Track: Business Management

Abstract

There are various social media platforms that help various users to interact. Among the various platforms the video based platforms like Instagram are being used for business purposes. The aim of this paper is to analyze the use of online social networks as a medium for Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) disclosures. These video based social media platforms have drastically changed the way various stakeholders interact with their stakeholders and customers. Many corporate organizations have started to adopt these video based social media platforms like Instagram to enhance their corporate social responsibility (CSR) aspects. To this end, an analysis was performed of the messages posted by the top 100 public listed companies in the National Stock Exchange (NSE) in India. In addition, analysis was performed on the responses that they received on two of the most popular online social networks Instagram. This paper adds to the ongoing development of the field of social media especially focusing on video based networks like Instagram. The motivation for the authors to perform this study is to identify and explore the gap particularly in the area social media related to Instagram and CSR due to mandated CSR in the Indian context. The authors in this paper review and analyze how online social media networks like Instagram are utilized for Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) activities. The researchers through the study of literature reviews found the gap in the area of Instagram and mandated CSR. There have been numerous studies by various researchers that have been investigated across the globe for the last 10 years on the areas of Instagram and CSR. The authors performed analysis on the messages posted by the 100 public listed companies. The authors analyzed the messages and their responses that were received on Instagram. The results of the analysis of these data are explored to see which of the Indian listed companies are using social media networks and which of the social media networks are most frequently used. In addition, the authors investigate which corporates adopted the online social media more effective and communicated the same to the stakeholders. The study also explored how Indian companies communicate more frequently the non-CSR messages more than CSR messages. In addition they also explored if the companies are employing an informing strategy or an interacting strategy. The authors analyzed the results of these data, and explored to see which of these 100 Indian listed companies are using Instagram frequently towards CSR activities. Using quantitative methods the authors tested and compared the results. The findings show how these companies are chaotic and unpredictable on Instagram. However, the CSR mandate has created greater awareness and that was evident from the results of utilizing social media platforms like Instagram after 2014. The findings show how this industry is chaotic and unpredictable. The study also shows how the Indian companies are transitioning and adopting these social media platforms is used for CSR activities. The findings revealed that the companies are consciously utilizing Instagram platforms towards their CSR practices. The authors use stakeholder theory as the research framework and developed the stakeholders accordingly.