Firms’ challenges and social responsibilities during Covid-19: A Twitter analysis

Abstract

This paper offers insights on the major issues and challenges firms face in the Covid-19 pandemic and their concerns for Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) themes. To do so, we investigate large Italian firms’ discussions on Twitter in the first nine months of the pandemic. Specifically, we ask: How is firms’ Twitter discussion developing during the Covid-19 pandemic? Which CSR dimensions and topics do firms discuss? To what extent do they resonate with the public? We downloaded Twitter posts by the accounts of large Italian firms, and we built the bipartite network of accounts and hashtags. Using an entropy-based null model as a benchmark, we projected the information contained in the network into the accounts layers, identifying a network of accounts. We find that the network is composed of 13 communities and accounts at the core of the network focus on environmental sustainability, digital innovation, and safety. Firms’ ownership type does not seem to influence the conversation. While the relevance of CSR hashtags and stakeholder engagement is relatively small, peculiarities arise in some communities. Overall, our paper highlights the contribution of online social networks and complex networks methods for management and strategy research, showing the role of online social media in understanding firms’ issues, challenges, and responsibilities, with common narratives naturally emerging from data.

COVID-19 Pandemic Implications for Corporate Sustainability and Society: A Literature Review

“…Many scholars and executive managers accentuate digital transformation as one of the first protective measures for ensuring sustainability during all major disasters that include cutting down communication, supply, and delivery and restricting physical functioning [21,[114][115][116][117][118]. Possessing sufficient technological solutions, infrastructure, and know-how is a key remedy against adversity, as it allows re-establishing normal operation and communication with all relevant stakeholders, sustains business activity during physical restrictions and lockdowns, facilitates effective and rapid response to emerging challenges, and even provides the opportunity for redesigning of antiquated processes and business models to expand company portfolio and extend product offering.…”

“…Individual level Employee 37 [9,10,14,17,18,20,[22][23][24] Organizational and systematic level Leadership 18 [19,28,[75][76][77][78][79][80][81][82][83][84][85][86][87][88][89][90] Management and operations 33 [7,8,11,12,15,16,[33][34][35]42, Digital transformation 19 [21,[114][115][116][117][118][119][120][121][122][123][124][125][126]…”

Travel-Business Stagnation and SME Business Turbulence in the Tourism Sector in the Era of the COVID-19 Pandemic

“…These three factors are very important to be developed into a unified system for managing travel business and SMEs. Furthermore, product marketing through social media and other electronic media becomes a platform for companies to share advertising, marketing, and publicrelation strategies for the sustainability of business ventures in the tourism sector [123,124]. Furthermore, the direct and indirect effects of business innovation, economic digitization, and the use of technology on business stability and the sustainability of the tourism sector's economic business in the North Toraja Regency are presented in Figure 10 below.…”

Desempeño de responsabilidad social empresarial divulgado en medios virtuales por el impacto del COVID-19

“…Los estudios de divulgación de información de sostenibilidad en páginas web y redes sociales en Latinoamérica son recientes, investigaciones señalan la importancia de las comunicaciones en mayor medida sobre actividades de responsabilizad social con las comunidades y colaboradores en comparación con las prácticas de gestión ambiental como lo señalan Correa-Garcia et al ( 2018 La coyuntura de la pandemia también ha permitido que las organizaciones usen las páginas web y redes sociales para la comunicación con grupos de interés, principalmente, en la difusión de información útil a los distintos grupos de interés en relación con la prevención del COVID-19, principalmente con las comunidades (Chan et al, 2020;La et al, 2020Patuelli et al, 2021. Asimismo, ha sido una herramienta muy utilizada por los consumidores y ciudadanos en sus decisiones con respecto de los productos y servicios ofrecidos y de prevenciones en la coyuntura (Donthu y Gustafsson, 2020; He y Harris, 2020).…”