Tiina Onkila

Implications of Managerial Framing of Stakeholders in Environmental Reports

Abstract Corporate environmental reports are increasingly viewed as products of the managerial framing of responsibility and stakeholders. This notion encouraged us to conduct a multiple case study on how stakeholders are framed in environmental reports. We show how interaction between companies and stakeholders is described in the environmental reports of three firms operating in different business sectors – financial, aviation and energy – over a period of five years. We use an inductively oriented content analysis to identify five categories of relationships being constructed in the data: demanding, promoting, committing, donating and preventing. We then show how commitment and promotion dominate. We conclude by discussing the implications of this type of managerial framing to maintaining business-as-usual approaches to corporate environmentalism and show how the critique of environmental reports derives from stakeholder accountability and critical approaches. We argue that managerial framing of stakeholders in environmental reports partly explains the increased criticism among stakeholder representatives and academics.

Employee Rhetoric in the Acceptance or Rejection of Corporate Environmentalism

This study explores how employees in a Finnish financial company use rhetorical strategies to accept or reject corporate environmentalism. It is based on a qualitative study in which face-to-face interviews were conducted among 30 employees. The study shows how employees rejected corporate environmentalism by dissociating their employer from polluters or by dissociating environmental values from other values in the financial business. It also shows how they accepted corporate environmentalism by associating it with other business virtues and by associating the employer with polluters. The study identifies rhetorical strategies as a means for employees to construct an understanding of corporate environmentalism, and of whether or not it is a part of their organization’s responsibilities. The results highlight a need to manage corporate environmentalism processes so that the focus is on finding diverse meanings instead of on promoting a single, organization-wide meaning for corporate environmentalism in a top-down manner.