Title: Being best in the world or best for the world? fostering CSR cooperative behaviors through communication

Abstract

Communication contributes to fostering environmentally friendly decisions in organizations. Yet, we know little about which message strategy infuences a manager who is confronted with a Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) dilemma between prioritizing the environment or the bottom line. In order to understand this, we conducted a computer simulation with real participants, where we observed the extent to which persuasive vs rational messages vs absence of message infuences individuals’ decisions to cooperate with competitors in order to maintain a clean natural resource in spite of privileging corporate gains. Results indicate that a per suasive message has the most signifcant efect on participants’ long-term coopera tive behaviour and may positively infuence the way individuals perceive altruistic cooperative behaviours. These fndings contribute to studies on CSR and strategic communication, as they suggest that communication plays an important role in solv ing a CSR dilemma depending on the type of message strategy that is enacted. Also, they contribute to studies on performance indicators as they suggest which indica tors to use to build a balanced scorecard that explicitly incorporates sustainability related strategic objectives into the business.

Biography

Elena Alberti 26 years old from Italy. In 2017, she graduated in communication science and technology with a thesis entitled 'The new environmentalism: evolution of environmental consciousness'. After her bachelor's degree she moved to Milan for her master's degree in Strategic communication. To obtain her degree, she developed an experimental thesis with an interactive, digital business game that teaches how to be more sustainable and demonstrates how communication encourages sustainability and collaboration. In 2020 he met a sustainability manager from a multinational company who financed the experiment and turned it into a workshop for companies. Thanks to this, Elena launches her own sustainability training and team building start-up: elenaalberti.net. In 2019 she was a speaker at the TEDxCortina Countdown. Since 2020 she has been working in marketing and product for a coffee company. In 2022 she was a candidate for municipal councillor of the municipality of Padua.