A computational approach to detecting and assessing sustainability-related communities in social media

Shan Jiang, Hsinchun Chen

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contribution

4 Scopus citations

Abstract

The concept of corporate sustainability suggests that firms need to maintain sustainability principles and practices by addressing stakeholders' economic, ecological, and social concerns. Social media has become a knowledge depository where managers can evaluate stakeholders' concerns about the firm's sustainability-related issues. This study proposes a computational approach that utilizes natural language processing techniques to detect sustainability-related communities within online web forums. The validity of the detected communities was assessed based on their impacts on relevant firms' market performance when the firms' social responsibility was challenged. Experiments on three datasets showed that our system is effective in detecting sustainability-related communities. Also, a strong correlation was found between the activities of the identified sustainability-related communities and the firms' market performance during events that challenged the firms' social responsibilities. Our research contributes to the practice of managing corporate sustainability by facilitating managers in evaluating sustainability-related concerns of stakeholders and making effective managerial responses.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Title of host publicationInternational Conference on Information Systems (ICIS 2013)
Subtitle of host publicationReshaping Society Through Information Systems Design
Pages48-58
Number of pages11
StatePublished - 2013
EventInternational Conference on Information Systems, ICIS 2013 - Milan, Italy
Duration: Dec 15 2013Dec 18 2013

Publication series

NameInternational Conference on Information Systems (ICIS 2013): Reshaping Society Through Information Systems Design
Volume1

Other

OtherInternational Conference on Information Systems, ICIS 2013
Country/TerritoryItaly
CityMilan
Period12/15/1312/18/13

Keywords

  • Community detection
  • Corporate sustainability
  • Social media

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Computer Science Applications
  • Statistics, Probability and Uncertainty
  • Applied Mathematics
  • Library and Information Sciences

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