A Multidimensional Analysis of Leaders’ Messages in Chinese and American Corporate Social Responsibility Reports

IF 1.6 2区 文学 Q2 COMMUNICATION IEEE Transactions on Professional Communication Pub Date : 2024-03-08 DOI:10.1109/TPC.2024.3360649
Huiyu Zhang;Feiyu Chen
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Abstract

Research problem: Leaders’ messages in corporate social responsibility (CSR) reports provide information about corporate citizenship and play an integral role in realizing communicative goals and influencing stakeholders’ perceptions. However, the linguistic features of such messages are largely underexplored. Research questions: 1. Do Chinese and American CSR reports vary in terms of their linguistic features to the degree that necessitates further exploration? 2. What are the key differing features, and what can we learn about business communication and business culture from those differences? 3. What implications do these differences have for business communication at the multinational level? Literature review: Although some linguists have analyzed CSR reports as a genre, few prior studies have paid attention to various grammatical features of CSR reports at the lexical level, and the special context of emerging economies has also been understudied. In particular, the academic attention to leaders’ messages in such reports is scant. Methodology: In our study, a comparative analytical framework focusing on lexico-grammatical features, namely, Biber's multidimensional analysis, has been adopted to compare the language used in leaders’ messages in the CSR reports issued by Chinese and American businesses on the 2022 Fortune Global 500 list. Results: In comparison to the leaders’ messages created by American companies, those created by Chinese companies are significantly more informationally dense, more narrative, less situationally dependent, less explicit, and display significantly fewer features of strict time-constrained informational elaboration. First-person pronouns, the present tense versus the past tense, nominalizations, adverbs, infinitives, modal verbs, and demonstratives are found to be the major language elements that characterize these register discrepancies. Conclusion: This study adds to the body of knowledge on business communication by utilizing multidimensional analysis to offer a systematic understanding of leaders’ messages through a quantitative lens. It also presents practical implications for various readers after discussing some elements that potentially reflect unconscious culture-specific business communication choices.
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中美企业社会责任报告中领导者信息的多维分析
研究问题:企业社会责任(CSR)报告中的领导者信息提供了有关企业公民的信息,在实现沟通目标和影响利益相关者的看法方面发挥着不可或缺的作用。然而,人们对这类信息的语言特点大多缺乏研究。研究问题1.中美企业社会责任报告在语言特点上的差异是否达到了需要进一步探讨的程度?2.2. 哪些是主要的差异特征,我们能从这些差异中了解到哪些有关商业沟通和商业文化的信息?3.这些差异对跨国层面的商务交流有何影响?文献回顾:尽管一些语言学家已经将企业社会责任报告作为一种体裁进行了分析,但之前的研究很少关注企业社会责任报告在词汇层面的各种语法特征,而且对新兴经济体的特殊语境也研究不足。尤其是,学术界对此类报告中领导人信息的关注更是少之又少。研究方法:本研究采用比伯的多维分析方法,以词汇-语法特征为核心的比较分析框架,对 2022 年《财富》全球 500 强榜单中的中国企业和美国企业发布的企业社会责任报告中领导人致辞所使用的语言进行比较。结果显示与美国企业的领导者信息相比,中国企业的领导者信息信息密度明显更高,叙事性更强,情景依赖性更弱,明确性更低,严格时间限制的信息阐述特征明显更少。第一人称代词、现在时与过去时、名词化、副词、不定式、情态动词和状语是造成这些语域差异的主要语言要素。结论本研究利用多维分析,通过定量视角系统地了解了领导者的信息,从而丰富了有关商务交流的知识。在讨论了一些可能反映无意识文化特定商务沟通选择的元素后,本研究还为不同读者提供了实际意义。
本文章由计算机程序翻译,如有差异,请以英文原文为准。
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来源期刊
CiteScore
3.20
自引率
11.80%
发文量
45
期刊介绍: The IEEE Transactions on Professional Communication is a peer-reviewed journal devoted to applied research on professional communication—including but not limited to technical and business communication. Papers should address the research interests and needs of technical communicators, engineers, scientists, information designers, editors, linguists, translators, managers, business professionals, and others from around the globe who practice, conduct research on, and teach others about effective professional communication. The Transactions publishes original, empirical research that addresses one of these contexts: The communication practices of technical professionals, such as engineers and scientists The practices of professional communicators who work in technical or business environments Evidence-based methods for teaching and practicing professional and technical communication.
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