ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on annual reports as a source to trace firms' positions towards Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). It highlights the emergence of a CSR discourse, the apparent shift in geographical perspective and relationships with stakeholders, as themes that stand out in the comparison. Annual reports are a well-known means of communication between firms and their stakeholders. Annual reports help managers to shape the impressions that observers of the firm hold. Annual reports are sets of texts that can be seen as a genre in which several subgenres can be identified. The chapter also focuses to answer the question how CSR representations in annual reports from Swedish, Canadian and Dutch companies have changed over time. It explores developments in CSR discourses over space and time by means of a lexicological analysis and assess whether corporations have created a discursive space in their annual reports to show how they behave in a more socially responsible way.
