Passing the Buck or Owning Up? Asymmetric Use of General‐ versus Self‐referencing Following CSR Underperformance

Abstract Corporate social responsibility (CSR) reporting is a central tool through which firms manage legitimacy and stakeholder attributions. However, we know little about how firms select among different symbolic attribution tactics when CSR performance falls below aspiration levels, or how accountability contexts shape these choices. Drawing on the behavioural theory of the firm and attribution theory, we examine how CSR underperformance influences firms’ usage of general‐referencing (external attributions) versus self‐referencing (internal attributions) in CSR reports, analysing 4641 reports from 840 Chinese manufacturers (2011–2019) using computational text analysis and firm fixed‐effects panel models. The results show that CSR underperformance leads firms to increase general‐referencing while more sharply reducing self‐referencing, yielding an asymmetry in attributional framing. This asymmetric shift is significantly stronger in polluting industries and in firms with CSR committees, which face heightened accountability. The study extends the behavioural theory of the firm by theorising and documenting symbolic problemistic search in CSR narratives and advances attribution theory and CSR communication research by showing how organisations calibrate the locus and intensity of blame‐attributing language under varying accountability pressures.