CSR reporting in the pharmaceutical industry and pre-crisis communication. An impression management perspective

This article contributes to the studies about CSR reporting in the pharmaceutical industry, aiming to understand whether COVID-19 vaccine producers have used an impression management strategy during the pandemic emergency. This research was focused on CSR reports of vaccine producers in 2020 and 2021, having applied a content analysis method. This study investigated the quantitative amount of disclosure and qualitatively, the thematic topics connected to a possible impression management strategy. This research revealed that vaccine producers used a proactive approach to preserve and reinforce their reputation. The topics analyzed in the CSR reports appeared selected to influence the development of a global acceptance from vaccine producers’ stakeholders. This research contributes to filling the knowledge gap about CSR reporting in the pharmaceutical industry, a topic that has received limited attention in the literature. Moreover, we conducted one of the first studies about impression management in CSR reporting in the pharmaceutical sector and also considered a different perspective relative to previous studies in impression management research. Indeed, we investigated the use of impression management in a pre-crisis phase, which is a fundamental moment to creating resilience for a stakeholder-reaction to negative events.