Abstract
Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) transparency has predominantly been treated as an organizational outcome in previous literature. Drawing on rich qualitative data, we find that CSR transparency can emerge through sensemaking processes where employees are instrumental in exercising moral judgements, engaging with stakeholders, and creating shared narratives. The study contributes to our understanding of CSR transparency by showing that the phenomenon is reflected by social processes and should not be narrowly conceptualized as an outcome of information disclosure at the corporate level. The study also provides fine-grained details about the cognitive and organizational mechanisms at play in the shaping of CSR transparency. Specifically, we introduce a bottom-up model which explains how reserved and non-reserved approaches of CSR transparency are developed.