Implications of Managerial Framing of Stakeholders in Environmental Reports

Abstract

Corporate environmental reports are increasingly viewed as products of the managerial framing of responsibility and stakeholders. This notion encouraged us to conduct a multiple case study on how stakeholders are framed in environmental reports. We show how interaction between companies and stakeholders is described in the environmental reports of three firms operating in different business sectors – financial, aviation and energy – over a period of five years. We use an inductively oriented content analysis to identify five categories of relationships being constructed in the data: demanding, promoting, committing, donating and preventing. We then show how commitment and promotion dominate. We conclude by discussing the implications of this type of managerial framing to maintaining business-as-usual approaches to corporate environmentalism and show how the critique of environmental reports derives from stakeholder accountability and critical approaches. We argue that managerial framing of stakeholders in environmental reports partly explains the increased criticism among stakeholder representatives and academics.