Corpus analysis of evaluative language and framework implementation for pharmaceutical industry CSR reports

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) is a concept, where organizations can store and maintain environmental, economic and social issues by including social or environmental concerns. This research intends to map out the features of evaluative language used by pharmaceutical industry CSR reports and figure out how evaluative meaning assists companies in communicating with stakeholders and narrowing the legitimacy gap, to be in a status congruent with societal expectation. An integrated analytical framework and the Three‐Domain Model of CSR is created to fulfill the research objectives. This study primarily examines the characteristics of evaluative language with the use of two sets of self‐built corpora that include CSR reports from pharmaceutical companies that must maintain and repair their legitimacy; the study reveals that report authors usually use more resources with a positive attitude to evaluate themselves whereas negative resources are only adopted to characterize others. Statistics demonstrate a considerable difference in the utilization of affect resources, although CSR reports in both organizations embrace appreciation resources as the primary means of maintaining or repairing their legitimacy. Finally, by borrowing the Three‐Domain Model of CSR, the results also show “ethical” responsibility as the focused area in pharmaceutical industry CSR reports.