The Effect of Corporate Visibility on Corporate Social Responsibility

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The last version of this paper was much better than the version resubmitted now. 

- from the abstract is missing an important explanation about the sample which was added last time

- the graphical representation of the objective of this paper is also missing in this version

Please read again carefully the observations from all the reviewers (from this time and from the last time) and make the required changes. (on literature review, data description, explanation of the results and the discussion of the results obtained correlated with other recent studies) 

Author Response

The team of authors wishes to express their gratitude for the time taken to provide valuable feedback to this manuscript. Based on all your previous suggestions, we have now improved the paper considerably. Please find the attached paper with all major changes highlighted.

Again, we truly appreciate your comments and suggestions.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

The major hypothesis in this study is very important to the future significance of CSR.  With the growing influence of social media, visibility is a growing issue.  Accusations of greenwashing on social media can decrease the value of a  company's CSR initiatives.

"There is a 161 total of 611 observations in this dataset and it spans the period of 1995-2008." This is a concern because CSR really did not enter visibility in terms of social media until the last decade. The Dakota Access Pipeline protest began in 2016. Ronald McDonald House Charities started in 1974 and is a non-profit organization.  The issue of plastic straws is a more relevant visibility issue in terms of CSR.  The conclusion does not address the issue of the age of the data. 2008 is a decade ago, and in 1995 visibility was different--social media did not exist, and visibility was in business articles in newspapers, magazines, and journals, for which there was a much smaller cohort to be influenced. 

An important point is made that philanthropy is a sub-set of CSR.  A definition of CSR must be included in the introduction. 

I am not familiar with data on WRDS on CSR. Are you referring to ESG? Are you using only social or social and environmental?  If it is ESG (the elements in the statistics indicate it) you need to define it, and perhaps use it rather than CSR, since you do not define CSR nor actually connect it to your study elements except in an ES way. 

I believe that this is an important study and I realize your data does not allow you to bring the study up to date. Thus, I think you should be transparent at the beginning of the paper about the timeline for your study, and should frame it as a baseline for visibility for 2008 on.  Perhaps you could identify whether there were more in the later part of the study.

Spelling and Grammar must be corrected

"previously studied hypothesizes" hypotheses

"Prominent examples include the protests and media coverage of the Dakota Access
39 Pipeline (opposition) and the positive media response to charities such as McDonald’s Ronald
40 McDonald house (in favor)."  (against) (for) or (opposed) (in favor)

First, we contribute to the literature with 52 a new measure of visibility, evidence for the direction of causation between visibility and CSR, and 53 the impact of visibility on other factors. Rewrite

Third, this paper is the first one, to the best of our knowledge, to show that
56 visibility has important mediating effects on the relationships between firm and CEO characteristics57 and CSR. "presents a new relationship....

As a part of this study, we attempt to use as many as firm and executive characteristics to
100 determine if consistent results can be obtained. What does this mean?

2.4. Hypothesis You have three; this should be Hypotheses

Author Response

Please see attached.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 3 Report

Wow, great paper, thank you for writing this.  The title does NOT do this paper justice, and I would recommend editing the title so that more people will read it. Something like How Visibility in Media influences CSR, a financial analysis (not the right title, but you get the idea. 

In the introduction, I think you need to add something about the importance of reputation as a driver of CSR (see Argenti, P.A. Corporate Responsibility text, for example, to strengthen the argument around line 25, page 1).  The reason that most CSR programs are in CorpComm is for that reason, and you can now see why the two are intertwined, which will also enhance the readership of the article. In the literature review, on page 2, 62-65, you need to think about how important the perceptions of a companies initiatives has been to the development of CSR in corporations, which again reinforces the point I made above.

And, finally, I would like to see a stronger conclusion.  Don't rush to the data, make a point to close this important piece, and you will have a great article.  

Author Response

Please see attached.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

The paper has been greatly improved. Congratulations to the authors. 

Please pay attention to some grammar and spelling errors (e.g. line 182: the nature of the articles are not known -> the nature of the articles is not known)   

Author Response

Typos are corrected. Thanks so much again. 

Reviewer 2 Report

I think the title should represent that Visibility refers to print media.  Corporate Visibility through Print Media and Corporate Social Responsibility or  Newspaper Visibility and Corporate Social Responsibility.  I understand that you looked at newspapers from 1998-2008, and thus, historically, the research has merit.  However, the number of newspapers are declining significantly because stakeholders are on social media now for their news and opinions.  There are many cases in this century of companies that have had criticisms of their behavior on social media lead to six months of decreased stock prices, and focusing on their CSR successes through social media was what kept them alive.  Nestle and palm oil is one example.  I do not want the title of this paper to lead readers into thinking your definition of visibility is the current research's definition, even though you have prominently mentioned newspapers in the abstract and first paragraph of the introduction.  I the value of your research is the your research methodology that could be used by others using current media, so I think it is worth publishing.

Author Response

Your comments make a lot of sense. We've put the print media in the title. Thanks so much again.