The Goldilocks Effect: How the “Just Right” Writing Styles of Global Corporate Responsibility Frameworks Shapes Their Use by Businesses

ABSTRACT The 21st century has witnessed a surge in the number of global corporate responsibility (GCR) frameworks issued by international organizations (IOs). Our study investigates whether and to what extent these frameworks shape businesses' Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) communications. Integrating insights from computational linguistics, we propose that the textual characteristics of GCR frameworks, mainly how they are written, play a crucial role in determining their use by businesses. Using natural language processing, we analyze CSR communications from 320 firms, encompassing 4025 documents, to determine the extent of their incorporation of text from GCR frameworks. The study identifies a “Goldilocks effect,” whereby businesses' use of GCR framework is greatest when the language is neither overly simple nor excessively complex.