CSR Reporting Across Borders: Evidence of ‘Global Crossvergence’ in the Technology Industry

Grounded in stakeholder and legitimacy theories, this study investigates how technology firms worldwide communicate their corporate social responsibility (CSR) in annual sustainability reports. CSR reporting, also known as sustainability reporting, has become a well-established business practice globally over the last three decades, involving voluntary disclosure of companies’ social and environmental impacts. These reports are a valuable tool for organisations to address stakeholder concerns, gain public trust and demonstrate responsible environmental and social behaviour. Despite the fact that most CSR reports are largely voluntary and unregulated, they have become expected by diverse organisational stakeholders. As such, the purpose of this research is to investigate how global technology firms, each originating from a country with distinct institutional backgrounds, construct their CSR narratives in order to achieve organisational legitimacy. The selected companies originate from the US, Germany and Japan. Even though there is a breadth of cross-cultural research on CSR reporting, the findings remain contradictory and inconclusive. As such, this study seeks to contribute to the existing debate by employing a qualitative thematic analysis of 15 sustainability reports. Specifically, the study was interested in uncovering potential similarities or variations in the way technology firms make sense of and communicate about CSR. The analysis yielded five main themes that display elements of global standardisation and local distinctiveness. The five identified themes are as follows: (1) Converging Perspectives on CSR in the Technology Industry; (2) Diverging CSR Motivations: From Benevolence to Strategic Value; (3) Establishing Environmental Legitimacy: Measures vs Leadership; (4) Making Sense of Employee CSR: Balancing Care, Ethics and Growth; (5) Being a Good Neighbour: A Matter of Perspective. The first theme illustrates a converging pattern in how the meaning of sustainability is framed among technology firms from different countries. The second theme reveals diverging CSR motivations. The third theme focuses on environmental communication and the different ways organisations seek to establish environmental legitimacy. The fourth theme examines employee-related CSR narratives while the final fifth theme looks into how technology firms make sense of their responsibility towards local communities. Overall, the findings demonstrate that technology firms employ a variety of legitimation strategies to construct organisational legitimacy. The study also discovers evidence of varying stakeholder priorities. Hence, the study adds to a small evidence basis that supports the idea of global CSR crossvergence, reflecting the tension between converging forces of globalisation and diverging forces of local institutional factors.