Legitimation in the Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) Discourse: The Financial and Energy sector of Ibex35

From a linguistic perspective, this article examines how Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is legitimized in the messages of presidents to shareholders published in annual reports. The purpose is to identify which discursive strategies are preferred by presidents in order to legitimize their discourses about sustainability. Specifically, it is analyzed what issues in relation to CSR appear and what kind of legitimation strategies are present in these discourses. Regarding the types of discursive strategies, we distinguish between moral, pragmatic, or cognitive strategies (Marais, 2012). A quantitative and qualitative analysis of 34 documents (69,857 words) published in 2008, 2015, and 2019 by presidents of the financial and energy sector of the Ibex35, the main Spanish stock market index, was performed. On the one hand, analyzing these years allows for a diachronic vision of the legitimation discourse; on the other hand, focusing on these sectors allows for a better understanding of the legitimation discourse in precisely two sectors whose reputation was severely damaged, albeit for different reasons: in the case of the energy sector, because its activity specifically threatens the environment; in the case of the banking sector, because ever since the 2008 crisis, the banking sector has come under a cloud of suspicion. The results obtained show similar behavior by sector as well as by year in terms of legitimization strategies. However, regarding the issues related to CSR, notable divergences emerge. In the energy sector there is a clear predominance of environmental issues whereas the banking sector prefers social issues.