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Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is commonly described as the contribution of companies to sustainable development. As CSR is an essentially contested concept, individuals (i.e., consumers, employees, or leaders) can have a different understanding of its meaning and its applications by companies. These different understandings further influence their reactions to corporate actions. In this context, the goal of this theory paper is to identify the different perceptions individuals have about the meaning of CSR and analyse how these perceptions are framed. For this purpose, we focus on micro-CSR literature to investigate the interpretative processes by which stakeholders form and organise their perceptions of CSR, understand its meaning and make sense of the concept. We propose a classification of five types of framing of CSR perceptions with different degrees of complexity and ways to deal with tensions. This classification is illustrated by an inductive thematic analysis of CSR perceptions shared by a heterogeneous sample of individuals in the first discussion forum of MOOCs on the topic of CSR. The working paper relies on this classification to conceptually present how individuals frame their perceptions of the meaning of CSR and connect the associations made with the concept. The contributions concern the advancement of micro-CSR research with respect to the way individuals frame their CSR perceptions. In particular, we aim to refine the two cognitive frames of managers proposed by Hahn et al. (2014) into a classification of five types of framing of CSR perceptions, and discuss how the conceptual framing strategies identified by Gond et al. (2017) can appear together in the minds of individuals when they think about CSR. More broadly, this will hopefully contribute to the potential change of consumers, employees and leaders’ mentalities necessary to trigger the most beneficial actions and decisions for the transition to a more sustainable society.
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de Montpellier d’Annevoie, P., Swaen, V., & Frenay, M. (2022). How do individuals frame their perceptions of CSR? Business & Society Research Seminar, Nantes, France. https://hdl.handle.net/2078.5/268271