital public relations and corporate communications must adequately manage it

Peran Social Networking Sites dalam meningkatkan Stakeholder Engagement: A Literature Review

The role of Social Networking Sites in ongoing communication becomes easier, especially to build stakeholder management and stakeholder engagement, provide information, and monitor information to manage the image and reputation of the company. This literature review aims to explore the role of Social Networking Sites in increasing stakeholder engagement. This research method is a literature review that uses journal reference sources sorted by the role of Social Network Sites in increasing Stakeholder Engagement. The results show that Social Network Sites on the platforms Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and Youtube are tools to increase engagement with internal and external stakeholders to create relationships and improve the company's image and reputation. Social Network Sites play a role in building connections, relational relationships between customers, assessing the matrix for stakeholders, assessing company performance, assessing stakeholder participation, assessing marketing strategies, building relationship relationships, and forming customer loyalty. Online activities carried out by stakeholders are related to the image of the company's reputation, so that digital public relations and corporate communications must adequately manage it

Consumer engagement through corporate social responsibility communication on social media: Evidence from Facebook and Instagram Bank Accounts

This paper investigates the impact of corporate social responsibility (CSR) communication through social media on consumer engagement, focusing on the top 15 European banks’ social media accounts. Drawing on stakeholder theory and customer engagement perspective, this study analyzes banks’ content posted on Facebook and Instagram from January 2021 to December 2022. The research employs multiple regression analysis to assess the relationship between CSR dimensions and consumer engagement. Results reveal that two CSR dimensions (employee support and diversity) positively arouse more engagement than non-CSR-related content. Oppositely, other CSR dimensions (environment, community support, product) provide negative or non-statistically significant results compared to non-CSR-related content. This empirical study, utilizing official data from Facebook and Instagram, contributes valuable insights into consumer engagement with CSR-related posts in the banking sector, addressing both scholarly and practical needs for understanding consumer social media engagement dynamics

Los Medios Sociales como una herramienta estratégica para la Comunicación Corporativa

Companies around the globe are embracing and adapting social media for many different intentions: customer service, marketing, internal communications, public relations or corporate social responsibility, etc. It is now a reality that social media is channging the way stakeholders and companies communicate daily, providing opportunities for collaboration, participation, interactivity, and engagement. Therefore, social media is conceived today in the corporate world as a strategic communication partner, driving new and unique possibilities for organizations to engage stakeholders in conversations. We are witnesses of a new digital era where consumers are becoming active users rather than passive individuals, changing dramatically how society operates. But these useful technological tools are employed widely and precisely by corporations in order to facilitate and improve communications? This research aims to discover the usage of different social media platforms by Puerto Rican companies. A content analysis was performed to the Facebook and Twitter official profiles of the top 400 locally owned Puerto Rican companies of 2009. The principal objective was to find if social media sites were mainly used as a strategic tool for corporate communication that can enhance stakeholder participation and engagement. Results showed that Puerto Rican companies are not employing social media platforms for improving communications with different stakeholders, failing to take advantage of the enormous possibilities that social media has for communication.Instituto de Investigación en Relaciones Pública

Non-Financial Information versus Financial as a Key to the Stakeholder Engagement: A Higher Education Perspective

In light of the increased demand for greater accountability and legitimacy, new disclosure mechanisms based on non-financial transparency have emerged. Universities cannot be left behind with respect to these social demands. In addition, continuous competition in excellence is driving higher education organizations to exhibit a greater visibility of their results, necessarily incorporating more non-financial aspects to boost stakeholder engagement. The novelty of this work lies in the analysis of the real state of non-financial vs. financial information in both public and private universities and in the exploration of their influence on stakeholder online engagement. To this end, a content analysis of the universities’ web pages and Facebook profiles was conducted, and a multivariable linear regression analysis was performed. The main results show that private and larger universities that lead Webometrics for Google Scholar Citations, and those that have gradually been adopting financial reporting, are the most interested in implementing Facebook as a two-way communication strategy. It seems that stakeholders react more to financial transparency and, therefore, universities still prefer financial disclosure to improve accountability

Towards the Final Frontier: Using Strategic Communication Activities to Engage the Latent Public as a Key Stakeholder in a Corporate Mission

Private corporations that do not normally interact with, nor regularly communicate with, the public often do not perceive the public as a relevant or active stakeholder. The public may not view themselves as a stakeholder, particularly when they are unaware of, have no direct dealings with, or do not have any problems associated with such a corporation. The current study, utilizing a national survey of the United States public (N = 424) found that through directed strategic communication activities of a private spaceflight corporation, utilizing social and new media tools, a latent public can perceive a corporation and its mission in a positive manner, and transition it towards a status of an aware public and possible active public. Positive perceptions were found regarding corporate credibility, brand awareness, public engagement, communicating a corporate mission, educating the public, and influencing public opinion

From Value Protection to Value Creation: Rethinking Corporate Governance Standards for Firm Innovation

A company’s pro-innovation needs are often met by the exploitation of its resources, widely defined. The resource-based theory of the firm provides immense empirical insights into how a firm’s corporate governance factors can contribute to promoting innovation. However, these implications may conflict with the prevailing standards of corporate governance imposed on many securities markets for listed companies, which have developed based on theoretical models supporting a shareholder-centered and agency-based theory of the firm. Although prevailing corporate governance standards can to an extent support firm innovation, tensions are created in some circumstances where companies pit their corporate governance compliance against resource-based needs that promote innovation. In the present context of steady internationalization and convergence in corporate governance standards in global securities markets towards a shareholder-centered agency-based model, we argue that there is a need to provide some room for accommodating the resource-based needs for companies in relation to promoting innovation. We explore a number of options and suggest that the most practicable option would be the development of recognized exceptions that deviate from prevailing corporate governance standards. We further suggest as to how an exceptions-based regime can be implemented in the U.K. and U.S., comparing the rules-based regime in the U.S. with the principles-based regime in the U.K

A Multilevel Analysis of Implicit and Explicit CSR in French and UK Professional Sport

Research question: This paper examines the ways in which French and UK professional sports clubs implement and communicate their CSR policies. In addition to identifying similarities and differences between CSR practices in the two countries, our analysis extends and adapts the implicit-explicit CSR framework to the field of sport. Research methods: We used a mixed methods approach to analyse qualitative and quantitative data on the CSR strategies of 66 professional rugby union (Top 14, Aviva Premiership Rugby) and football (Ligue 1, Premier League) clubs over the 2017-2018 season. Results and findings: We found major differences in CSR communication between France and the UK. Communication by French clubs tends to highlight sport’s values, involve few media channels, whereas communication by UK clubs explicitly vaunts their social responsibility and involves numerous channels. In the case of CSR implementation, there are similarities between French and UK clubs, especially in the fields their CSR initiatives cover (e.g., health, diversity), as well as differences. However, the scope of initiatives varies more between sports than between countries, with football demonstrating a more international outlook than rugby. Implications: This article expands Matten and Moon’s (2008) implicit-explicit CSR framework by identifying the influence of interactions between sectorial/field-level factors and national/macro-level factors on CSR practices, and by distinguishing between CSR communication and CSR implementation. Our results throw light on the shift from implicit to explicit CSR in French professional sport