By Michael Etter, Peter Winkler, & Itziar Castello

In order to tackle the grand challenges of our time, it is crucial that firms consider their corporate social responsibilities (CSR) regarding their environmental and societal impact. When business leaders proclaim their CSR visions, many employees are listening. Yet, even when top-managers’ intentions are genuine, the reactions by employees to leaders’ aspirations are often disbelief and cynicism. Clearly, these reactions can hinder the implementation of more responsible business practices. Hence, how can managers avoid adverse effects of their visionary rhetoric? We, a team of researchers specialized in communication, management, and sustainability, have tackled this question by mapping the vicious and virtuous circles of visionary CSR rhetoric in firms.

The elements and pitfalls of visionary rhetoric
With mounting pressure for more responsible business practices, many firms have jumped on the CSR train with various initiatives and promises. Only four months ago, 100 CEOs signed a statement in support for Climate Action. Such aspirational rhetoric that promises more responsible business often meets cynicism by various audiences, including employees. Indeed, top managers face internal challenges when communicating their vision of a sustainable future. This has much to do with the rhetorical characteristics of visions, which, by definition, describe a future state that might stand in contradiction to the current business reality. Furthermore, visions are often ambiguous, as they try to include many possible paths forward and imply empowerment of employees to act.

These characteristics of visionary CSR rhetoric are important to attract initial attention by employees and get the ball rolling. However, employees may soon highlight the contradictions to current practices and become cynical about hypocritically perceived visions. Similarly, the ambiguity of CSR rhetoric can have an initially positive aspect for covering multiple interpretations for a path forward. However, these multiple interpretations may soon deviate in diverging interpretations and hinder committed action. And while empowerment rhetoric may motivate employees to experiment with responsible practices, such vague rhetoric is often perceived as delegation of responsibility from the top. In other words, insistence on a visionary and aspirational CSR rhetoric can trigger manifold tensions between management and employees, and hence result in a vicious circle of disbelief and cynicism.

How to turn a vicious circle into a virtuous circle
In order to escape this vicious circle, we deem a shift in rhetoric – from aspiration to agonism – necessary. By agonism, we refer to a mindset and practices that embrace divergence and dissent as constructive forces. This shift towards agonistic rhetoric, first, implies reframing visions as provisional and, hence, indicating space for employees to voice concerns regarding contradictions between managerial vision and experiences of irresponsible practice. Further, agonistic rhetoric implies shifting to rhetorical listening, which places particular emphasis on giving voice to dissenting interpretations regarding aim and scope of the managerial vision. Important, as a final step, agonistic rhetoric fosters re-articulation of visions through a shift of authority from management to dissenting employees, who revise the initial CSR vision in accordance to their own understanding of responsible practice.

In sum, our model sensitizes leaders for the fact that if they want their CSR visions to matter, they require rhetorical skills in both – the capacity to craft an initially visionary aspiration of CSR, as well as the capacity to embrace agonistic employee response in order to make CSR practically matter.

Reference:

Winkler, P., Etter, M., & Castello, I. 2020. Vicious and Virtuous Circles of Aspirational Talk: From Self-Persuasive to Agonistic CSR Rhetoric. Business & Society, 59(1). https://doi.org/10.1177%2F0007650319825758

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