Textual Voices in Corporate Reporting: A Cross-Cultural Analysis of Chinese, Italian, and American CSR Reports

2018 ◽  
Vol 56 (2) ◽  
pp. 173-197 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marina Bondi ◽  
Danni Yu

This article investigates direct quotations in a corpus of corporate social responsibility (CSR) reports in Italian, Chinese, and English. The corpus is composed of 60 CSR reports published by Italian, Chinese, and American companies in the banking and energy sector. The study aims at exploring what types of textual voices are involved in the discourse of CSR reporting and how different sources of voices are represented, using the framework of social actor representation proposed by Van Leeuwen. The results show that the voices presented in direct quotations are often “orchestrated” by companies into “symphony” rather than “polyphony.” Most of the sources of direct quotations are represented as individuals with specified names. The comparative analysis shows that companies from different cultural backgrounds present different preferences in selecting and representing the various sources. The Italian and American CSR reports present more voices from managers, while the Chinese CSR reports show a clearer preference for voices from employees and clients.

2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (12) ◽  
pp. 1595
Author(s):  
Sha Zhu

Humor plays an important role in daily life and also quite useful in interpersonal communication. Nowadays, the cross-cultural communication between the English-speaking countries and China becomes more and more frequent while some humor is difficult to appreciate with diverse cultural backgrounds. Therefore, this paper aims at analyzing the Chinese and English humor from their similarities, like the use of ambiguity and figure of speech, as well as differences, especially in functions, topics and ways of expression. Related causes are further discussed the differences. Hopefully, the findings will help to reduce the obstacles in understanding humor in different culture and promote transcultural communication in a delightful manner.


2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (4) ◽  
pp. 1054 ◽  
Author(s):  
Garstecki Dawid ◽  
Kowalczyk Magdalena ◽  
Kwiecińska Karolina

In recent years, many studies have been carried out on corporate social responsibility (CSR) reporting by enterprises. However, none of the previous surveys have covered CSR reporting in countries in Western Europe (Spain) and Central Europe (Poland). In our research, we looked for answers to two research questions. The first was aimed at answering whether the industry represented by a given company influenced the number of disclosures in CSR reporting. The second question was to answer whether there were differences between Poland and Spain in the amount of disclosure in CSR reporting. We carried out a statistical analysis of the collected research material, under which we performed non-parametric tests as all of the variables for the distribution were not normal (Shapiro–Wilk test). We performed both the U Mann–Whitney and Kruskal–Wallis tests, which allowed us to answer our questions. The obtained results indicated that enterprises from the fuel and energy sectors as well as the financial industry provided more CSR disclosure than the other industries. There was a significant difference in the number of CSR disclosures between Poland and Spain, where more disclosures in CSR reporting were recorded in Spain.


2015 ◽  
Vol 31 (9) ◽  
pp. 12-14

Purpose – This paper aims to review the latest management developments across the globe and pinpoint practical implications from cutting-edge research and case studies. Design/methodology/approach – This briefing is prepared by an independent writer who adds their own impartial comments and places the articles in context. Findings – In the early days of corporate social responsibility (CSR) as a newly defined issue in the 1980s, one of the main barriers to achieving a satisfactory level of accountability and reporting was the inability to fully understand the inner workings of major corporations. This was gradually overcome by developments in corporate reporting and regulation that many governments put in place, but for some firms, CSR reporting was something of a hindrance and something that might be manipulated if need be. Or in some countries, simply ignored. Practical implications – The paper provides strategic insights and practical thinking that have influenced some of the world’s leading organizations. Originality/value – The briefing saves busy executives and researchers hours of reading time by selecting only the very best, most pertinent information and presenting it in a condensed and easy-to-digest format.


2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (10) ◽  
pp. 1332
Author(s):  
Rongmei Yu

To know a society usually starts from the contact with its people through their names. Names are told to each other at the first encounter. People all form distinct impressions when they first hear a name. A name is not only a mark or a symbol that distinguishes people from each other but also full of cultural message of a nation. Such as, language, history, geography, religion, customs, value and class status, etc… With the globalization all over the world, people can use lots of ways contact with foreigners. As we know in term of the eastern and western cultures, the Chinese and English are the typical representatives. It was originated from two different traditions, and manifest two distinct cultural backgrounds. So there are great differences on philological view, religious belief and historical development. Hence, the perception of name also has something different. In some way, these differences influence severely of intercultural communications. In a word, it is necessary for people to know and learn how to improve it. Therefore, there is no doubt that people should pay more attention to the study of differences in names of Chinese and English in Cross-cultural Communication. The most key point is that people should try their best to avoid misunderstanding and conflict that caused by different names perspective while communicating. So, our intercultural communication activities can make a great progress.


Author(s):  
Hina Yaqub Bhatti ◽  
M. Mercedes Galan-Ladero ◽  
Clementina Galera-Casquet

AbstractCause-Related Marketing (CRM) is one of the most versatile activities among the Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) initiatives. Though CRM is extensively researched, however, only a few authors have performed systematic literature reviews on CRM. Therefore, more systematic reviews of CRM are still needed to complete and bring together the more contributions, advances, and different existing research lines. Thus, this paper provides a comprehensive overview of the existing literature in CRM from the two keywords: “Cause-Related Marketing” and “Cause Marketing”, and the time period ranges from 1988 to 2020. In this study, rigorous protocol is used in synthesizing 344 English articles drawing upon e-journal database searches. These articles were categorized by time-wise development, country-wise development, methodological development, cross-cultural analysis, the role of journals. This study also carried out the Bibliometric Analyses. The review highlights that the concept of CRM has evolved from being considered a marketing mix tool (a promotion tool), to being considered as a CSR initiative, with a more strategic character. Our findings revealed that only a few journals published articles on CRM. Geographically, the CRM study was initiated in North America, followed by Europe and Oceania, and Asian and Sub-Saharan African countries. From the third decade, there was more collaboration in cross-cultural studies and the use of mixed-method (qualitative and quantitative studies) approach. Lastly, this study shows the most manifest research gaps in CRM that opens avenue for future research.


2020 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Yumeng Peng ◽  
Xiang Zhou

PurposeThe purpose of the paper is to investigate how cross-cultural elements such as cultural difference and stereotype are integrated into collaborative modes and actions and to explore their corresponding effectiveness.Design/methodology/approachThe sample of the quantitative content analysis is drawn from the posts with the topic of China on Quora. A collaborative case, where two users have a question-and-answer interaction, is taken as the unit of analysis. The effectiveness of collaboration is operationalized as the extent to which a collaboratively produced answer is visited and favorably reviewed, using the feedback index (the number of upvotes*1,000/views). One of the sampled collaborative cases is further analyzed qualitatively to see how cultural differences, stereotypes and other factors are incorporated into users' interaction.FindingsThis content analysis reveals nine modes of collaborative production of knowledge on Quora: initial questioning, pointed answering, raising doubts, responding to others, agreeing with others, correcting mistakes, enriching content, further questioning and extending issues. Diversity of the cross-cultural acts of collaborative production, particularly two of often-used collaborative actions, correcting stereotypes and supplementing cultural differences, helps to enhance overall collaborative effectiveness.Practical implicationsThis paper offers new perspectives and ideas for strategies to change socially problematic stereotypes, e.g. to correct stereotypes where necessary and use more convincing resources such as reliable images as collaborative actions to bridge cultural differences. It also calls on social Q&A website developers to create more international users-friendly design by providing various channels for users with diverse cultural backgrounds to interact with each other.Originality/valueThis study is one of the first to investigate online collaborative knowledge production within a broader cross-cultural context. Specifically, cultural factors and cross-cultural collaborative actions have been innovatively integrated into this research, enriching the dimensions that can be used for collaboration classification. It is helpful for users from different countries to actively adopting different strategies to overcome cultural differences, preconceptions and other negative factors that are not conducive to communication and knowledge acquisition.


2016 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 29 ◽  
Author(s):  
Renata Povolná

Writing an abstract in English, including an abstract for a conference presentation, has become an essential skill for all scholars who intend to present their research to an international academic audience. Now that English has become the dominant language of all academic and research communication, scholars from diff erent language and cultural backgrounds have to master the writing of this research-progress genre (Swales 1990) since otherwise they may risk being refused participation at conferences and publication of their research fi ndings in conference proceedings. The paper analyses the rhetorical structure of 80 conference abstracts with the aim of ascertaining whether there is any cross-cultural variation between abstracts written by Anglophone writers and non-native speakers of English. The latter are represented by researchers from the Czech Republic and some other countries where Slavonic languages are spoken, namely Slovakia, Poland and Ukraine. In addition, the rhetorical organization of the conference abstracts analysed is compared to that usually associated with research article (RA) abstracts. The fi ndings of this corpus-based genre analysis reveal cross-cultural diff erences in the rhetorical organization of conference abstracts (CAs) and provide evidence that CAs and RA abstracts diff er with regard to both number and types of moves. The study also provides recommendations for future conference calls and novice writers who intend to publish in English as an additional language.


2021 ◽  
Vol 100 ◽  
pp. 02008
Author(s):  
Feruza Mamatova

The research paper deals with the problems of modern linguistics such as linguistic picture of the world which is realized principally by researching culturally marked linguistic phenomenon. A parent-child relationship is mostly studied by sociology, however, the fact that variety of speech in a parent-child relationship which is reflected in a linguistic image of the world makes it an object for linguistics. In addition to this, the study of the reflection of family relationship in the language enables to carry out a cross-cultural analysis by tools of linguoculturology. As data of the research English and Uzbek proverbs were selected from different sources. Analysis of phraseological units of English and Uzbek proverbs related to a parent-child relationship enabled to reveal similarities, differences, unique and specific features of this type of tradition. The periphery of this phenomenon comprises such notions as “parents are irreplaceable people”, “parents’ love” and “child’s behaviour at different ages”, “child associations” and others. Proverbs create a clear imagination of a parent- child relationship that has enough connotations expressed in the language. The analysis of the research may be implemented in cross-cultural studies, translation lessons and can be useful for a further research in this area.


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