Assessing the Impact of COVID-19 on Corporate Sustainability Discourse: A Diachronic CADS Analysis of Sustainability Reporting in the Cruise Line Industry

This study investigates how corporate sustainability discourse evolved in the cruise line industry across the pre-pandemic (2018–2019), pandemic (2020–2021), and post-pandemic (2022–2023) periods. Applying a Corpus-Assisted Discourse Studies (CADS) approach, sustainability reports from four major cruise companies—Carnival, MSC Cruises, Norwegian Cruise Line, and Royal Caribbean—were compiled into three diachronic corpora. Keyword analysis identified the most salient lemmas in each period, which were subsequently examined through concordance analysis to uncover dominant discursive framings. Findings reveal a clear diachronic trajectory: pre-pandemic reports emphasized environmental compliance, ethical responsibility, and philanthropic outreach; pandemic-era discourse shifted toward crisis management, public health governance, and operational resilience; and post-pandemic communication foregrounded long-term innovation, decarbonization, and normative leadership. These results demonstrate that sustainability reporting functions not merely as informational disclosure but as a strategic rhetorical tool for constructing legitimacy and adapting corporate identity in response to reputational pressures and global crises. The study contributes to business communication research by offering a sector-specific, longitudinal analysis of sustainability discourse in a high-impact industry, while also showcasing the analytical value of CADS for uncovering subtle shifts in corporate narrativization. Managerially, the findings underscore the increasing role of sustainability reports as instruments of stakeholder reassurance, future-oriented positioning, and brand differentiation in ecologically sensitive sectors.