Management Science and Information Systems' Seminar

Topic: Where is their trustworthiness from?: Examining a process model of the public sensemaking on CSR

Speaker: Kim Insun, Chen Xin & Yang Dongning

Time: Wednesday, 26 Nov. 16:10 pm

Location: Room K01 Guanghua Building 2

Abstract：Trustworthiness is a moral value. Companies can "prove" their trustworthiness by fulfilling assigned responsibilities to specific stakeholders. Nevertheless, to prove non-material performance is not a one-way traffic. That’s why unilateral efforts of companies’ voluntary reporting are usually pointless.

Drawing from the process model of sensemaking on CSR, we argue that different types of perceived identity orientations (IO) that frame the social performance standards increase the perceived relevance of particular aspects of legitimacy judgment (LG) by external evaluators. By recognizing three “pure” patterns of interrelationships between cognitive and conative dimensions that identify perceived orientation that guides CSR-related activities, this new third-party perspective leads to a better understanding of how companies earn the public peers’ trust.

In scenario and survey studies, we found that the public peers who perceive a company as individualistic engage in pragmatic legitimacy judgment, who perceive relational engage in cognitive legitimacy judgment, and who perceive collective engage in moral legitimacy judgment. We also found that asserting clear identity orientation and to be “honest” about their conative characteristics in confronting new challenges, such as defensive, tentative or open posture, produces a positive three-way interaction affecting public trustworthiness.

Author: Kim Insun, Chen Xin & Yang Dongning

Your participation is warmly welcomed!