A Contrastive Appraisal Analysis of the Chairman's Statements in ICBC's and Citigroup's Corporate Social Responsibility Reports

Corporate Social Responsibility Report (CSRR) has become an important medium for measuring corporate sustainability. Its opening part, the chairman’s statement, both informational and promotional, stands arguably to build and enhance a favorable corporate identity by the prominent adoption of appraisal resources. Given its common generic features, CSRR is linguistically culturally afforded. China’s initiation of green finance for the country’s green development against the background of carbon peak and carbon neutrality, especially since the two sessions in March 2021, would accelerate Chinese commercial banks’ conforming to the international reporting standards of CSRR. Against this background, the current study investigates the attitude resources in the chairman’s statements in CSRR of Chinese and western commercial banks from a culturally contrastive perspective, underpinned by Martin and White’s Appraisal system and Hofstede’s Cultural Dimensions theory, taking Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC)’s and Citigroup as examples. It finds that copious attitude resources in distinctive patterns are adopted by the two different institutions, and the distinction mainly results from individualism and collectivism, power distance, masculinity and femininity, uncertainty avoidance and long-term versus short-term orientation. This study enriches the cultural contrastive study of CSRR on appraisal meaning. Suggestions on composition of chairman’s statements in CSRR has been offered.