CSR Image Discursive Construction of Banks and the Effects on Capital Markets: Comparative Study of China and US

226 Pages·2022·4.594 MB·English

by  Muchun Wan

Muchun Wan
CSR Image Discursive
Construction of Banks
and the Effects on
Capital Markets
Comparative Study of China and US
CSR Image Discursive Construction of Banks
and the Effects on Capital Markets
Muchun Wan
CSR Image Discursive
Construction of Banks
and the Effects on Capital
Markets
Comparative Study of China and US
Muchun Wan
School of English Language, Literature
and Culture
Beijing International Studies University
Beijing, China
This work was supported by the Beijing International Studies University 2022 Annual
Academic Work Publishing Funding
ISBN 978-981-19-6011-6 ISBN 978-981-19-6012-3 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-6012-3
Jointly published with Social Sciences Academic Press
The print edition is not for sale in China (Mainland). Customers from China (Mainland) please order the
print book from: Social Sciences Academic Press.
© Social Sciences Academic Press 2022
This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether
the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse
of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and
transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar
or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed.
The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication
does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant
protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use.
The publishers, the authors, and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book
are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publishers nor the authors or
the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any
errors or omissions that may have been made. The publishers remain neutral with regard to jurisdictional
claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
This Springer imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd.
The registered company address is: 152 Beach Road, #21-01/04 Gateway East, Singapore 189721,
Singapore
About This Book
The comprehensive opening-up pattern in the financial field has been advocated since
the 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China. Thus, it is necessary
and urgent for Chinese banks to establish an international corporate image in order
to attract more foreign investment and improve China’s international image in the
financial sector. CSR reports provide banks with good platforms to establish rela-
tionships with stakeholders and construct responsible corporate images by disclosing
their CSR information.
Previous studies of CSR reports and corporate image in business discourse
studies have focused on the discursive interpretation and explanation of a language’s
functions in business discourse with few studies exploring a language’s actual
effects on corporate governance and economic practice. Previous studies in manage-
ment, economics and finance have noted a language’s importance in organizational
discourse and corporate performance. However, without a linguistic perspective,
these studies fail to fully explain a language’s discursive functions in economic prac-
tice. In order to fill this gap and in light of Biber’s register analysis, the theory of
discourse and institutional identity, and corporate identity system (CIS), this study
attempts to establish an inter-disciplinary discourse evaluation framework to analyze
multi-dimensional discursive features along four dimensions in Chinese and Amer-
ican banks’ CSR reports: sentiment, readability, CSR keyword and visualization, in
order to help Chinese banks improve their CSR disclosure and construct international
CSR images along three dimensions: mind image, behavior image and visual image.
Then, guided by signaling theory and behavioral finance, the influencing mechanism
of CSR reports’ discursive features on capital market reaction will be illustrated,
which aims to further analyze and verify a language’s functions in economic practice.
The multi-dimensional discourse evaluation framework of banks’ CSR reports for the
refinement of banks’ CSR disclosure system, CSR image construction and corporate
value enhancement is an inter-disciplinary attempt and an integration of linguistics,
management and finance theories. It promotes the cross-disciplinary research into
business discourse and sheds light on the research into organizational discourse,
institutional identity and corporate governance.
v
vi AboutThisBook
To help Chinese banks’ CSR reports better comply with international contexts,
quantitative analysis based on corpus and computational linguistic tools (Antconc,
WordSmith, DICTION and Coh-Metrix) is conducted to explore the various multi-
dimensional discursive features in Chinese and American banks’ CSR reports. The
results indicate that (1) In general, Chinese banks’ CSR reports show a significantly
higher sentimental tendency than American banks’ CSR reports; (2) American banks’
CSR reports show comparatively higher readability than Chinese banks’ CSR reports;
(3) Chinese banks disclose more CSR contributions to society and the public, whereas
American banks disclose more CSR information about employees, the environment
and corporate governance; (4) American banks prefer to employ pictures in their
CSR reports to persuade and interact with their stakeholders.
In order to help Chinese banks better establish an international CSR image
and transmit banks’ CSR images with Chinese characteristics, this study analyzes
Chinese and American banks’ different discursive construction of CSR images based
on the corporate identity system. The findings are as follows: (1) Chinese banks
construct an authoritative, national strategy-oriented, society and public-oriented
CSR image, while American banks show a pragmatistic and individual-oriented CSR
image; (2) American banks show objective and factual construction of CSR image;
Chinese banks, besides showing objective and factual construction of CSR image,
also express prospective construction of their CSR image. (3) Chinese banks convey
an active, innovative and positive CSR image, while American banks convey a stable
and conservative CSR image. Guided by stakeholder theory and legitimacy theory,
accounts for Chinese and American banks’ different CSR images are explained in
terms of their different political, economic, social, cultural and regulatory contexts.
In order to examine the actual effects of CSR reports’ discursive features on capital
markets and to improve Chinese banks’ awareness of using CSR reports’ discursive
features to construct CSR images and enhance corporate value, empirical research
of event study and gray relational entropy analysis is conducted. The results show
that (1) discursive features in both Chinese and American banks’ CSR reports may
bring significant cumulative abnormal returns to banks’ stock prices within 30 days
after the release of their CSR reports. Discursive features in American banks’ CSR
reports bring more influence to the capital market compared with Chinese banks;
(2) readability indicators in both Chinese and American banks’ CSR reports
contribute the most to capital market performance.
Based on the findings, several suggestions are proposed. Chinese banks may
emphasize the function of CSR reports’ discursive features in stakeholder engage-
ment, CSR image construction and corporate value enhancement. Regulatory orga-
nizations need to strengthen the regulation and guidance of Chinese banks’ CSR
information disclosure. As for Chinese banks, they need to reconstruct their English
version of CSR reports. Recontextualization is suggested in order to better comply
with international stakeholders’ reading habits and to promote banks’ CSR images
with Chinese characteristics to international stakeholders in a concise and straight-
forward way. This can be accomplished by improving the reading ease, disclosing
more CSR contributions to an inclusive group of stakeholders, and using pictures to
interact with stakeholders.
AboutThisBook vii
This study contributes to the improvement of Chinese banks’ awareness of CSR
disclosure and the establishment of Chinese banks’ international images. Since more
and more Chinese companies in different sectors are choosing overseas listings, find-
ings in this study also have practical implications for their information disclosure,
international image construction and corporate value enhancement through corporate
narratives, such as annual reports and IPO prospectuses. In other words, this study
contributes to the internalization of Chinese companies from the discourse perspec-
tive, thus more effectively telling “Chinese stories” and spreading China’s national
image.
Contents
1 Introduction ................................................... 1
1.1 Research Orientation ........................................ 1
1.1.1 CSR Image Construction Via Discursive Features
in CSR Reports ...................................... 2
1.1.2 Corporate Performance Via Discursive Features
in CSR Reports ...................................... 3
1.1.3 Chinese Banks’ Internationalization Via Discursive
Features in CSR Reports .............................. 4
1.2 Rationale .................................................. 4
1.3 Research Objectives and Questions ........................... 6
1.4 Organization of This Dissertation ............................. 7
2 Literature Review .............................................. 9
2.1 Key Concepts in This Research ............................... 9
2.1.1 CSR ............................................... 9
2.1.2 Banks’ CSR ......................................... 10
2.1.3 CSR Reports ........................................ 11
2.1.4 CSR Reports’ Multi-dimensional Discourse
Evaluation Indicators ................................. 11
2.1.5 Discursive Strategies and Features in Banks’ CSR
Image Construction .................................. 12
2.1.6 Corporate Image Construction ......................... 12
2.1.7 The Effects of Banks’ Discursive CSR Image
Construction ........................................ 13
2.2 Studies on Business Discourse ............................... 13
2.2.1 Studies on Business Discourse in Linguistics ............. 13
2.2.2 Studies on Business Discourse in Corporate
Governance ......................................... 15
ix
x Contents
2.3 Evaluative Studies in Discourse Analysis ...................... 16
2.3.1 Studies on Discourse Evaluation
from Multi-dimensional Perspective .................... 16
2.3.2 Studies on Sentimental Evaluation ...................... 18
2.3.3 Studies on Readability ................................ 19
2.3.4 Studies on Keyword Analysis .......................... 20
2.3.5 Studies on Visualization .............................. 21
2.4 Studies on CSR and CSR Reports ............................. 22
2.4.1 Studies on CSR and CSR Reports in Management
and Accounting ...................................... 22
2.4.2 Studies on CSR and CSR Reports in Linguistics .......... 24
2.5 Studies on Corporate Image Construction ...................... 25
2.5.1 Studies on Image Construction in Linguistics ............ 25
2.5.2 Studies on Corporate Image Construction in Other
Disciplines .......................................... 27
2.6 Studies on the Economic Effects of CSR Reports ................ 28
2.7 Limitations of Previous Studies ............................... 30
3 Theoretical Framework ......................................... 33
3.1 A Theoretical Background for the Multi-dimensional
Discursive Construction of Banks’ CSR Image ................. 33
3.1.1 Fairclough’s Three-dimensional Model .................. 34
3.1.2 Biber’s Register Analysis ............................. 35
3.2 The Theoretical Foundation of Multi-dimensional Discursive
Construction of Banks’ CSR Images .......................... 37
3.2.1 Discourse and Institutional Identity ..................... 38
3.2.2 Corporate Identity System (CIS) ....................... 40
3.2.3 Previous Multi-dimensional Business Discourse
Evaluation Frameworks ............................... 49
3.2.4 Discourse Appraisal Theory ........................... 52
3.2.5 Readability .......................................... 53
3.2.6 Keyword Analysis in Corpus Linguistics ................ 54
3.2.7 A Multi-dimensional Discourse Evaluation
Framework of Banks’ CSR Reports ..................... 55
3.3 The Theoretical Foundation Behind Banks’ CSR Image
Construction Via CSR Reports ............................... 57
3.3.1 Information Asymmetry Theory ........................ 57
3.3.2 Legitimacy Theory ................................... 58
3.3.3 Stakeholder Theory .................................. 59
3.4 Theoretical Foundation Behind Banks’ Discursive
Construction of CSR Image’s Effects on Capital Markets ......... 60
3.4.1 Signaling Theory .................................... 61
3.4.2 Behavioral Finance ................................... 62
3.5 A Proposed Analytical Model of This Study .................... 64
Contents xi
4 Research Methods .............................................. 69
4.1 Corpus Data ............................................... 69
4.2 Research Tools ............................................. 70
4.2.1 DICTION ........................................... 70
4.2.2 Coh-Metrix ......................................... 71
4.2.3 Antconc and WordSmith .............................. 72
4.2.4 Event Study ......................................... 72
4.2.5 Gray Relational Entropy Analysis Model ................ 77
4.3 Data Selection and Processing ................................ 79
4.3.1 Selection and Processing of Discursive Indicators ......... 79
4.3.2 Selection and Processing of Indicators of Capital
Market Reaction ..................................... 83
4.3.3 Selection and Processing of the Gray Relational
Entropy Model’s Indicators ............................ 83
4.4 Research Procedures ........................................ 84
5 A Descriptive Study of Multi-dimensional Discursive Features
in Chinese and American Banks’ CSR Reports .................... 87
5.1 Sentiment in Chinese and American Banks’ CSR Reports ........ 88
5.1.1 Sentiment in Chinese Banks’ CSR Reports .............. 90
5.1.2 Sentiment in American Banks’ CSR Reports ............. 90
5.1.3 Comparison of Sentimental Tendencies in Chinese
and American Banks’ CSR Reports ..................... 91
5.2 Readability of Chinese and American Banks’ CSR Reports ....... 95
5.2.1 Readability of Chinese Banks’ CSR Reports ............. 97
5.2.2 Readability of American Banks’ CSR Reports ............ 98
5.2.3 Comparison of Readability of Chinese and American
Banks’ CSR Reports ................................. 99
5.3 CSR Keywords in Chinese and American Banks’ CSR Reports ... 105
5.3.1 CSR Keywords in Chinese Banks’ CSR Reports .......... 106
5.3.2 CSR Keywords in American Banks’ CSR Reports ........ 109
5.3.3 Comparison of Keyword Features in Chinese
and American Banks’ CSR Reports ..................... 111
5.4 Visualization in Chinese and American Banks’ CSR Reports ...... 116
5.4.1 Visualization in Chinese Banks’ CSR Reports ............ 116
5.4.2 Visualization in American Banks’ CSR Reports .......... 117
5.4.3 Comparison of Visual Features in Chinese
and American Banks’ CSR Reports ..................... 117
5.5 Summary .................................................. 121
6 A Contrastive Study of Chinese and American Banks’
Discursively Constructed CSR Images ............................ 123
6.1 The Discursive Construction of Chinese and American
Banks’ CSR Mind Images ................................... 124
6.1.1 Chinese and American Banks’ CSR Mind Image
Construction Via Sentiment ........................... 125