Signalling Stewardship: The Role of Ownership Identity in Shaping Social Responsibility Communication in India

Increasing demands for and scrutiny of social responsibility communication (SRC) in the global arena conflict with traditional norms of non-disclosure and implicit CSR in emerging economies. In this paper, we empirically examine the role of ownership identity in shaping contemporary SRC. Specifically, does SRC in community development and environmental responsibility differ across foreign firms and domestic firms, and within domestic firms, across government-owned firms and family-owned firms? Drawing on an original dataset of firm-specific measures, we explore this issue in the context of India's largest 121 publicly-listed firms. Our main contribution is to demonstrate that ownership identity is an influential determinant in how firm's assign priority and strategic focus to their SRC. Our high overall communication findings are indicative of a shift towards more "explicit" legitimacy-enhancing form of SRC. Significant environmental communication by family firms suggests that global transparency norms are beginning to co-exist along with traditional norms of confidentiality and an inference of a change in CSR intention can be made. Notwithstanding the extensive incentivizing and facilitating role played by the state in promoting CSR and its reporting, government-owned firms diverge from current scholarship with their absent environmental communication. For managers, our study provides insight on strategic areas of focus and how best to use corporate communications to enhance legitimacy.