A Critical Analysis of Microsoft's Rhetoric and Reality of Sustainability Engagement
研究分析了微软20年（2003-2024）的可持续发展报告，发现其修辞并非仅是掩饰，而是通过塑造规范来主动生产合法性，即使存在争议仍维持声誉领导地位。
ABSTRACT This study critically examines Microsoft's environmental, social and governance (ESG) rhetoric and operational reality, to offer insights that extend beyond conventional greenwashing or bluewashing. Drawing on over 20 years of Microsoft's sustainability reports (2003–2024), third‐party ESG evaluations and media investigations, it employs automated content and discourse analyses to investigate how sustainability language functions as a technology of legitimacy. Rather than treating rhetoric as a façade for misconduct, we argue that it actively produces governance by shaping norms of accountability, moral responsibility and ethical identity across global operations. Microsoft's case illustrates how sustainability narratives create coherence amid contradiction, which enables reputational leadership to persist despite ESG controversies. By examining both sustainability rhetoric and actual practice, this study reframes corporate responsibility as a discursive process that creates legitimacy through sustainability practices, not merely rhetoric. The study contributes to sustainability scholarship by demonstrating how rhetoric, power and moral distance intersect within global value chains.