Sustainable Oil and Profitable Wind: The communication of corporate responsibilities as inverted positioning

Companies are confronted with differing public perceptions, which influence the way in which they present their social and environmental responsibilities. Our qualitative study compares the online responsibility communication of two companies from the energy sector: Shell, representing the controversial but profitable oil industry; and Vestas, representing the sustainable wind industry, the financial competitiveness of which is sometimes called into question. The website analysis reveals that both companies engage in inverted positioning. They invert perceived weaknesses into strengths: Shell highlights its social and environmental responsibilities, whereas Vestas, instead of capitalising on its potential as a CSR brand, highlights its economic responsibility. Theoretically, we integrate inverted positioning into a constitutive process model of responsibility communication. Inverted positioning might lead either to a reputational downward spiral, making a company less credible in the longer term, or the public communication of contested responsibilities functions as a self-imposed ambition that can, over time, induce substantial corporate learning processes.