A good company gone bad: An examination of corporate social responsibility agenda-building in times of corporate crisis using machine learning techniques

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate whether or not public relations efforts in corporate social responsibility (CSR) influence the news media in corporate crisis situations.

Design/methodology/approach

The study conducted a content analysis of press releases and news media based on traditional human-coded cross-lag analyses and a machine learning technique, a novel method of big data analysis to test hypotheses.

Findings

Results indicate that CSR press releases indeed influenced the news media. During the crisis point, however, agenda-building was not observed.

Practical implications

Corporations need to continue CSR activities and provide public relations materials consistently even after a crisis, as an agenda-building role could be recovered.

Originality/value

The study examines the relationship between CSR and crisis situations in an agenda-building theoretical framework. The authors introduce agenda-building in the corporate sector with machine learning techniques.

Citation

Park, Y.E., Son, H., Yang, S.-U. and Lee, J.K. (2019), "A good company gone bad: An examination of corporate social responsibility agenda-building in times of corporate crisis using machine learning techniques", Journal of Communication Management, Vol. 23 No. 1, pp. 31-51. https://doi.org/10.1108/JCOM-11-2017-0132