Professor Elda du Toit from the Department of Financial Management in the Faculty of Economic and Management Sciences was one of numerous delegates from across the world who attended the 19th International Conference on Corporate Social Responsibility (ICCSR) at the Ravenala Attitude Hotel in Balaclava, Mauritius.

The conference, which took place from 7 to 9 September 2022, was hosted by Université des Mascareignes and the Social Responsibility Research Network (SRRNet) – a body of scholars who are concerned about the social contract between all stakeholders in global society as well as with the socially responsible behaviour of organisations.

At the conference, Du Toit presented the paper, titled ‘Human rights disclosures: Interplay between comprehensiveness and narrative manipulation’, together with the co-author of the paper, Dr Leana Esterhuyse from Unisa. The paper investigated the narrative human rights disclosures of an international sample of large listed companies and found that these disclosures tend to be unreadable and employ a specific narrative tone, so as to manipulate the impressions of stakeholders.

Speaking about the conference, Du Toit said it was a “privilege to be amongst some of the great names in corporate social responsibility research, including renowned researcher Prof David Crowther, who established SRRNet”. This year marks the 20^th anniversary of the first-ever corporate social responsibility conference that was organised by Prof Crowther.

She adds that after a two-year hiatus, the in-person conference was refreshing, as it brought researchers in the social responsibility field together again.