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

PurposeThe 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/approachThe 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.FindingsResults indicate that CSR press releases indeed influenced the news media. During the crisis point, however, agenda-building was not observed.Practical implicationsCorporations need to continue CSR activities and provide public relations materials consistently even after a crisis, as an agenda-building role could be recovered.Originality/valueThe 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.