Corporate reputation and CSR reporting to stakeholders: Gaps in the literature and future lines of research

The purpose of this paper is to provide a literature review of the underdeveloped stream of research that analyses corporate reputation as an outcome of corporate social responsibility (CSR) reporting.

The author systematically reviews the theoretical and empirical literature on the CSR reporting-reputation relationship, identify several gaps in the body of knowledge and provide new lines of study to develop this relevant stream of research.

The literature review demonstrates that CSR reporting is especially useful to generate corporate reputation. The justification for this idea is provided by as many as five theoretical approaches, while the management of corporate transparency, information quantity and information quality is shown to be crucial to the success of CSR reporting.

The value of the paper resides in making the rather underdeveloped, heterogeneous and inconclusive literature on the CSR reporting-reputation link more accessible to CSR reporting scholars and practitioners. At the same time, suggestions are provided for future research that would contribute to improving the knowledge on the relationship between CSR reporting and corporate reputation.