CSR Reporting Practices: A Cross-Time Comparison of the Food & Beverage and Energy Industries in the U.S. Through Topic Modeling

Abstract

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) is a popular topic among scholars and business professionals alike. While previous literature has investigated the relationship of CSR and corporate performance extensively, longitudinal research on the CSR reporting practices using a comparative approach remains limited. The current study examines CSR disclosures uncovered within annual reports of the companies representing different industries in the United States. The contribution is twofold. First, the study compared the CSR topics disclosed by the food & beverage and energy sectors and upfolded their similar patterns and different emphases. Second, the study examined the dynamics of CSR reporting practices over 8 consequent years in these industries. A mixed method approach was used in this study, combining topic modeling through the Latent Dirichlet allocation (LDA) and complementary content analysis. The empirical analysis was conducted on the CSR disclosures from the annual reports released by six international U.S. organizations (three companies per industry sector) over the period from 2013 to 2020. The results showed that for both industries the social aspect of CSR was significantly reported. Nevertheless, the uncovered topics differed between sectors. Regarding the dynamics of CSR topics, both business sectors revealed variability of CSR aspects covered in the annual reports over the 8 years. Overall, this research sheds light on the relevance of addressing specific topics in CSR reporting as well as how to disseminate information about these topics in the annual reports.