The Institutionalization of Corporate Social Responsibility Reporting

This article presents a three-stage model of how isomorphic mechanisms have shaped corporate social responsibility (CSR) reporting practices over time. In the first stage, defensive reporting, companies fail to meet stakeholder expectations due to a deficiency in firm performance. In this stage, the decision to report is driven by coercive isomorphism as firms sense pressure to close the expectational gap. In the second stage, proactive...