Effectiveness of sustainability communication on stakeholder engagement: A multi-method qualitative assessment of sustainable development

Abstract

The present era is witnessing a growing importance of sustainability communication. There is a need to understand stakeholders' perspectives regarding sustainability communication by different corporates. Additionally, it is also important to understand the positive (happiness and surprise) and negative (anger, fear, and sadness) aspects that affect the effectiveness of sustainability communication. The present research used a multi-method multi-study qualitative approach. In Study 1, the perspectives of 29 mid-level managers and 16 top-level senior managers involved in the sustainability domain in their organizations from India were captured via qualitative semi-structured interviews. In Study 2, sustainability reports of 50 leading companies involved in sustainability activities were analyzed using textual analysis, emotional analysis, and topic modeling. Results indicate that corporate sustainability communications can have varying impacts on the stakeholders. The results of the qualitative analysis showed positive impact of sustainability communications on employee engagement, employee involvement, transformational and inclusive leadership and training and development opportunities. Positive emotions, like happiness or surprise, indicate positive brand image and engagement related to sustainability activities. Negative emotions like fear, anger, and sadness, show stakeholders' concern regarding the environmental damages. Thus, organizations need to target the positive aspects in their sustainability communication for improved results and must avoid the negative aspects while planning to develop effective sustainability communication. Subsequently, the present study contributes to the existing literature by proposing a conceptual framework based on signaling theory and stakeholder theory. This study fills the gap in terms of examining the stakeholders' and end-users' perspectives regarding sustainability communication, the major emotional aspects that are revealed from the sustainability reports and an overall view on individual's pro-environmental behavior.