Proverbs as a force in CSR dialogue: Lessons from Vietnam
In a recent Human Relations paper, A/Prof Mai Vu and Dr Hyemi Shin offer insight for managers and organisations regarding the power of proverbs. In stakeholder engagement, community voices are often drowned out by corporate narratives. This study reveals an unexpected equaliser: proverbs. Drawing on interviews with 32 CSR managers and observations of corporate–community sessions in Vietnam, we show how traditional sayings actively reshape CSR conversations. Communities deploy proverbs to challenge corporate messaging, reframe social responsibility on their own cultural terms, and reclaim communicative authority. For managers, this signals that effective CSR engagement requires cultural literacy, not just consultation protocols. Authentic stakeholder dialogue demands recognising that local cultural resources — not just formal processes — shape how CSR meaning is made and contested.
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- Vu, M. C. & Shin, H. (2026). Proverbs as other-than-human actants in corporate social responsibility communication: A ventriloquial analysis of corporate-community dialogues. Human Relations