Summary 7 1. Motivation and Contribution

The contribution to literature is to provide a case study of ZETA and their journey of

CSR in the wake of a crisis

Previous research has been done on legitimation CSR and Strategic CSR but never

applied it to a company

I think the author’s motivation was to outline how a company applied CSR into

financial reporting, and how CSR is not reported to fix non-financial issues

(legitimation CSR) but to show how ZETA applied CSR to the overall company

model and long-term strategy.

2. Latest Work done and findings

Following the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) framework and Integrated Reporting

(IR) framework research was done by Carroll & Shabana (2010) reviewing the

concepts and practice of CSR

The legitimation phase of CSR is made up of Discovery, Explanation, Penance and

Rehabilitation

Findings from the case study showed 3 stages of CSR that ZETA engaged in;

i. A legitimation process transforming corporate culture and fixing issues that

caused the huge losses.

ii. A process of regaining society’s trust, improving communication with

shareholders and bringing organisation performance back to normal

iii. A process of adapting environmental and social goals into the business model

and strategy of the organisation.

Findings also found that ZETA moved to integrate CSR Reporting into its’ financial

reporting

3. Implications of findings on current research

The paper states many companies are already presently integrating environmental and

social goals into their strategy and it can be seen with McDonalds having the Ronald

McDonald house initiative and Michael Hill Jewellers sponsoring the Michael Hill

Violin competition and so on.

In my opinion, more firms must develop environmental and social incentives,

regardless of whether the company had a threat to its’ legitimacy, as ZETA did

because the public, and users’ focus have moved towards how the company is viewed

in the wider environment and more consideration from shareholders on how the

company treats society and the environment they operate in.

Overall, companies are walking a fine line between staying competitive and focus on

increased profits in an increasingly competitive and globalised environment while

making sure they stay within social and environmental boundaries,

As in Cormier & Magnan (2015) that a firm’s management faces a tension between

responding to the information needs of financial markets and maintaining its

legitimacy within the community

And companies should strive for triple bottom line reporting of financial, social and

environmental performance and initiatives in a single annual report and develop

strategies combining all three aspects.

4. Interesting/Controversial findings

Interestingly, companies are already getting positively involved in the environment

and society with its’ social and environmental incentives but have a separate report to

address these and not a full report giving an overall view of the company

This may be because, businesses still view CSR as optional reporting unlike financial

reporting which is viewed as compulsory.

Questions

1. I was a bit confused on whether environmental disclosure is in majority legitimacy driven or strategically driven?

2. As public perception defines CSR on an industry and firm-specific level, do businesses cater what environmental disclosure to include from a public perspective or what the business perceives the public wants?