TOWARDS NEW RESPONSIBILITIES: COMPANIES' DIALOGIC APPROACH TO SOCIETY

Climate change, discrimination, plastic pollution, workplace harassment and inequality, and environmental disasters are some of the critical issues facing this generation. Several national and international institutions are stressing the importance of addressing these urgent social issues. The responsibility of companies is twofold: they need to both take responsibility for the emergence of these key social and environmental issues and take appropriate measures to solve them. Companies can use several strategies and instruments in order to meet the needs of current generations without compromising those of future generations. Stakeholder dialogue, for instance, is presented as a key feature of corporate social responsibility (CSR) communications and activities within the broad management literature, due to its potential to address environmental and social issues between diverse stakeholder interests. Since there is no clear consensus about the meaning of dialogue in the CSR context, what activities do and do not constitute dialogue, and the different objectives companies can achieve through dialogue, this doctoral thesis provides a framework to develop a clear overview of CSR dialogue (study 1) and investigates its role in the fields of marketing (study 2) and accounting (study 3). Thus, by adopting a mixed methodology, this project attempts to explain the antecedents and consequences of a dialogic approach between companies and their stakeholders. The research provides valuable insights for managers that are useful to improve CSR stakeholder dialogue, underlining benefits that might accrue for both companies and stakeholders.