The Ethnographic Method in CSR Research: The Role and Importance of Methodological Fit

Abstract

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) research has burgeoned in the past several decades. Despite significant advances, our review of the literature reveals a problematic gap: We know little about how culture, practices, and interactions shape CSR. On further investigation, we discover that limited research utilizes ethnography to understand CSR, which may provide some explanation for this gap. Thus, the purpose of this article is to illustrate the utility of ethnography for advancing business and society research via a multistage framework that demonstrates how three different types of ethnography may be applied to the exploration of CSR. We specifically focus on the alignment between stages in the research process, or methodological fit, as a key criterion of high-quality research. In doing so, we provide researchers embracing different worldviews a tool they may utilize to conduct and evaluate ethnographies in business and society research.

The impact of changes in stakeholder salience on corporate social responsibility activities in Russian energy firms: A contribution to the divergence/convergence debate

“…In common with the conventions of many qualitative studies (e.g., Bass & Milosevic, ; Kobayashi, Eweje, & Tappin, ), in this section, we both present and discuss our findings. These concern the impact of changes in stakeholder saliency on Russian energy firms' CSR activities and, specifically, how these changes to CSR in the Russian energy sector have emerged as a function of the arrival of new, salient stakeholders (Mitchell et al, ) with different claims to legitimacy and power.…”

“…However, we have minimised the risk of data loss through the absence of personal interactions by comparing the data from telephone, Skype and face‐to‐face interviews. We judged that for our purposes, which was not intended to be a deeply ethnographic study of observed behaviour (Bass & Milosevic, ), the phone‐based interviews provided as rich data as the face‐to‐face conversations.…”

Avenues for Future Research

“…Corporate sustainability research is highly interdisciplinary and heterogeneous with regard to both theoretical and methodological approaches. As documented by Bass and Milosevic (2016), qualitative research designs have increased significantly in business and society research, and such research designs are arguably well suited to address numerous issues in sustainability research that are as yet ill-defined and "messy" phenomena from a definitional standpoint (see also Eisenhardt et al 2016). Predominantly, however, there have been considerable amounts of studies using quantitative approaches, including studies of the business case, studies that investigate consumer behavior related to sustainability efforts, studies informed by moral and social psychology that investigate decision-making in sustainability efforts and so on (see, e.g., Lockett et al 2006 for an overview).…”

Tujuan Tersembunyi Dalam Penggunaan Social Reporting

“…Literatur dalam bidang akuntansi sosial lingkungan telah banyak menggunakan discourse theory sebagai metode penelitian terutama menganalisis teks dan konteks dalam pelaporan pertanggungjawaban (Barros, Sauerbronn, & Da Costa, 2014;Rupley, Brown, & Marshall, 2017;Tregidga, 2017;Schmeltz, 2017). Bass & Milosevic (2018) dan Jammulamadaka (2016) menganjurkan penelitian di bidang akuntansi sosial lingkungan untuk menggunakan metode salah satunya adalah pendekatan socio-historical dari pembuatan pesan sosial lingkungan. Pendekatan ini dapat digunakan untuk fokus pada mengapa laporan dibuat, apa yang menjadi maksud atau niatan laporan tersebut, dan menganalisis faktor dan motif manajer atau pembuat laporan dalam pembuatan laporan.…”