Purpose – The study aims to determine whether a relationship exists between the potential significance of corporate controversies for stakeholders and how organisations respond to them in their annual and sustainability reports.
Design/methodology/approach – This paper employs content analysis on annual and sustainability reports of 48 listed companies from the Refinitiv database. The logit regression was used to estimate the model. Findings – The study revealed that the main factors increasing the probability of a controversial issue being addressed in a corporate report are the controversy’s potential significance, companies’ financial performance and lawsuits.
Research limitations/implications – Our study has three major limitations. These are a relatively small sample of companies and reports, focusing on disclosures made in corporate reports and omitting other channels of communication, for example, social media, and a certain amount of subjectivity in the process of coding information.
Social implications – Former studies show that corporations face a serious risk of their hypocritical strategies becoming too evident for stakeholder groups. Our findings suggest that the risk is already materialising and may undermine the idea of CSR and sustainability reporting.
Originality/value – Our research focuses on high-profile adverse incidents widely reported in the media, the omission of which from corporate reports seems to constitute a particular case of organised hypocrite. It also demonstrates that companies use an impression management strategy to defuse adverse publicity and that major controversies cause minor ones to be omitted from their reports.

Purpose – The purpose of this paper was identification and empirical assessment of the differentiation of consumers’ attitudes in Ukraine and Poland to Russian brands and other brands offered on the Russian market after Russia’s aggression against Ukraine on February 24, 2022.
Design/methodology/approach – The main research methods include a systematic literature review and the authors’ own surveys conducted in November 2022. The research sample comprised 950 consumers – 67%of them were Poles, 30% – Ukrainians and 3% from other countries.
Findings – A respondents’ country (Poland and Ukraine) does not impact attitudes to brands offered on the Russian market after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022. Moreover, it does not affect and differentiate emotional engagement in the conflict and assistance to war victims. Cluster analysis resulted in identifying two groups on the basis of consumers’ declared emotional reactions to the war. The first group was smaller (N 5 353, 37.2%), referred to as “indifferent consumers”, and was characterized by a greater inclination to purchase brands offered in Russia. The other cluster, referred to as “sensitive consumers” (N 5 597, 62.8%), comprises those engaged in offering assistance to war victims, showing strong emotions in connection with the aggression and military activities and characterized by a clearly negative attitude to Russian and other offered brands and an inclination to boycott these brands.
Research limitations/implications – A short time horizon, the study confined to two countries, difficulties in reaching Ukrainian respondents due to power failures in Ukraine in the period of conducting the survey (November 2022), a non-representative research sample – overrepresentation of people aged 18–25 years. Practical implications – The research study contributes to the knowledge about consumer brand attitudes and preferences under unique social, economic and market conditions. These conditions were created by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, as well as the international and global character of the war in Ukraine. The significant implications of the study refer to brand communication policies and companies’ CSR-related declarations. A number of consumers’ errors were recorded, resulting from wrong brand retrieval, which were rectified at a later stage as a result of international restrictions imposed on Russia, harsh media criticism and social international embargoes imposed on brands offered in Russia. The marketing communication of contemporary global brands should give consideration to the informative function of CSR activities, and the communication process should be continuous. Critical attitudes and an inclination to boycott brands point to the possible consequences faced by inconsistent and ethically doubtful brand policies. This implication is clearly confirmed by the results of the study.
Social implications – The authors also wish to highlight the implications for practice and society. As mentioned earlier, Polish consumers involved in providing aid to victims of the war also expressed their opposition to the war by boycotting Russian products and international brands remaining in Russia. Popularization of the research results obtained by the authors can be a form of sensitizing the public to the need for long-term relief, awakening global awareness of the essence and importance of sanctions imposed on Russia, as well as the possibility of expressing opposition through individual purchasing decisions and boycotting brands still present in Russia.
Originality/value – The study allowed for identifying consumers’ differentiated brand attitudes in two countries: a country inflicted by war (Ukraine) and a front-line country, strongly supporting Ukraine (Poland). The research contributes to consumer behavior theories and studies of consumer attitudes and preferences from the perspective of international corporations’ CSR activities under the unique conditions of war. Also, it contributes to the knowledge of the mechanism of forming attitudes to Russian and international brands offered in Russia among CEE consumers.

Purpose – Nearly half of the surveyed SMEs in Poland admitted that there is a very strong competition on the market where they operate. Among the neuralgic factors they point to the lack of qualified employees (PARP, 2021). Companies can use CSR policies to attract competent employees and retain valuable ones. Therefore, the purpose of this research paper is to find out whether, according to employees working in SME companies, an active CSR policy influences their employment-related decisions.
Design/methodology/approach – The data were collected through questionnaires received from 618 employees of 29 SMEs in Poland through questionnaires, which were analyzed with the IBM SPSS Statistics 26.0 and Microsoft Excel 2019.
Findings – The survey results provide evidence that CSR activities are an important factor in employees’ decisions about potential employment and/or continued employment. In particular, the results show that almost all areas of CSR, except cooperation with the local communities, are important to employees. The survey also provides a clear answer as to which CSR initiatives benefiting employees of SME companies are the most important for them.
Originality/value – The conducted research fills a gap in CSR related studies on the SME sector in Poland. This is important, given the significant share of SME sector companies in the market in Poland and around the world.

Purpose – The main purpose of this study is to check the potential impact of gamification on communicating CSR issues.
Design/methodology/approach – The examination was conducted concerning the correlations between income/education level and communication effectiveness with and without gamification application. For the need of this study the survey was prepared, containing inter alia narration resting on helping Dwight to deal with the problems with adjusting to work environment, the problem often avoided in corporate social responsibility (CSR) communication research, especially gamified.
Findings – Findings show that gamification can help in this area, but depending on the author’s goal (spreading the news is the most relevant one).
Originality/value – Although the gamification gained substantial interest over the last decade, the results of applying the same into CSR communication are still very rare.

Purpose: The goal of the article is to systematize the literature related to the role of stakeholder engagement in corporate social practices and related disclosures by identifying the main theoretical lenses, research methods, and topics undertaken by authors of articles under scrutiny.

Design/Methodology/Approach: The article systematically reviews and discusses existing studies in the area of management, social and environmental accounting, intellectual capital, ethics, and accounting. We identify and subsequently analyze 68 articles published over the years 2010–2020.

Findings: According to the study findings, stakeholder theory is most often used as a theoretical background. The survey is the most popular research method, while stakeholder engagement in social practices is the most common research problem investigated by the articles’ authors. Corporate stakeholders’ communication on social media is a new topic that emerged in the literature in the studied period.

Research Limitations/Implications: Our analysis is restricted to articles published in journals included in the ABDC Journal Quality List that are ranked B, A, and A* in a 10-years period.

Practical Implications: The article’s findings may be useful for researchers and practitioners who deal with corporate social practices, disclosures, and stakeholders’ roles in these processes.

Originality/Value: The paper offers an up-to-date literature review, identifies the main themes, research gaps, and provides relevant guidance for future research.

Purpose: The goal of this paper is to develop a framework describing the mechanisms which explain how and when CSR engagement affects company’s bottom line, based on a review of the business case for CSR literature.

Approach: This article is conceptual and based on literature review. By using a CSR stage development model, behavioral and stakeholder perspectives, it offers a descriptive multi­dimensional integrative framework of the business case for CSR.

Findings: The fndings show that the relationship between engagement in CSR activities and corporate performance (CP) depends on a CSR development stage, managerial interpretation of CSR issues, stakeholder management model and moderating factors.

Originality: This article integrates disconnected models and conceptualizations in the subject literature and contributes to the theoretical discussion by arguing that type and scale of benefts from CSR activity progress along the stages of organizational CSR development. Moreover, it also shows that the CSR­CP relationship depends on internal and external factors (mediators and moderators). It therefore supports the contingency argument.

Purpose: This study attempts to make a contribution to theory by disentangling the concept of creating shared value (CSV) from corporate social responsibility (CSR). In doing so, the study provides a preliminary outline for CSV analysis.

Approach: This study is conceptual in character. It is based on a review of literature on CSR and CSV and adopts the perspective of economic and social value creation.

Findings: The findings show that 1) CSR comes down to sharing the economic value created in order to build social value and 2) CSV is the process of change of the relation between a firm’s outcomes and inputs that generates social value. In other words, it comes down to economic value creation through creating social value.

Originality: This study provides arguments revealing that to understand the differences between the notions of CSV and CSR, it suggests adopting the concepts of economic and social value. The study therefore bridges the gap in theory in this respect and outlines a preliminary conceptual basis for CSV analysis. It is expected that the findings of this study will serve as a reliable basis for further discussion and CSV concept development.