Reporting controversial issues in controversial industries

Abstract

Purpose: This article explores how companies in multiple controversial industries report their controversial issues. For the first time, the authors use a new conceptualization of controversial industries, focused on harm and solutions, to investigate the reports of 28 companies in seven controversial industries: Agricultural Chemicals, Alcohol, Armaments, Coal, Gambling, Oil and Tobacco. Design/methodology/approach: The authors thematically analyzed company reports to determine if companies in controversial industries discuss their controversial issues in their reporting, if and how they communicate the harm caused by their products or services, and what solutions they provide. Findings: From this study data the authors introduce a new legitimacy reporting method in the controversial industries literature: the solutions companies offer for the harm caused by their products and services. The authors find three solution reporting methods: no solution, misleading solution and less-harmful solution. The authors also develop a new typology of reporting strategies used by companies in controversial industries based on how they report their key controversial issue and the harm caused by their products or services, and the solutions they offer. The authors identify seven reporting strategies: Ignore, Deny, Decoy, Dazzle, Distort, Deflect and Adapt. Research limitations/implications: Further research can test the typology and identify strategies used by companies in different institutional or regulatory settings, across different controversial industries or in larger populations. Practical implications: Investors, consumers, managers, activists and other stakeholders of controversial companies can use this typology to identify the strategies that companies use to report controversial issues. They can assess if reports admit to the controversial issue and the harm caused by a company's products and services and if they provide solutions to that harm. Originality/value: This paper develops a new typology of reporting strategies by companies in controversial industries and adds to the theory and discourse on social and environmental reporting (SER) as well as the literature on controversial industries.