Sustainability reporting after the Costa Concordia disaster: a multi-theory study on legitimacy, impression management and image restoration

Abstract

<jats:sec><jats:title content-type="abstract-subheading">Purpose</jats:title><jats:p>Can sustainability disclosures be a tool for executing image restoration strategies after corporate manslaughter? This is the question explored in this study of Costa Crociere's sustainability reports after the Concordia disaster.</jats:p></jats:sec><jats:sec><jats:title content-type="abstract-subheading">Design/methodology/approach</jats:title><jats:p>Merging traditional textual content analysis with visual analysis and supported by machine learning tools, this is a predominantly qualitative study framed by legitimacy theory, image restoration theory and impression management.</jats:p></jats:sec><jats:sec><jats:title content-type="abstract-subheading">Findings</jats:title><jats:p>Costa Crociere's voluntary sustainability reporting is strongly influenced by a mix of text and visual signals that distract readers' attention from the disaster. A “nothing really happened” communication strategy pervades the disclosures, with the only rational motivation being to change perceptions and erase memories of this tragic and avoidable event.</jats:p></jats:sec><jats:sec><jats:title content-type="abstract-subheading">Research limitations/implications</jats:title><jats:p>Although the analysis covered multiple sources of corporate information, media coverage was not one of them. A more in-depth exploration of sustainability reporting in the cruise industry, including evidence of similar cases, to test impression management theory would be a worthwhile avenue for future research.</jats:p></jats:sec><jats:sec><jats:title content-type="abstract-subheading">Social implications</jats:title><jats:p>While Costa Crociere technically followed the customary guidelines of disclosing human resource impacts, there was almost no acknowledgement of the people involved in the accident. Costa Concierevastly understated their responsibility for the accident, did not apologize, and conveyed very little remorse. The majority of disclosures centred on disaster recovery management.</jats:p></jats:sec><jats:sec><jats:title content-type="abstract-subheading">Originality/value</jats:title><jats:p>The authors discuss why and how a company can overcome a legitimacy threat by completely freezing its voluntary sustainability reporting, and the authors show how a company can restore its image by minimizing specific aspects of an accident and shifting attention from the human victims to corporate operations. Incorporating image recognition driven by AI models and combining the results with narrative disclosures contributes an innovative and original analysis technique to the field of impression management. In addition, this research also contributes to our knowledge on the cruise industry – a sector currently under scrutiny for its ethical, social and environmental practices.</jats:p></jats:sec>

Analysis of corporate social disclosures of the apparel industry following crisis: an institutional approach

“…It is evident from prior literature that, when organisations are faced with a crisis, managers will use social and environmental reporting as a strategy to manage relationships with society – to manage legitimacy (Dumay et al ., 2018; Deegan, 2019), to manage stakeholders (Duran and Rodrigo, 2018; Dias et al ., 2019) and to manage reputation risk (Michelon et al ., 2015; Corazza et al ., 2020). Country context has a significant effect on the applicability of theories commonly used to explain social and environmental reporting.…”

“…Further, our study advances the literature on corporate crisis communication strategy (Benoit, 1997). Recent studies use crisis communication strategies to explain organisational disclosure strategy in response to crisis (O’Connell et al ., 2016; Arora and Lodhia, 2017; Corazza et al ., 2020). However, these studies do not investigate how the institutional environment may impact corporate crisis communication strategies.…”

Repairing legitimacy through discourses: insights from the Volkswagen’s 2015 diesel scandal

“…Ogden and Clarke (2005) show that organisations announce chief executives turnover and achievements in investment and quality standards to distance themselves from undesirable events. In analysing sustainability reports after the Costa Concordia disaster, Corazza et al (2020) underline that the company took the opportunity of dismantling the wreck in a sustainable way to restore the "social contract with its stakeholders". Ogden and Clarke (2005) and Corazza et al (2020) adopt content analysis to investigate the discursive nature of legitimacy.…”

“…It empirically demonstrates the potentials of CDA to bring out from texts which discourses are conveyed and how they are featured for legitimacy purposes, thus bringing research implications. Finally, the study contributes to the growing literature focused on how organisations struggle to repair legitimacy in the very peculiar situation of a scandal involving sustainability (Ogden and Clarke, 2005;Corazza et al, 2020).…”

Hypocrisy and legitimacy in the aftermath of a scandal: an experimental study of stakeholder perceptions of nonfinancial disclosure

“…SES reporting plays a crucial role in legitimacy communication and preservation after a company has caused an accident, scandal or disaster. Generally, when a company faces corporate scandals and disasters, it responds to the threat of reputational damage by increasing corporate communications (Unerman, 2008;Corazza et al, 2020).…”