Analyzing Voluntary CSR Communication: A Qualitative Study On “Fertial NEWS”

This paper aims to investigate Fertial’s CSR communication, to comprehend whether it is a voluntary adoption or it is due to external stakeholders’ influence. Unlike many empirical researches that have been carried out to address the matter of voluntary CSR communication, we have focused our research on analyzing data collected from Fertial’s “house journal”, which is called “Fertial News”. We have adopted a qualitative data analysis method for this research, in order to analyze codes assigned from the last ten issues of Fertial News. The results of this study show that most of Fertial CSR communications are considered as feedback to external stakeholders’ influence, in comparison to the amount of social information voluntarily communicated by Fertial.


2-The Aim of The Study
We believe that house journals can be very pertinent materials for data collection and analysis, while studying the companies' intentions to communicate about their CSR policies and engagements, to both: internal and external stakeholders. Accordingly, the purpose of this study is to analyze, via a qualitative data analysis method, the last ten (10) issues of Fertial News, in order to get knowledge about the nature of information, whether it does reflect a voluntary CSR communication policy adopted by Fertial, or it is due to some external stakeholders' influence. We have focused our qualitative analysis on Fertial News, because we believe that such voluntary communication tool, like the house journal, can be a very suitable support for data collection in order to analyze the voluntary CSR communication of a company.
To fulfill the purpose of this study, we focus on the following research questions: • RQ1: What motivates Fertial to communicate its CSR engagements?
• RQ2: Does 'Fertial News' define Fertial's CSR communication determinants? • RQ3: Does the social information have the same value, among Ferial's stakeholders, compared with the financial/operational information?

3-Literature Review
Many theories have been developed to describe and explain the company's incentives to communicate about its CSR engagements. In this paper, we focus on the Legitimacy Theory and the Agency Theory. We believe that these two theories give a better understanding regarding the company's voluntary tendency to communicate its CSR actions.

Legitimacy Theory and CSR Communication
Suchman defines legitimacy as a general perception or assumption that the actions of an entity are desirable, proper or appropriate within some socially constructed system of norms, values, beliefs and definitions (1995, p. 574). According to consumers/citizens, as part of the community, accepting the authority of some organization is determined by the perception of its importance for the public interest (Capelli & Sabadie, 2005, p. 55). Thus, an organization must justify itself by providing services to society, and also by assuming its responsibilities (towards market, community and environment) as an actor that may have multiple impacts on society.
Legitimacy Theory was founded on the idea that organizations cannot guarantee their survival and durability, unless they understand the importance of their engagement to norms and values set by the society where they operate (Farache, Perks, & berry, 2009). Therefore, this theory has become one of the most cited theories within the social and environmental accounting research area (Tan, Benni, & Liani, 2016, p. 12). From a contractual perspective, the Legitimacy Theory revolves around the notion of an explicit or implicit "Social Contract", between society and organizations, which allows them to exist and survive if they: (1) provide outputs (goods or services) that are considered as accepted and useful to society; (2) assure the distribution of economic, social or political benefits to groups that represent the sources of the companies' input (Cuganesan, Ward, & Guthrie, 2007). According to Laufer, the notion of legitimacy is defined as the instruments that are used by the company to fulfil the organizational objectives, which should be consistent with the society identified needs (1977, p. 113). Thus, companies seeking legitimacy have to communicate with society in order to justify their objectives and all the means used to fulfil them.
Pfeffer and Salancik argue that companies should involve with their social environment, in order to get provided with all the resources necessary to fulfill their organization goals. According to them, the company's survival relies on its capacity to manage its stakeholder's demands, especially those who possess the company's vital resources and incomes (Déjean & Oxibar, 2010, p. 70). Accordingly, legitimacy allows companies to have the society's approbation, so they can have the resources in need for their production process. However, the company's social and/or environmental commitment is not enough to foster a good image, and to gain social legitimacy. Unless it is combined with a proper communication policy to display the company's social and/or environmental actions (Clarcke & Gibson-Sweet, 1999, p. 6). Dowling and Pfeffer (1975) refer to the possibility of an organization to adopt one or more of the following three approaches that enable to appear as a legitimate organization (Dowling & Pfeffer, 1975, p. 127): • Organizations can adapt their outputs, objectives and working methods in order to conform to prevailing perceptions of legitimacy; • Through communication, organizations can change the perception of social legitimacy by making it compatible with their current practices, outputs and values; • A corporation can create, through communication, its identity from symbols and other companies that have solid basis of social legitimacy. It is very important for a company to seek legitimacy to prove its worthiness of resources provided by the society where it operates. According to Clarke and Gibson-Sweet (1999), CSR is a reinforcing tool of both reputation and legitimacy, as it provides an opportunity to communicate to stakeholders the congruence of the organization practices with the societal concerns. Furthermore, CSR implementation allows firms to gain legitimacy by publishing social information, via their annual reports (Rufino & Machado, 2015;Tan, Benni, & Liani, 2016). Legitimacy theory emphasizes the importance of corporate disclosure strategies (Tan, Benni, & Liani, 2016), such as advertisements can be as effective as non-financial reports in authenticating reputation and legitimacy, especially for large corporations in industries under increased scrutiny (Farache, Perks, & berry, 2009).

Agency Theory and CSR Communication
The agency theory gives a way to comprehend properly the nature of the relationship between the agent and the principal (Barako, Hancock, & Izan, 2006, p. 109). Jensen & Meckling (1976) define this relationship as: "a contract under which one or more persons [the principal(s)] engage another person (the agent) to perform some service on their behalf which involves delegating some decision making authority to the agent" (p. 308). According to this definition, the term " agent " is represented by the firm's CEOs or the managers, whereas "principal" corresponds to the shareholders. The agency costs are generating from the assumption that both parties (Agents and principals) have their own interests. Jensen & Meckling believe that an agency contract is determined by three types of costs: 1) monitory costs, 2) bonding cots and 3) residual costs (1976, p. 308). Monitoring costs are borne by the principals to minimize managers' (agents) aberrant activities Such as, accounting auditing costs and corporate performance evaluation costs, that help brake the agent's opportunist behavior. Thus, disclosure is very important for principals to get information from managers regarding monitoring procedures results, such as the publication of accounting audit results and the company's annual reports. Bonding costs are covered by agents (managers), in order to make sure that their decisions and actions will not cause any harm to the principals' interests. Whilst, residual costs occur when proxy decisions diverge from improving the principals' welfare (Shehata, 2014, p. 19). However, all these costs will not take place when the manager and the owner are the same person (Barako, Hancock, & Izan, 2006, p. 110), and they will take only the organizational decisions that lead to maximize their profits. On the other hand, the agency relationship may lead to communication issues, regarding the asymmetric quality and quantity of information of both parties. Managers have the advantage, thanks to their position, of information access (Shehata, 2014, p. 20). Whereas, principals face difficulties in assessing, accurately, the quality of decisions taken by managers. Hence, this situation might be an advantage to the agent to engage in activities to fulfil his personal goals (Barako, Hancock, & Izan, 2006, p. 110). The agency theory argues that CSR is a symbol set by managers seeking to attract the stakeholders who care about the company's social performance (Crifo & Forget, 2013). Cespa and Cestone (2007) shed the light on the interest conflict issue between principals and managers regarding CSR choices. They propose a simple model where stakeholders other than shareholders, can affect the likelihood of managers replacement, and incumbent managers can make 'manager-specific' commitments to adopt a stakeholder-friendly behavior (2007, p. 743). The CSR communication is an important means within the contract management principalagent; while shareholders bear the monitoring costs to increase their information on the practices of the agents. Accordingly, agents will try to use accounting information disclosed to defend their own interests, and demonstrate to shareholders that management is effective (Toukabri, Ben Jemaà, & Jilani, 2014).

CSR via House Journals
The House Journal, also called newsletter or company newspaper, is one of the preferred ways to communicating with employees about various activities and developments that are taking place in any sphere of the organization (Gupta, 2013). The house journal is one of the publications issued by many companies, whether on specific occasions or on a regular basis: monthly, quarterly or annually (Sultan, 2011, p 202). This communication tool often targets the internal public (internal stakeholders), but its echo may reach even the external audiences, especially in the case of big companies. Through the publication of the corporate journal, managers seek to achieve two main goals: the social development of employees and the economic management of the company (Moumouni & Beauchamp, 1998, p. 173). The publication of the house journal improves the relationship between the company's management and employees, because it allows unifying visions of the organization's internal pubic. The house journal helps foster the spirit of solidarity and the company's culture and values among its internal stakeholders (Zieita, 2015), and It creates a feeling of belongingness and ownership among them, as they can see how their work plays an integral role in the ultimate success of the organization (Gupta, 2013). Mass communication means, like house journals, target at a big number of employees. However, generally speaking, they do not offer many possibilities for two-way communication. ( Grabuschnig, 2015, p. 37). According to Tomszac et Al., although house journals are very useful to create knowledge among employees, mass communication channels do not affect attitudes and behaviors easily ( Grabuschnig, 2015). A company's mission to implement any policy or strategy can only be achieved through a deep and effective internal adoption and involvement of the majority of its internal public. Therefore, if a company is engaged in the corporate social responsibility, it can benefit, strategically and operationally from the characteristics and features of the corporate journal; through a smoother transfer, of information of the company's social engagement, to its internal public. The house journal can, also, help boost the engagement in the good governance principles, which may lead to development of the spirit of commitment and awareness among employees. This commitment can increase their loyalty, as long as the company is committed to its social and ethical investments (Dawkins & Lewis, 2003, p. 92). Dawkins and Lewis (2003) state in their study that 65% of employees are more likely to become positive speakers on their company's behalf, regarding its societal and/or environmental actions.

Fertial 1
The flagship of petrochemical industry in Algeria, Fertial was born from a partnership between the Algerian group Asmidal 2 and the Spanish group Grupo Villar Mir 3 . This partnership signed in August 2005 by the Spanish Grupo Villar Mir group and the Algerian public group Asmidal, and they held respectively 66% and 34% of the share capital. In 2017, Fertial's capital was strengthened by welcoming a new shareholder, the Private Algerian Group ETRHB Haddad, which possesses 17% of the company's capital. Since its creation, Fertial has made important investments that have made it possible to renovate the industrial tools and thereby significantly increase its production capacity. As a result, Fertial, which has made innovation its driving force, incorporating the most modern standards in terms of management and production processes, has gained significant market shares in international and in the national markets.

About "Fertial News"
Fertial News is the house journal of Fertial, which is considered as an important communicative and informative tool for the company. Fertial seeks through this journal to improve its communication strategy with both: internal and external public. Furthermore, Fertial has invested in this journal in order to improve its image vis-à-vis its external public and to foster a corporate culture within its internal environment. According to Fertial's CEO, Fertial News responds to employees concerns, demands and expectations regarding corporate news and information, he also states that this communication support belongs to all internal stakeholders (Fertial News, 2010).

Research method
This qualitative research focuses on analyzing data collected from the last ten (10) issues of Fertial News, from the issue n° 57 (2017) till n° 66 (2019). Unlike annual reports, house journals are considered as voluntary communication tools. Therefore, we have chosen Fertial News to analyze Fertial's CSR voluntary communication. We believe that the best material to get voluntary information from is a voluntary communication support. The number of ten (10) issues of Fertial News is justified by the fact that the 57 th (2017) issue of the journal was the first issue after the latest structural change that Fertial has seen in the late 2016, when the shares of the Spanish partner decreased to 49%, in order to be compatible with the Algerian new regulatory rule of 51/49 (51% for the Algerian partner -49% for the foreign partner). As a result, we believe that this structural change may affect the company's decisions, especially with regards to its voluntary CSR communication approach. If we add previous issues of Fertial News (before the 57 th issues) to our qualitative analysis, we believe that data we would collect might not represent the same managerial policy of Fertial after the structural changes that the company has seen in late 2016. Especially since we are focusing the voluntary CSR communication which is linked to managers' decisions that, according to the agency theory, it should be consistent with all the principles objectives (Cespa & Cestone, 2007, p. 743). Fertial News has attracted our interest to have this qualitative research, since a large amount of social and environmental information has been communicated, regularly, through it. Qualitative researches are generally based on coding, which is the basis of the data analysis. A successful coding process defines the quality of the results of the qualitative research.
"Any researcher who wishes to become proficient at doing qualitative analysis must learn to code well and easily. The excellence of the research rests in large part on the excellence of the coding" (Strauss, 1987, p. 27). To ensure an efficient coding process, we have used a Qualitative Data Analysis Software (AQDAS), especially since manual coding is tiring and time consuming when the researcher is dealing with long texts that contain huge amount of data. The AQDAS that we have used for this research is QDA Miner 1 , which is a mixed methods and qualitative data analysis software, designed to assist researchers in managing, coding and analyzing qualitative data.

Results
We have focused, while coding, on phrases and statements mentioning, explicitly or implicitly, a communication process between Fertial and its stakeholder(s), in order to highlight the purpose of the communication process and the nature of the transferred information. We have assigned one hundred fifty one codes (151) included within three main themes that we have adopted for this analysis, which are derived from the research questions: (1) CSR communication motives, (2) CSR communication determinants, (3) Importance of social information for stakeholders vs operational information. Accordingly, twenty (20) categories have been derived from these themes. We have used four coding methods: In Vivo, descriptive, Initial and value coding. In this section, we display the themes and categories, of this qualitative data analysis research, according to each research questions: RQ1: What motivates Fertial to communicate its CSR engagements? -Fertial's CSR communication motives. International ranking: This category contains codes that reflect Fertial's goal to have a good continental and international ranking, amongst companies operating within the same industrial sector, especially through the international certifications and standards. -Evidence from data: "It is for us, managers and employees, a satisfaction and a motive of pride, because we are becoming an example on the African continent". Social dialogue: This category is consisted of codes with regards to the improvement of Fertial's internal social environment. -Evidence from data: "… the main objective of the social dialogue as such is to encourage the formation of a consensus among the internal stakeholders of company…" (Fertial News, 2017, n°62). Corporate image: Codes included within this category are derived from Fertial's motive to improve its image through CSR communication.
-Evidence from data: "... a better environmental protection, better public image…" (Fertial News, 2017, n°58). Corporate citizenship: this category represents Fertial's motive to communicate its CSR engagements in order to display its citizenship. -Evidence from data: "The objective pursued through these different actions is to reinforce our image as a corporate citizen and to stay in tune with our society" (Fertial News, 2018). HSE Culture: Fertial's motive to foster the culture of Health, Security and Environment (HSE) by communicating with its different stakeholders (internal and external).
Operational communication: Operational transferred information during professional and operational contexts such as: technical meetings, interviews, workshops and visits; General external communication: Fertial communication with its external public about different matters and subjects, other than operational or professional; Professional external events: This category contains codes assigning Fertial's professional information and communications during saloons, showrooms, seminars with its stakeholders who assist these events as participants or visitors; External stakeholders' communication: Codes in this category are grouped to highlight Fertial's communication with its key stakeholders, such as the Algerian ministry of environment, shareholders and distributors.  According to the categories of this qualitative analysis, "Client coaching" and "Client satisfaction management" derived from data collected from 'Fertial News', we have found that Fertial is very dedicated to provide its clients with consulting and guidance via its large consultants' national network. Nevertheless, all these communication activities are not, in fact, voluntary and they just correspond to the Clause 4.7 of ISO 17025 2 . According to this clause, the company guides on clients' value the maintenance of good communication, advice and guidance in technical matters and opinions and interpretations based on results, communication with the client, especially in large assignments. Within the same context, Fertial pays great attention to its clients' satisfaction, and determined to fulfil their satisfaction by setting a communication strategy in order to get clients' feedback and data collection, that help improve the quality of products, and maintain good relationships with these important stakeholders. Regarding ISO 9001 (Clause 9.1.2), it is required for organizations to implement a consistent and systematic approach when dealing with customer feedback and that they consider collecting information on customer perception 3 . Therefore, this proves that Ferial's communications while seeking feedback and data collection to understand its clients' perceptions are not voluntary and they are just a way to be up to ISO 9001 requirements.
Within the third theme, we have aimed to address the matter of the importance of social information compared with operational information. According to data collected from 'Fertial News', we have found that most of Fertial communications, with stakeholders, are characterized by the operational and professional dimension. Moreover, the majority of codes regarding sentences and paragraphs that talk about many communication activities implemented to fulfil professional actions and technical goals, such as: "Legal watch committee meetings", "monitoring meetings operations", "Seminar on energy efficiency", "Risk management reporting" etc. Therefore, Ferial's stakeholders show more interest in information with regards to professional and operational matters, than social information that is not related to the company's core business activities, like local football club sponsorship and women's day ceremony.
To sum up, the main finding of this study is that Fertial CSR communication via its house journal shows that the majority of the communicated social information is considered as response to external stakeholders' influence, which means it is not voluntary and not generated from the managers' awareness about the importance of this kind of communication. Furthermore, Fertial's stakeholders find that operational and professional information more important than social information that is not generated from the company's core business activities. Since Fertial is operating within the petrochemical industrial field, the determinant "company's activity sector" marks, obviously, Fertial's CSR communication, because managers are determined to communicate actively about environmental information with the internal public via meetings and workshops, investigations and inspections reports; in order to insure good clean practices by following the security measures set by external stakeholders, such as the Algerian ministry of environment and the international standard organizations.

5-Discussion and conclusion
The interest of this study was triggered by the fact that a voluntary CSR communication investigation might be more efficient, if we focus our data collection on voluntary communication tools, such as the house journal. Knowing that, lots of researchers have focused their investigations on annual reports and company's websites. According the Social Disclosure Levels Model, that we have suggested in a previous publication (Zieita, 2017a), we believe that Fertial's CSR communication matches the second level of this model, which is the "selective disclosure level"; especially since Fertial is operating within in a very sensitive activity sector, where its practices are more likely to be considered as a threat to the local environment. Furthermore, Fertial's non-contractual stakeholders such as citizens are not so interested in social information, which makes the company more relaxed and does not feel the need to communicate massively and voluntarily about all of its CSR engagements.