Accessible Communication of Corporate Social Responsibility: Development and Preliminary Evaluation of an Online Module
Abstract
Communicating clearly about their socially responsible activities is becoming increasingly important for companies, as a growing number of stakeholders with different goals, knowledge, and language skills seek information on corporate social responsibility (CSR). Furthermore, the ability to communicate clearly is particularly appreciated in the workplace. To fill a gap in CSR communication training, this article describes the development and preliminary evaluation of an interdisciplinary and multimodal online module whose goal is to train Dutch-speaking business students in the production of accessible CSR content in English. After presenting our module, we discuss its implications for future training and for corporate communication.
More than ever, the ability to adapt communication to the needs and preferences of the target audience has become a valuable skill in the workplace (Coffelt & Smith, 2020). Increasingly, companies expect their employees to show interpersonal skills that allow them to communicate clearly with colleagues, investors, customers, the media, and other stakeholders (Engstrom, 2019). The importance that is attributed to effective communication is not surprising when considering that businesses that produce clear, transparent, and straightforward messages tend to attract more investments and a higher number of loyal customers (Y. Chen et al., 2019).
Among the topics that companies communicate about, one that is gaining increasing attention worldwide is corporate social responsibility (CSR). More and more stakeholders expect businesses to be clear and transparent about their treatment of employees and suppliers, their environmental impact, and their contributions to society, among others (Tang et al., 2015). Different stakeholder groups also prefer different channels, formats, and languages when receiving CSR content, depending on their prior business/financial knowledge, their reading goals, and their reading ability. Customers, for instance, prefer CSR information on corporate websites and social media, where the content tends to be summarized, easy to read, and engaging (Cone Communications, 2015). Failing to take into consideration and to address the communicative needs and preferences of stakeholders can have a negative impact on the financial performance of businesses (Devie et al., 2020; Du et al., 2010).
Producing clear and engaging CSR content is, however, not an easy task (Usmani et al., 2020), and to the best of our knowledge, no specific training resources are available. In order to fill this gap, we developed an online module (in English) on producing accessible CSR communication, which relies on examples from two company-controlled CSR communication channels, namely, reports and websites (Du et al., 2010). Focusing on lay customers as the target audience, our module aims to teach students of Business, Economics, and related disciplines (who are not native speakers of English) the principles of accessible communication and how they can be applied to CSR content. In this article, we first review relevant literature and present the theoretical framework that informed our training. We then describe the design, development, and preliminary evaluation of our module. Finally, we discuss the implications for training and corporate communication, along with future work.
Literature Review
In this section, we start by defining CSR and its role within business practices, as outlined in previous works. Subsequently, we zoom in on the focus of this article by reviewing literature on the challenges and characteristics of CSR-related communication, especially in corporate reports and on corporate websites. We conclude this section with a discussion of the need for training in accessible CSR communication, which represents the rationale behind this article.
Corporate Social Responsibility: What Is It?
Corporate social responsibility—often referred to with other terms, such as Environmental, Social, and Corporate Governance, or corporate sustainability (Pérez Cañizares, 2021)—involves the commitment of companies to consider and to address the social, environmental, and ethical consequences of their activities (Carroll, 2008), as well as their willingness to engage with stakeholders and to do more than is strictly required by regulations (Dahlsrud, 2008). Unlike financial reporting—which mainly addresses a specialized readership—the reporting of corporate socially responsible activities targets different types of stakeholders, including customers, investors, employees, governments, nongovernmental organizations, and the media (Smeuninx et al., 2020; Tschopp & Huefner, 2015).
CSR has become an integral part of business practices and its reporting has seen a steady increase in in the past decade (KPMG, 2016) even though geographical differences have been observed. For instance, Zamir and Saeed (2020) found that, in emerging economies (e.g., Brazil, China, and Turkey), proximity to financial centers has a positive impact on the extent of CSR disclosures, possibly as a result of stronger pressure from customers, regulators, and other stakeholders. Similarly, in their analysis of U.S. firms, Husted et al. (2016) found that companies that are geographically closer to major cities show higher engagement with CSR. Differences in the focus and amount of CSR reporting have also been observed in comparisons between countries, as a result of domestic legislation and societal concerns, and especially when global reporting standards are not (fully) adopted (Fortanier et al., 2011)—see, for example, Golob and Bartlett (2007) for a comparison between Slovenia and Australia in terms of CSR reporting practices.
Despite these geographical differences, previous research has shown that corporate socially responsible activities are able to influence customers’ loyalty, purchase intentions, investments, and employment-seeking strategies (Cahan et al., 2016; Martínez & del Bosque, 2013; Sen et al., 2006). In particular, customers place emphasis on how companies treat suppliers, on their levels of emissions and waste, on their investment in research for environment-friendly products, on their involvement in social projects, on the beneficiaries of CSR activities, and on companies’ offers of job opportunities (Ailawadi et al., 2014; Kim & Ferguson, 2014; Öberseder et al., 2013; Sustainable Business Council, Perceptive, & Porter Novelli, 2019).
Communicating CSR
CSR communication has been analyzed from various angles, for example, as part of business ethics, public relations, corporate communication, or reputation management, to name a few (Ihlen et al., 2011). Any positive impact of socially responsible activities depends on the ability of companies to raise awareness about these activities (Lee et al., 2013; Servaes & Tamayo, 2013). Information on the socially responsible activities of a company can be found in stand-alone sustainability reports, as part of annual financial reports, or in integrated reports that combine sustainability and financial information (Chaidali & Jones, 2017; Mazzotta et al., 2020). Additionally, especially when dealing with customers, companies have been using advertising, product packages, social media, blogs, and their official websites (Cone Communications, 2015).
There are, however, various obstacles to the effective communication of socially responsible activities. For instance, not all stakeholders might regard all of the CSR dimensions (e.g., environmental or social) as equally important and valuable (Dawkins, 2004; Du et al., 2010; Fadun, 2014). Furthermore, the public might be wary of aggressive communication that put excessive focus on a company’s engagement with CSR (Du et al., 2010; Ihlen et al., 2011), for instance, by using a multitude of advertisements.
Other obstacles—and the focus of this article—are the difficult language and the unappealing presentation of CSR content, especially for customers (Nilipour et al., 2020). Different from financial information, CSR content is mainly presented in textual and nonquantifiable format (Du et al., 2017). Accordingly, the standards and guidelines that are available for companies disclosing their socially responsible activities mention the importance of using accessible language and engaging presentation, for example, by avoiding technical terms and acronyms, and by making content easy to navigate (AccountAbility, 2018; Global Reporting Initiative Standards, 2020; Tschopp & Huefner, 2015). However, no specific guidance on language-related issues is available in these documents.
CSR Disclosures in Reports
Research on the readability and on the visual aspects of CSR disclosure has been gaining momentum in the past decade. Scholars so far have mainly examined reports, with studies being conducted all over the world, from Malaysia and Italy to New Zealand and the United States (see, e.g., Abu Bakar & Ameer, 2011; Mazzotta et al., 2020; Nazari et al., 2017; Nilipour et al., 2020).
From several of these studies, it emerged that CSR disclosures in reports tend to show a low readability level, indicating that stakeholders might find them difficult to read and to comprehend (Abu Bakar & Ameer, 2011; Nilipour et al., 2020; Smeuninx, 2018). Additionally, the extent to which companies use reports to create a personal relationship with their readers seems to be language- and culture-dependent (Castagnoli & Magistro, 2019). Difficult language tends to be associated with a weaker CSR or financial performance (Wang et al., 2018) and to be used as an impression management tactic. For instance, Lourenço et al. (2017) focused on the CEO letters of CSR reports and found that, among leading CSR companies, those with lower profitability disclose more information but using less comprehensible language.
As far as visual aspects are concerned—also regarded as an important component of readability—these have become key components of CSR reports (Pesci & Costa, 2014). Catellani (2015), for instance, observed that the visual rhetoric of CSR reports is influenced by an increasing pressure to make corporate communication accessible. An investigation conducted by Helfaya et al. (2019) on the quality of corporate environmental reporting found that both writers and users of reports value the presence of tables, graphs, and pictures as elements that can improve the quality of the reports. So far, scholars have investigated the way in which companies use images and photographs in reports to frame their CSR-related efforts (Garcia & Greenwood, 2015), to communicate their values, and to build their own images (Pallasvirta, 2010). García-Sánchez and Araújo-Bernardo (2020) also found that, while some companies use images of small and uniform size to support the content of the text, others might use large images that interfere with the reader’s comprehension of the data discussed in reports. On a related topic, Kanbaty et al. (2020) observed that infographics in sustainability reports tend to emphasize favorable/positive disclosures for the purpose of impression management.
It is interesting to point out that, as a measure of readability, so far studies have mainly adopted the size of a document (e.g., Li, 2008; Nazari et al., 2017), or traditional formulas, which predominantly rely on word length and sentence length (see, e.g., Du & Yu, 2021; Wang et al., 2018). However, a study by Smeuninx et al. (2020) also adopted natural language processing tools to collect data on passive structures, syntactic depth (e.g., subordination), and lexical density (i.e., number of content words vs. grammatical words) of both financial and CSR reports. Furthermore, Mazzotta et al. (2020) measured the amount of visual communication by dividing the number of visual pages for the total pages.
CSR Disclosures on Websites
Scholars are increasingly looking at the language and visual aspects of other channels of communication of CSR content, such as social media (M. Cho et al., 2017; Chung & Lee, 2019; Reilly & Larya, 2018; Testarmata et al., 2018), recruitment documents (Duff, 2016), and posts on corporate websites (Adams & Frost, 2006; Amaladoss & Manohar, 2013; C. H. Cho et al., 2009). The interest in other channels of communication should not surprise when considering that consumers prefer CSR content that is more accessible than the traditional report. For instance, 44% of New Zealanders reported using corporate websites when seeking information about the sustainability of a company (Sustainable Business Council, Perceptive, & Porter Novelli, 2019). Furthermore, according to a Cone Communications (2015) report, 43% of consumers worldwide prefer to access CSR-related information in the form of written summaries, followed by interactive websites and videos.
While CSR reports allow companies to include all the details of their activities, corporate websites provide limited space so only relevant and succinct information can be shared (Wei, 2020). Furthermore, compared with reports, websites allow for more creative ways of disclosing content, including the integration of text with audio, images, and video (Bosetti, 2018; Wei, 2020). In other words, companies relying on websites have to decide what CSR information to disclose and how to disclose it (Wei, 2020). Websites are particularly used by companies to share their philosophies, build awareness about their socially responsible activities, and establish a relationship of trust with the public (Kim & Rader, 2010; Park & Reber, 2008).
Only few studies have examined the readability and linguistic features of CSR content on corporate websites. Of these, Wei (2020) found that companies with a stronger environmental commitment tend to use more common words and to have a consistent style of disclosure, compared with companies having a weaker performance. Ruchi (2012) examined the scanability (e.g., typography and layout), the readability (including use of pictures), and the accessibility (i.e., the easiness with which CSR communication can be reached) of Indian and India-based multinational companies. Similarly, Pérez Cañizares (2021) analyzed the accessibility and the terminology of CSR content on Spanish and Latin American corporate websites, with accessibility defined as the number of clicks needed in order to reach CSR topics. In analyzing the web-based communication of 50 companies recognized as CSR leaders, Bosetti (2018) reports satisfactory results in terms of readable content, short paragraphs, and simple sentences, while also highlighting the need for charts and tables to summarize social and environmental performance. It should be noted that these studies focus on self-contained posts on corporate websites, even though corporate websites often display hyperlinks that allow users to access entire CSR reports online (Morhardt, 2010; Wei, 2020).
Training in CSR Communication
Producing and effectively communicating CSR content is a time-consuming and complex task (Usmani et al., 2020). Several departments are often involved in the preparation of CSR reporting (Usmani et al., 2020), with junior and mid-tier managers being trained on reporting objectives, scope, and plan (Farooq & de Villiers, 2019). External design consultants can also be involved to provide assurance that requirements are met (Chaidali & Jones, 2017). The reporting strategy often needs to match the CEO’s vision and the Global Reporting Initiative Standards, and the final product has to lead to a positive user experience (Farooq & de Villiers, 2019; Usmani et al., 2020).
A vastly underlooked aspect of CSR communication is, however, the training of future writers of CSR content, particularly writers who do not have a linguistics background. To the best of our knowledge, no previous article has described the design, development, and evaluation of a module on producing accessible CSR content for customers. Specifically, our module aims to train (business) students with English as a Foreign Language in the revision of the format and language of CSR content as found in reports with a view to rendering it more accessible and apt for publication on a corporate website. In the section below, we briefly describe the theoretical framework that guided the design and development of our module.
Theoretical (Re)Writing Framework
Rewriting or text revision has been described as a goal-oriented, complex, and effortful task (Scardamalia & Bereiter, 1987; Stevenson et al., 2006; Van Gelderen & Oostdam, 2004), in which the writer identifies discrepancies between the planned text and the written text (i.e., problem detection), decides on what should be changed and how to make the changes (problem diagnosis), and then adopts an editing strategy with the goal of bringing the written text closer to the intended text (problem correction; Fitzgerald, 1987; Hayes et al., 1987). In other words, text revision is a specialized writing activity which begins with planning a solution to a problem detected in the text, followed by the translation of that solution into new text, and then by the revision of the new input (Hayes, 2012). These processes tend to occur in a recursive way (Faigley & Witte, 1981) until the writers are satisfied with their texts (Van Gelderen & Oostdam, 2004).
Several factors can prompt writers to revise, from a spelling mistake to a mismatch with the requirements of the topic, the genre, the task, or the audience (Lindgren & Sullivan, 2006). Accordingly, revision can involve different types of changes, from surface changes affecting spelling and grammar, to interventions on content, to more pragmatic-oriented edits (e.g., reorganizing the text to meet the needs of the audience; Conijn et al., 2020; Lindgren & Sullivan, 2006). Depending on their characteristics, revisions differ in terms of the cognitive effort that they require. For example, revisions of form (such as spelling) tend to require less effort than revisions of text structure, cohesion, consistency, goals, and ideas (Kellogg et al., 2013; Lindgren & Sullivan, 2006).
Revision is not just a cognitive but also a social activity, shaped by a sociocultural context in which the intended readers (among other factors) play an important role as they determine writing plans, goals, and actions (Graham, 2018). When producing written texts that need to be comprehensible for a specific audience, the writer is often expected to anticipate and solve communication problems by taking into account the reader’s cognitive, affective, and motivational traits (Linnemann, 2019). According to previous research, the ability to anticipate readers’ needs (e.g., through transcripts of readers explaining their struggles with a text) can result in revisions that improve the accessibility of a text for the target audience (Schriver, 1992).
Revisions aimed at enhancing text accessibility can be varied, involving the use of common vocabulary, simple sentence structures, and cohesive devices (Crossley et al., 2014), as well as the explanation of complex ideas, the adoption of a lay-friendly genre (Muñoz-Miquel, 2012), text restructuring, text summarization (Barkaoui, 2016; Bingel, 2018; J. Chen, 2020; Federal Plain Language Guidelines, 2011), and the introduction of visual aids, such as images, bold formatting, and bulleted lists (Lonsdale, 2014; Morkes & Nielsen, 1997; Walker, 2017). As a result of their variability, revisions oriented to text accessibility have been examined from multiple angles, in the broader areas of text simplification, text summarization, reading, web accessibility, information design, and intralingual translation.
As the next section will show, in developing our training, we considered empirical evidence and principles from all these research areas. For the purpose of our training, we have also adopted a broad view of revision that would encompass different types of edits, as well the rewriting of text from scratch (Hayes et al., 1987) and the inclusion of visual elements. In addition to focusing on textual changes (product-oriented perspective on rewriting), we have also provided a process-oriented perspective to address the dynamics of (re)writing (Lindgren et al., 2011). We regarded this broad view as particularly appropriate for the complex revision task of taking content from CSR reports and rendering it suitable for publication on corporate websites.
Our Module
In this section, we delve into the development and the main features of our module. In particular, we start by presenting the analysis—limited in scope—of extracts of corporate reports and of corporate websites that informed our choice of training materials. Then we provide a general overview of our module by discussing its high-level structure, its hosting environment, and its content format. Subsequently, we describe the three main components of our module, namely the theoretical section, the exercises, and the case study.
Task Development
With our module, we aim to train students in the revision skills that are needed to adapt CSR-related written communication to a lay audience. In order to provide students with a concrete task for their revision activities, we selected, on the one hand, corporate reports as examples of difficult-to-understand CSR communication and, on the other hand, corporate websites as examples of CSR communication that are preferred by customers for their higher accessibility and engaging format. Our choice of corporate reports as examples of complex CSR communication was motivated by the results of previous research highlighting the low readability of these text types. For example, Smeuninx et al. (2020) found that education at graduate level is needed for an optimal comprehension of CSR reports, and that CEO letters in financial reports are significantly easier to read than sustainability content. Similarly, our selection of corporate websites as examples of more accessible and engaging communication was justified by previous works showing that CSR content on these channels can be understood more easily thanks to features such as common words, personal pronouns, multimedia elements, easy-to-find information, and a clear labelling of content (Siano et al., 2016; Wei, 2020).
Since we aimed to provide training materials (namely, theoretical components and practical exercises) that were as realistic as possible and representative of the linguistic and visual features of CSR content in both reports and on websites, we selected a small sample of companies and examined the language and visual aspects that they adopted in both channels. Specifically, following the procedure described in Smeuninx et al. (2020), we selected both stand-alone reports and financial reports produced by environmentally sensitive (i.e., mining and oil) and by socially sensitive (i.e., semiconductors and apparel) companies. These reports (eight in total) had been produced between 2018 and 2020, and the companies that produced them are based in Europe, Australia, India, and the United States. With regard to the websites, we checked the online pages of the same companies so as to allow for a more direct comparison between reports and websites (although one of these companies does not have CSR information on their website). Furthermore, by way of additional comparison, we also analyzed the websites of four businesses recognized as highly sustainable, based on data from platforms such as Rank A Brand. In terms of content, we mainly selected short extracts (on average 581 words for reports and 236 words for websites) dealing with environmental and social matters. While our comparison is not systematic and is very limited in scope, it helps shed light on some of the features of these two text types.
There is, however, an important caveat to bear in mind. Even with the same text type, companies vary greatly in the way they report their socially responsible activities, mainly as a result of their actual sustainability and financial performance, as well as geographical and cultural differences, as shown by previous research. Below we present some general characteristics, but this variability should be kept in mind. Finally, since the module is in English, the training materials adopted are also in English. Accordingly, we acknowledge here that we have introduced a strong English-language bias.
Corporate Reports
The analysis of our sample of extracts of corporate reports shed light on their high percentage of complex words (25% on average, corresponding to one quarter of all the words in the extracts), and on their fairly long sentences (about 24 words per sentence, on average), as assessed through a free online tool for readability analysis provided by WebFX. With regard to syntax, we also noticed the use of passive voice and complex sentence structures.
We measured the cohesion of the selected report extracts using the Coh-Metrix Common Core Text Ease and Readability Assessor (henceforth T.E.R.A.), which provides data on referential cohesion (i.e., the extent to which sentences/paragraphs have words and ideas in common) and on deep cohesion (namely, the extent to which a text contains connectives that tie ideas and information together; McNamara et al., 2011). T.E.R.A. provides a percentile score—the higher the score, the higher the accessibility of the text. On average, the selected extracts received a percentile score of 35 on referential cohesion (SD = 23) and a percentile score of 33 on deep cohesion (SD = 16). Bearing in mind that there was substantial variability among reports (with referential cohesion scores ranging from 8% to 66%, and deep cohesion scores ranging from 6% to 58%), our limited analysis pointed to the need to also address cohesive features in our course.
As far as relevance is concerned, since company reports (especially CSR stand-alone reports) address a variety of stakeholders—from customers, to investors, to NGOs—it is not surprising that they tend to be long and to contain detailed information about various performance indicators, many of which might not be of interest to all the target groups. For instance, one of the reports that we analyzed contains a detailed description of audits and internal controls that—while being very relevant for investors—might be of less interest to customers.
With regard to the use of visual aspects, most of the reports that we examined include pictures, tables, and graphs. They also adopt white spaces to separate paragraphs, bulleted/numbered lists, and larger font and bold formatting for section headings. Despite the presence of these visual aspects that are beneficial for text accessibility, the pages are dense and text-heavy: paragraphs tend to be long, in small font, and rarely are keywords or topic sentences highlighted within the paragraphs.
In our module, we used extracts of CSR reports containing the linguistic and visual issues mentioned in this section, along with examples of how students can address these issues and ensure that texts are accessible enough to be published on corporate websites. But what are the features of CSR content on corporate websites?
Corporate Websites
As would be expected, CSR information on corporate websites is widely supported by images, videos, spacing, bulleted lists, and special formatting. Furthermore, differently from the corporate report extracts that we analyzed, paragraphs tend to be shorter and in a larger font size. All these aspects contribute to making sustainability information on websites not only accessible but also engaging. In terms of relevance, thanks to drop-down menus, navigation menus, and internal links, customers that seek information on a company’s CSR activities on the web can easily select their content of interest and avoid feeling discouraged by an information overload.
However, somewhat surprisingly, when analyzing the linguistic features—that is, vocabulary, syntax, and cohesion—of the websites of the same companies included in the report analysis, we noticed only minor improvements compared with the linguistic features of reports. In other words, the percentage of complex words was still close to a quarter of the entire words (23%), and the average sentence length remained high (about 26 words per sentence, on average). Additionally, the percentile scores of referential cohesion (37%) and deep cohesion (37%) were only slightly higher than the levels of cohesion identified in report extracts. While limited in scope, these results seemed to indicate that some companies produce sustainability content of low readability regardless of the channel used.
Informed by previous research according to which companies with a good CSR performance tend to produce more readable sustainability information (Nazari et al., 2017), we expanded our analysis of linguistic features to include extracts of the websites of four companies that are widely appreciated for their CSR activities. As expected, extracts from the websites of these companies showed a lower percentage of complex words (15%), a lower number of average words per sentence (21 words), higher referential cohesion scores (49%) and higher deep cohesion scores (76%).
With these results in mind, for our module, we drew examples from the websites of companies renowned for their CSR activities and presented them to students as gold standards to guide their revision activities.
Module Overview
Our module is hosted by Calliope, a multilingual online writing center. The module is in English and is divided into four sections: (1) an introduction with a description of learning outcomes and module structure; (2) theory on accessible communication, CSR, revision of CSR content, and revision expertise; (3) exercises to practice what is discussed in the theoretical section; and (4) a case study, where students are assigned an extract of a CSR report and are asked to revise it for publication on a corporate website. The entire module is freely available at the following link: https://hosting.uantwerpen.be/calliope/plantra/
The online writing center Calliope that hosts this module can accommodate the needs and preferences of students with different learning styles (Van Waes et al., 2014). In particular, students can move freely between the different parts of the course (i.e., introduction, theory, practice, and case study) and decide on which of these components they would like to focus more. Previous research on the online writing center Calliope has shown, for instance, that, compared with reflective learners, active learners are more likely to focus on the case study (Van Waes et al., 2014).
In order to further adapt this module to different learning styles, in the theoretical section, we made content available in both textual and video format. Concretely, each of the main topics discussed in the theory is accompanied by a written text and by a short, dynamic video (and three topics are available only in video format). The use of multiple media in training allows for a flexible approach to learning (Gunawardhana & Palaniappan, 2016; Philippe et al., 2020), and is therefore particularly suitable for the Calliope online writing center environment. We also used the same audiovisual materials in the introduction and ending of each video so as to give students a sense of continuity and coherence. Figure 1 is a screenshot of our theoretical section.
In the sections below, we are going to delve into the various components of our module; namely, theory, exercises, and case study.
Theoretical Section
The theoretical section of our module is divided into three high-level subsections, dealing with (1) the general principles of accessible communication; (2) CSR communication and the revision of CSR content; and (3) the development of text revision expertise.
Theoretical Subsection on Accessible Communication
The theoretical subsection on accessible communication starts with a brief discussion on the terminological variability that surrounds accessible communication. In particular, we introduce related terms such as easy language, plain language, and clear language.
Subsequently, we discuss the importance of considering the target reader to produce accessible texts. Specifically, we introduce the trainee to some of the reader’s characteristics that might facilitate (or hinder) their comprehension of a text, such as their reading ability, their preexisting knowledge of a topic (Ozuru et al., 2009), and their reading goal (Yeari et al., 2015). In order to assist the students in building a mental image of the target audience for which they will be asked to revise, we describe a specific reader, namely, someone who is not an expert of a topic, who has limited reading ability, and is reading a text to get the gist. We selected this reader because he/she represents a realistic target, namely, a potential customer who is not an expert on CSR but wants to check the website of a company to get a quick idea of their engagement with social responsibility before buying a product from them. The company might be located in another country, and the CSR information might only be available in the customer’s second or third language.
It is worth underlining that we maintained this reader-oriented focus throughout the entire module, building on the assumptions that the target audience is the final judge of the level of accessibility achieved by a text (Maaß & Rink, 2020), and that different readers will find different texts accessible, depending on their skills and needs (O’Reilly & McNamara, 2007). Furthermore, a characteristic of experienced writers is their ability to approach revision as a global task, having in mind a specific goal, target audience, and overall organization (Wallace & Hayes, 1991).
The theoretical subsection on accessible communication continues with a description of five principles that can guide text revision, namely, vocabulary, sentence length/structure, cohesion, visual aspects, and relevance. These principles have traditionally been the focus of attention in readability studies and reader-friendly business writing (see, e.g., Canavor & Meirowitz, 2009). For each of these principles, we introduced a detect-diagnose-repair scenario informed by models of revision discussed in the previous section (Hayes et al., 1987). In other words, we present trainees with a statement to guide problem detection (e.g., readers cannot process too much information all at once), followed by an example of problem diagnosis (e.g., does this sentence contain too much information? Is its structure clear?), in turn followed by examples of how problems could be repaired (e.g., split and/or revise sentences that are longer than 25 words). Table 1 presents the principles of accessible communication discussed in our module and the revision strategies associated with each of them.
| Principles of accessible communication | Revision strategies | Relevant references |
|---|---|---|
| Vocabulary | Replace specialized and complex words Explain specialized and complex words | Cain and Oakhill (2014); Muñoz-Miquel (2012); O’Reilly et al. (2019); Perfetti and Stafura (2014); Siddharthan (2014) |
| Sentence length/structure | Split and reorganize content in sentences longer than 25 words Replace passive voice with active voice | Kadayat and Eika (2020); Safari and Mohaghegh Montazeri (2017); Scarton et al. (2017) |
| Cohesion | Repeat ideas and content words Use causal/temporal/logical connectives | Arfé et al. (2018); Crossley et al. (2012); Crossley et al. (2014); McNamara et al. (2012); O’Reilly and McNamara (2007) |
| Visual aspects | Add white spaces (e.g., between paragraphs) Use headings with different formatting Highlight keywords and topic sentences Use bulleted/numbered lists Add supporting images | Lonsdale (2014); Schriver (2013); W3C Web Accessibility Initiative (2021) |
| Relevance | Delete irrelevant content Summarize irrelevant content | Rossetti et al. (2020); Fries et al. (2019); Kodagoda et al. (2009); Maaß and Rink (2020); Pimperton and Nation (2010) |
With regard to visual aspects, it should be underlined here that, while we mention and discuss the use of images, a detailed explanation of how to use images effectively is beyond the scope of our training (see Catellani [2015] for a more detailed discussion). In other words, our main focus remains on textual visualization that complements the purely textual revisions.
Theoretical Subsection on CSR
The theoretical subsection on CSR begins with an explanation of what CSR is and why it is important. We focus in particular on the environmental, social, and workplace dimensions of CSR, as well as on the impact of CSR on customers’ loyalty and purchase decisions. After presenting trainees with examples of corporate socially responsible activities, we underline the variety of channels that companies can use to communicate these activities, such as reports, social media, and corporate websites. In line with the goal of this training, we then focus specifically on reports and corporate websites, and on the linguistic and visual features of CSR content in both channels, as reported in the above section on task development.
The theoretical subsection on CSR and its communication ends with a video showing students how an expert reviser applies the principles of accessible communication to CSR content from a report in order to make it suitable for publication on a website. Specifically, the video contains a recording of the reviser applying the revisions in Microsoft Word—a task which is very similar to the one that students need to carry out as part of the case study.
From a training point of view, the decision to show students how an expert revises a text was motivated by empirical evidence on the benefits of observational learning, whereby a trainee learns by observing the actions and hearing the descriptions of an expert before putting what he/she has learnt into practice (Rijlaarsdam et al., 2005). Through observational learning, the students/trainees can focus their attention on the actions of the expert by avoiding the mental effort that would be needed if they did the writing themselves (Kellogg, 2008).
Theoretical Subsection on Revision Expertise
Linked to the training principle of observational learning (Rijlaarsdam et al., 2008), the third and last theoretical subsection of this module focuses on revision expertise, and especially on how an expert and a novice reviser differ in terms of their revision process. Using a video of the process graphs produced with the keystroke logging tool Inputlog (Leijten & Van Waes, 2013), this section highlights how expert revisers differ from novices because (1) they spend some time reading the text and planning their revisions before making changes to the text; (2) their revisions have a stronger impact on the text and can alter the text structure, not just words or syntax; and (3) they carry out several rounds of revisions, checking the text and making changes at each round. In order to motivate students to carry out the exercises and the case study in this module, this video also highlights that practice is necessary to become expert revisers.
Exercises and Case Study
The practice section of our module consists of exercises and a case study. The exercises ask students to (1) guess the source of CSR-related extracts (e.g., whether they come from a report or a website); (2) guess the target of CSR-related extracts (e.g., if and why they address customers or investors); (3) rate the readability of selected CSR-related communication; (4) read a CSR report extract, highlight difficult elements, and try to revise it in order to make it more engaging and more accessible.
We provided solutions for all the exercises for two reasons. First of all, students who do the exercises can check how they fared, rethink their practice (when necessary), and hopefully use this knowledge in the case study. Second, for those students who do not have the time/willingness to do the exercises, the availability of solutions allows for some passive learning of how text revision can be carried out and on which text features they should focus. In line with the flexibility that characterizes the online writing center Calliope, each exercise is also followed by a link to the relevant theoretical sub-section, which students can consult if they have any doubts.
With regard to the case study, it starts with the description of a background. Specifically, we ask students to imagine that they work for the communication department of a big tobacco company. In order to become more sustainable and to meet the demands of numerous customers who want to quit smoking, the company has been reinventing itself and trying to sell less harmful smoke-free alternatives worldwide. While the move toward smoke-free products is described in detail in the latest corporate report, it is not mentioned on the company’s website, resulting in customers not being aware of it.
With this background in mind, we assign students an extract of a corporate report containing the issues mentioned in the module (i.e., difficult vocabulary, long/complex sentences, few cohesive devices, irrelevant content, and lacking visual aspects). Students are asked to revise this extract by making it suitable for publication on a corporate website. In line with the flexibility of the Calliope hosting environment (Van Waes et al., 2014), the students can consult the theory as many times as they need if they have doubts. They are also allowed to do online searches, for example, if they are unfamiliar with some of the concepts/terms in the extract.
Preliminary Evaluation
Our online module was evaluated by three experts and by three students of the Faculty of Business and Economics at the University of Antwerp (Belgium). Among the experts, two were native speakers of English and experts in accessible communication, while one was a native speaker of Dutch (fully proficient in English) and expert in CSR reporting. We selected experts in accessible communication and in CSR since these were the two main areas covered in the theoretical subsections of our module. The three students were all native speakers of Dutch with a high level of English proficiency. None of them were an expert in CSR. With regard to accessible writing, only one student self-reported being an expert. We selected these students because they represented a realistic target group for our module. Specifically, they were completing a master’s in professional communication whose goal was to prepare them to communicate effectively in a corporate environment.
The evaluation took place online and remotely. The participants took part in the module by reading the theory, completing the exercises, and carrying out the case study. Immediately after, they completed a questionnaire consisting of closed-ended and open-ended questions. The closed-ended questions (from Strongly agree to Strongly disagree on a 7-point scale) revolved around the structure, the delivery, the content, and the specific sections of the course. The open-ended questions asked participants to comment on the main strengths and the main weaknesses of the course, as well as to include any additional comments that they might have. The first author manually coded the short answers to these questions based on the specific feature of the module that they addressed.
With only two exceptions, the answers to the closed-ended questions given by the experts were all on the Agree side of the scale (i.e., either Somewhat agree, Agree, or Strongly agree). One expert chose the neutral option (i.e., Neither agree nor disagree) when asked if he found it easy to move between the different sections of the module. In line with this choice, in his open-ended answers, he suggested adding a side bar for navigation between introduction, theory, exercises, and case study rather than having to scroll to the top. All three experts strongly agreed that the topic of our course is relevant.
As far as students are concerned, most of their answers were also on the Agree side of the scale. However, two students selected the option Somewhat disagree when asked if they found it easy to move between the different sections of the module. Based on their following open-ended answers, their issues with moving between the module sections seemed to have been caused by the Calliope banner which is on top of every page of the module. Possibly for the same reason, one of these students disagreed with the statement that the visual appearance of the module is engaging. It is also worth noting that one student chose the neutral option (Neither agree nor disagree) when asked whether the overall time commitment was appropriate for the goal of the course. In line with this answer, she reported that sometimes the videos were slow—a remark which was also made by one of the experts.
With regard to the strengths of the module, most participants appreciated the availability of theoretical content in both textual and video format:
T (student):
[T]he main strengths of the module are the mixture between a video and a written theory section. It’s nice to mix these things up when you’re working all day on a computer.
C (expert):
Blended learning approach - visual/audio and or reading [ . . . ]. Attractive videos with timelines—and I liked the speaker’s voice. Pretty neutral in terms of accent and easy to listen to.
Other aspects of the course regarded as strengths were the organization of the theoretical section and the appropriateness of the practical exercises:
C (expert):
I like the way the theory pieces were tightly constructed. Length—pretty much the same, format was good and modelled plain language. Level of detail for lessons—usually very good and pretty balanced.
S (expert):
The exercises are long enough to be interesting but short enough to be accomplishable.
The participants also highlighted the weaknesses of our module. In particular, they suggested speeding up the videos and making the theoretical section more interactive (e.g., by embedding exercises after each subsection). There were also suggestions to expand on the theoretical content of the module. In particular, one of the two experts in accessible communication suggested highlighting the link between CSR and ethical language, discussing the impact of writers’ prior knowledge, and delving more into the benefits of using active voice and other visual strategies. On the other hand, the expert on CSR reporting suggested inserting a discussion on how CSR can be used by companies to create shared value by reconciling economic needs with societal/environmental needs (Porter & Kramer, 2011).
Other weaknesses of the module involved wording (e.g., overuse of the word “here”) and some of textual materials used for the exercises. In particular, one expert suggested choosing a text with better color contrast as an example of good design.
The same expert made an interesting comment on how the module could be made more student-friendly. This comment is particularly relevant when considering that our main target group are students of business, economics, and related disciplines who might have received limited training on linguistics and communication:
S (expert):
I think you may need shorter exercises for less experienced people or more color coding on the video of the person editing. Break down what they are doing into guidelines. Here they are using the active voice. Want to know more about the active voice? So shorter exercises for novices. It seems weighted towards more experienced editors.
In the final section below, we summarize the main points of this article, outline its implications, and discuss the next steps of this project.
Conclusions, Implications, and Future Work
By developing this online module, we set out to fill a gap in the area of business communication training, with a specific focus on the communication of corporate socially responsible activities. Using, on the one hand, examples from text types that previous research found difficult to read (i.e., corporate reports) and, on the other hand, examples from text types preferred by customers for their readability and engaging format (i.e., website posts), we aimed to train students in the revision techniques that they can apply to convert difficult business content into more accessible and engaging content.
Our module is highly interdisciplinary—its development was informed by different fields of research, from business and writing to education and psycholinguistics. In particular, to the best of our knowledge, this module is the first to guide students with a business/economics background in applying theories and empirical evidence from the areas of reading and writing when producing accessible texts in English as a foreign language. Thanks to its evidence-based, interdisciplinary perspective, this type of training can be particularly beneficial for those students who might end up being in charge of companies’ reporting strategies during the course of their careers and might therefore have to demonstrate expert written communication skills, in addition to specialized domain knowledge (Ranaut, 2018).
In this article, we delved into the development and design of our module in order to provide a blueprint for those teachers, researchers, or practitioners who are planning on developing interdisciplinary training on the rewriting of specialized content for a lay audience. In other words, the principles of accessible communication that we used for our training—along with the examples, the exercises, and the case study—can be used for composing other corporate reports and can be tailored and applied to other domains as well. In relation to this point, it is worth mentioning that the platform that hosted our module (i.e., Calliope) will soon be freely open to anyone interested in using it for their courses and training activities.1
Despite the limited number of participants and questions involved in our evaluation, the preliminary results shed light on the positive impact of providing theoretical content in multiple formats (text and video), applying a coherent and balanced module structure, and developing feasible and interesting exercises. In particular, the availability of theoretical content in audiovisual format can facilitate learning (and reduce cognitive effort) among visual-preference students (Homer et al., 2008). Furthermore, we observed the need of participants to be constantly engaged, either through (faster-paced) videos or through exercises that break down the flow of theoretical content.
The module weaknesses highlighted by the participants were varied and involved navigation between sections, visual aspects, tone, wording, and level of difficulty of the exercises. With regard to the content of the training, the plain language expert and the CSR expert among our participants highlighted the need to expand on some theoretical content from their respective areas of specialization. Their remarks show the benefits of involving domain experts in the evaluation of training materials. Overall, the varying nature of the aspects mentioned by our participants underlines the importance of considering the structure and the design of the learning environment, in addition to the content.
In summary, teachers, researchers, and practitioners interested in developing similar training might benefit from the explanation of how we designed our module and from the results of our preliminary evaluation. Concretely, practical advice from this article can be summarized as follows: (1) use empirical evidence and theories from all relevant disciplines since a variety of skills and knowledge is required in the workplace; (2) use training materials and exercises that resemble real-world scenarios; (3) provide examples of gold standards against which students can self-assess their activities; (4) allow for flexibility in learning styles and preferences; (5) consider how elements of the hosting environment can influence the usability of your module; (6) make (theoretical) content digestible and engaging; (7) evaluate your module with a variety of users (not just students) having different backgrounds and specializations; (8) during the evaluation, allow users to comment freely on the various aspects of your module; and (9) include evaluations at the early stages of development of your module.
As far as our study is concerned, we plan on addressing the weaknesses identified by the participants so as to further improve the usability of our module. Subsequently, we will roll out the module on a larger scale among students at the University of Antwerp and collect data on their text revisions using keystroke logging, screen recording, and retrospective interviews. The students at our university tend to be highly proficient in English, but the native language of most of them is Dutch. Previous research on students’ writing and revision has shown that, compared with native speakers, learners of a second language—and especially those with lower language proficiency—tend to revise form (e.g., typography and spelling) more often than content and text organization (Barkaoui, 2016; Stevenson et al., 2006). Future work might focus on the interaction of native versus nonnative speakers of English with the training materials of this (or similar modules), as well on the acquired ability of these two groups to produce accessible texts.
As a final remark, the ability to communicate clearly reflects well not just on the employees within a company but also on the company itself, especially in terms of stakeholders’ trust and loyalty (Ranaut, 2018). However, the risk that companies use communication for greenwashing or window-dressing purposes is always present (Sprinkle & Maines, 2010). In relation to this point, Laidroo and Ööbik (2014) argue that using plain language in CSR disclosures might reduce attempts at content manipulation. As more and more customers are influenced by CSR content in their purchase decisions (Islam et al., 2021), the accessible communication principles discussed in our module can (at least partially) reduce the risk that customers’ purchase decisions are based on misinformation.
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme under the Marie Sklodowska-Curie Grant Agreement No. 888918.
ORCID iD
Alessandra Rossetti https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2162-9639
Footnote
1. An old version of the Calliope writing center is still available online. However, Professor Luuk van Waes and his team are developing a new version that will soon replace the old one. The module discussed in this paper has been developed for the new Calliope environment (beta version).
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Biographies
Alessandra Rossetti is a postdoctoral researcher in the Faculty of Business and Economics at the University of Antwerp. She is currently working on a European project on plain language training and the revision of business texts. Her research interests include accessible communication, reading comprehension, machine translation, and usability evaluation.
Luuk Van Waes is a professor of professional communication at the University of Antwerp. He is involved in different types of writing research, focusing on digital media and (professional) writing processes. He published articles in a wide range of international peer-reviewed journals and is founding editor of the Journal of Writing Research.
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