Does media attention drive corporate social responsibility?

This paper investigates the impact that media attention has on the strengths and weaknesses of a firm's corporate social responsibility (CSR). Drawing on stakeholder theory, the study develops and tests two hypotheses concerning the influence that media attention can have on the CSR-strengths and weaknesses of a particular firm. The findings indicate that while increases in media attention are related to increases in CSR-strengths, CSR-weaknesses are not sensitive to changes in media attention. (C) 2011 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.