Social Media Sustainability Communication: An Analysis of Firm Behaviour and Stakeholder Responses

Abstract

Social media communication, and its impact on individuals and firms, is becoming increasingly important in today’s age. Firms are utilizing social media channels for communicating their sustainability-related initiatives. The role of social media as a mode for sustainability-related communication by firms has not been widely analyzed in the extant information systems literature. Given the increasingly important role of social media for information diffusion as well as increasing awareness for sustainability practices, this is a critical area of research. In this paper, we use an analytic model to theorize, coupled with empirical analysis to test the impact of firms’ sustainability practices. We have validated our proposed hypotheses using an empirical model based on panel data of firms’ sustainability performance and their Twitter communication over a 3-year period. Through our unique mixed-method study, we add additional methodological rigour to extant social media-based research in the information systems domain. Our research has significant theoretical and managerial significance as we identify how firms utilize social media for sustainability-related communication and its corresponding impact on customer response. Our research provides actionable insights for policymakers, firms as well as investors and consumers on understanding and managing sustainability-related communications on social media.

Indikátory udržitelnosti kiteboardingu jako nástroj vzdělávání kiteboarderů

“…Do jisté míry to platí samozřejmě dosud, nicméně potenciálu internetu a sociálních sítí v šíření informací, včetně informací souvisejících s tématy udržitelnosti, využívá stále více institucí státní správy a veřejné samosprávy, nevládních organizací, i firem (viz např. Leighninger, 2011;Bendor et al, 2012;Nulman & Özkula, 2016;Jha & Verma, 2023).…”

Social Media Platforms and User Engagement: A Multi-Platform Study on One-way Firm Sustainability Communication

“…These included words like green supply chain, sustainable, water preservation etc. For further discussion on the list of keywords used to identify sustainability-related communication on social media, please see Jha and Verma (2022) and Manetti and Bellucci (2016). We used text identification to identify the posts where the content included one of these keywords.…”

Los ODS en distribución comercial

“…A partir de esta realidad, las redes sociales se han posicionado como un canal para comunicar los ODS (Lander y Stever, 2018), así como los conceptos que están relacionados con ellos, como la sostenibilidad (Reilly y Layra, 2018;Jha y Verma, 2022). Como consecuencia, son muchas las compañías que apuestan por comunicar su compromiso con los ODS a través de diferentes redes sociales, aunque el interés de los consumidores sea mayor por unos ODS que por otros (De Luca et al, 2022).…”