Keywords

1 Introduction

Numerous studies have focused on corporate social responsibility, where environmental responsibility is an implicit part of social responsibility. Such studies have examined a wide range of approaches, e.g., what is the definition of CSR (corporate social responsibility), its history, companies’ motivations for implementing CSR, among others (Othman & Ameer, 2009).

Today, a high percentage of companies are aware of the importance of having a committed approach to corporate and social responsibility, so it is no longer a question of whether a company should have CSR (EU, 2011).

Many studies have already demonstrated and justified the benefits that this type of policy has for companies; this study aims to determine how the communication strategies of two companies in the airline industry can vary in terms of CSR, because corporate social responsibility loses much of its relevance if it is carried out but not communicated, and its credibility if the opposite happens.

Iberia in Spain and Turkish Airlines in Turkey operate a large majority of the flights in their respective countries. While these two carriers exhibit certain similarities, they also vary in how they approach management. Both airlines are excellent candidates for the study due to their strategic relevance in the airline industry and in each of their home markets.

Hence, this chapter will analyze what their CSR policy communication strategy is, which indicators they focus on, which part of CSR they give more importance to, how they present the information in their reports. It makes a comparative study of two leading airlines in each country, trying to identify similarities and differences in CSR communication styles, and trying to determine and make a correlation of the factors that may influence these differences. It is worth to mention that this study has been motivated and will follow the CSR reporting framework published by Amin (2021).

2 Literature Review

2.1 Defining CSR: Various Perspectives of a Single Aim

When it comes to define what CSR means we can find a wide range of literature available; however, no universally agreed-upon concept of corporate social responsibility is available. In truth, it has been described in a variety of ways, but they all have one thing in common: the unified company’s commitment to methods of responsibility that go beyond economic profit. Corporate social responsibility, in this context, refers to a company’s influence on the economic, social, and environmental elements.

The Green Paper of the Commission of the European Communities that aims to advance a European framework for CSR defines it as a concept whereby businesses voluntarily choose to make contributions to a better world and a cleaner environment, as well as the voluntary incorporation of environmental concerns into business operations and relationships with stakeholders. (EU, 2001).

According to World Business Council for Sustainable Development definition, “Corporate Social Responsibility is the continuing commitment by business to behave ethically and contribute to economic development while improving the quality of life of the workforce and their families as well as of the local community and society at large” (WBCSD, 2000).

Even though the vast majority of studies in literature use the term CSR, including (Abbott, 2011; Zivin & Small, 2005; Blowfield & Murray, 2008) and as it is stated by (Lynes & Andrachuk, 2008) the term “environment” is not included in the CSR acronym, environmental responsibility is an assumed aspect of social responsibility under this definition. However, there are also studies consider it another practice called CSER - Corporate Social and Environmental Responsibility (Amin, 2021). As Amin (2021) states it as that firms all over the world are now not only engaging in CSR initiatives, but also utilizing a range of media, including as annual reports, sustainability reports, websites, and integrated reports, to inform stakeholders about them. Companies voluntarily disclose their actions in relation to social issues including socioeconomic inequality, human rights, and environmental issues like pollution.

2.2 The Airline Industry’s Interpretations and Understanding of CSER

CSR requires businesses to treat their social obligations with the same seriousness that they do their commercial goals, and the aviation sector is no different from other industries in this regard. The four components of CSR include economic, legal, ethical, and philanthropic responsibilities (Pinkston & Carroll, 1996). It is critical to emphasize the need of incorporating environmental considerations into the CSR term, introducing CSER (corporate social and environmental responsibility). The transport sector is the fourth largest polluter of all industries, just after the energy, textile, and food sectors.

Due to the increasing international tension and recent spike in crude oil prices, which is a key source of concern for airlines, fuel economy has become a top commercial goal. CSER programs have become an essential part of airlines’ business strategy as a result of this, as well as increased concern about the environmental impact of air travel. Airlines have begun to employ broader tactics in order to satisfy fuel-saving targets and other CSER goals such as developing biofuels.

In general, there has been a close relationship between the aviation sector and social and environmental challenges. In the current airline business climate, CSR has emerged as a crucial competitive advantage and a strategy for gaining customer loyalty (Inoue & Lee, 2011; Hossain et al., 2012; Gard et al., 2009). As a result, many airlines are dedicated to conducting business ethically, abiding by local laws, implementing best practices where appropriate, and comparing their performance to industry benchmarks (Cowper-Smith & de Grosbois, 2010; Lynes & Andrachuk, 2008).

3 Methodology

In the airline industry, there is no standardized method of reporting CSER. Generally, the literature used for articles refers to CSR, but the importance of the environment is remarkable; for this reason, this chapter will consider the term CSER more broadly. CSER reporting framework will cover six areas of great importance: vision, safety and security, environment, community, marketplace, and workforce.

The methodology used focuses on nine core elements of corporate sustainability reporting: general business profile, strategy and policy, results, corporate social reporting policy, relevance of reported measures, clarity of the report, reliability of the report, stakeholder involvement, and contextual consistency (Heeres et al., 2011).

4 Results and Discussion

A comparison within the framework of the aforementioned subjects was conducted taking into account the social, environmental, and sustainability reports released by Iberia and Turkish Airlines in 2019, 2020, and 2021 (THY, 2019, 2020, 2021; IBE, 2019, 2020, 2021).

The evaluations of airlines for the general business profile, strategy and policy, results, corporate social reporting policy, relevance of reported measures, clarity of the report, reliability of the report, stakeholder involvement, contextual consistency are presented in Table 1.

Table 1 Comparative assessment of Iberia and Turkish Airlines within the framework of nine core elements of corporate sustainability reporting
Full size table

5 Conclusions

The main objective of this work was to compare the cultural, social, and environmental and responsibility reporting patterns of two flag carriers from different countries. In this case, Iberia and Turkish Airlines were chosen for the study.

After analyzing several key points of both airlines based on the annual reports for the last 3 years, a general insight can be drawn. The reports published by Turkish airlines happen to be remarkably detailed, complete, extensive, and with a visual representation of graphs, tables, and diagrams that help to better understand the quantitative data. It is also worth noting the large difference between the two airlines in terms of size, from the fleet and staff to the entire administrative and corporate area. It should be noted that due to the complexity and the large size of Turkish Airlines, they decided to outsource a third company (PwC Turkey) to carry out the reports, whereas Iberia does so internally, from the sustainability directorate, which lead us to reflect on how beneficial it is for an enterprise to outsource another company for reporting.

Regarding the criteria and structure followed by Iberia, it shows its support to the United Nations Global Compact reaffirming its commitment to the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Since 2015, they have been following the CSR in line accordance to United Nations. Turkish Airlines, in contrast, follows the structure of global reporting initiative that Iberia previously utilized prior to embracing SDGs.