Constance Kampf, Ph.D.Business Communication Business and Social Sciences,Aarhus University

Mobile CSR Projects linking consumers with corporations: CarrotMob, ColaLife & GoodGuide

CSR Workshop October 27 2011

Food for thought…

CSR Workshop October 27 2011

http://www.microsoft.com/uk/encarta/default.mspx

http://www.wikipedia.org/

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2010/05/21/businessinsider-jimmy-wales-wikipedia-operations-2010-5.DTL

Food for thought…

CSR Workshop October 27 2011

What are the implications of porous boundaries between firms and stakeholders?

CSR Workshop October 27 2011

Shifting relations between the Firm and the Community… Shifting relations between the Firm and the Community…

Can three people change our understanding of Corporate Social Responsiblity via mobile tech?

Brent Schulkin for CarrotMob… using mobile technology to organize local consumer action

Dara O’Rourke for GoodGuide…using mobile technology to enable consumers to access CSR information at the point of purchase

Simon Berry for Colalife…using mobile technology to document aid work in Zambia and leverage Coca-cola’s distribution network.

CSR Workshop October 27 2011

http://www.colalife.org/blog/

Three Cases of consumers/super social media users contributing to business strategy…

CSR Workshop October 27 2011

1. Carrot Mob Reducing eco footprint of local businesses

2. The Good GuideScientific 3rd party Reporting about products on

health, environment & community at point of purchase

3. ColaLifeUsing corporate assets for aid to poor customer

populations in rural Africa

Working to make sense of CSR, and give their sense of CSR to corporations

CSR Workshop October 27 2011

Enactment through connecting (D)iscourse & (d)iscourse

CSR Workshop October 27 2011

Gee differentiates (D)iscourse and (d)iscourse

(D)iscourse represents the set of concepts or ideologies underlying composition choices by the author

(d)iscourse represents the actual linguistic and grammatical features of the text

Their combination brings together rhetorical and linguistic perspectives on communication.

Connecting (D)iscourse & (d)iscourse via terministic screens & entitlement

CSR Workshop October 27 2011

Entitlement...Short hand for situations

(d)

(D)

Terministic Screens...selecting, reflecting and deflecting

(d)

(D)

What processes do we use to create and connect (D) and (d) discourses?

Entitlement...Short hand for situations

(d)

(D)

CSR Workshop October 27 2011

Burke proposes that language be viewed “by thinking of speech as the entitling of complex non-verbal situations.” LASA p.361

the social content in such words, their nature as receptacles of personal attitudes and social ratings due to the fact that language is a social product, and thus builds the tribes’ attitudes into its ‘entitlings’ and into their “abbreviations”

as words for things. LASA p.361

What processes do we use to create and connect (D) and (d) discourses?

Entitlement...Short hand for situations

(d)

(D)

CSR Workshop October 27 2011

Do (d)iscourses act as entitlements or terministic screens? (K.Burke)

Terministic Screens...selecting, reflecting and deflecting

(d)

(D)

CSR Workshop October 27 2011

“a way of seeing is also a way of not seeing.” PC p.49

“Men seek for vocabularies that will be faithful reflections of reality. To this end they must develop vocabularies that are selections of reality. And any selection of reality must, in certain circumstances, function as a deflection of reality.” GM p.59

“many of the ‘observations’ are but implications of the particular terminology in terms of which the observations are made.” LASA p.46

Do (d)iscourses act as entitlements or terministic screens? (K.Burke)

Terministic Screens...selecting, reflecting and deflecting

(d)

(D)

CSR Workshop October 27 2011

Working to make sense of CSR, and give their sense of CSR to corporations

CSR Workshop October 27 2011

Creating the aid-pod

Inventing theCarrotMob event for sustainability

Focusing on product health and safety at the point of purchase

Carrot Mob relying on (D)iscourses for sustainability…reducing the environmental footprint

CSR Workshop October 27 2011

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LUz0kM1u_jk

Collision between Good Guide’s (d) and U.S. Federal Government’s (d)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ab5l2_dHhtQ

CSR Workshop October 27 2011

Colalife creating/entitling a (D) in which corporations use their assets for sustainingthe health of their poorest customers

CSR Workshop October 27 2011

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LUz0kM1u_jk

Language Processes of Making Sense throughentitling and using terministic screens

CSR Workshop October 27 2011

aid-podCarrotMob

health and safety

(d)

(D)

(D)

(d)

Conclusions:Enacting through language

CSR Workshop October 27 2011

(d)

(D)

(D)

(d)

Social Media SuperUsersoffer resources, knowledgeand vision for CSR in corporatesettings.

How can firms leverage porous boundaries afforded by new media?

Is CSR strategy itself crowd-sourceable?

How can a deeper awareness of how weenact sensemaking through language helpbridge the cognitive dissonance ?