Embracing sustainability through corporate communication : an international case of CSR disclosure

The environmental and social responsibility of multinational enterprises (MNEs) has become a significant issue in recent years. As a result, MNEs can generate favorable attitudes and gain legitimacy among their culturally and socially diverse stakeholders in international markets by disclosing information about their CSR activities using various tools. This study considers the content of one type of these communication tools: the CSR report. However, for CSR information to be communicated efficiently, it must first and foremost be understandable and readable for MNEs' global stakeholders with different language skills and comprehension abilities. Through a content analysis of CSR disclosure of ten of the most sustainable MNEs, we aim to answer the question of whether they are readable or not among their international stakeholders. By using 14 readability indices, the results show that these reports are not readable enough for the international audience of the enterprises and that the extent of their syntactic complexity makes them difficult to comprehend.