"Twitter, social corporate responsibility and economic performance: how multinational companies exploit social media"

Abstract

The digital era has completely changed the way we communicate. This study aims to explore the way through which some of the largest companies use Twitter to reach out to their stakeholders. Moreover, defining the purposes of a business or a company has always been controversial. Indeed, it is very common to believe that business is driven by the desire to make a profit. However, in recent times, there has been a significant change in our understanding of what should be the principal objective of a business and how it can affect society. In this research is argued that the concept of the so-called social responsibility is becoming more prevalent in business; there are companies, especially those from the multinational groups, that have shown a growing interest in carrying out some type of corporate social activities. In order to produce a clear research about the possible correlation between Corporate Social Responsibility and tech company’s performance, in this dissertation will be taken into considerations Multinational tech companies. These are the best candidates, due to their general business model characteristics and the sustainable competitive advantage. The research is conduct analyzing ten companies which are selected from the ranking of the “Fortune 500”. More precisely, these are the “10 Best Large Workplaces in Technology” (ranking 2021). The companies that will be here examined, have distinguished themselves in their conduct and social commitment during the COVID-19 pandemic. To conduct this research analysis, Social Corporate Responsibility should be correlated to financial performance; this result would be reached through the analysis of the social media platform called Twitter. Indeed, it is a core tool in communication and marketing areas. Consequently, the best practice would be to analyze the Twitter activities of these companies, both the company account itself and especially how company executives communicate social responsibility issues on their accounts. We will try to understand if there is a positive correlation between some particular social responsibility issues and company stock price variation, which will represent the financial performance of the company itself and will be gathered through one of the most reliable financial market websites which is “www.YahooFinance.com”. Furthermore, in Chapter 1 it is explained Corporate Social Responsibility in modern times with a specific focus on how it is communicated by corporations. We will also delve into social media, that represents one of the most used tools to communicate corporates` initiatives. Within Chapter 2 it is introduced the role of social media nowadays with a specific focus on Twitter, one of the most famous social media which represents the starting point of this thesis research. The following step will be explained within Chapter 3 which is about companies’ profile (business model canvas and key financial results) in order to being able to make a comparison between them. The ultimate aim of this research is to understand if Corporate Social Responsibility has the possibility to modify stock prices.