Why corporate social responsibility? an analysis of drivers of CSR in India

10.1177/0893318914545496Management Communication Quarterly291114-12

Beyond Internal Corporate Social Responsibility Communication (ICSRC): Creating a Purposeful Organization

This chapter argues that internal CSR communication (ICSRC) can be employed from both functionalist and constitutive perspectives to create a purposeful organization. The chapter discusses concepts such as internal CSR, internal communication, and integrated CSR communication and offers a definition of ICSRC. It reviews literature on ICSRC, defines organizational purpose, connects it to CSR, and highlights changes in employee characteristics that demand a fresh conceptualization of ICSRC. Building on the core concepts of enabling conversations through engagement and involvement strategies, co-creation of meanings, collaborative implementation, ethical organizational and corporate identities, and employee identification, the chapter offers a conceptual framework that leverages ICSRC to build a purposeful organization

Overcoming the Dark Side of CSR Communication and Employee Relations

Adopting a behavioral, micro, employee-centered perspective to corporate social responsibility (CSR), this chapter problematizes the excessive focus on establishing positive associations between CSR communication and employee relations within the predominant stream of functionalist research. Instead, it highlights the dark side of CSR communication and employee relations, including the use of CSR practices by organizations as a tool of aspirational employee identity control; the blurred boundaries among CSR-based employee identification, work meaningfulness, and work addiction; organizational abdication of employees’ technological well-being; and the polyphony of competing, diverse employee interests that are not aligned with monophonic, unified organizational CSR narratives. The chapter concludes with suggestions for future research and research-based principles for CSR communication theory and practice

Putting engagement in its PRoper place: State of the field, definition and model of engagement in public relations

© 2017 Elsevier Inc. Although engagement has been a catchword in public relations practice and theory for over a decade, the term has been applied rather loosely to imply any form of communicative interaction between publics and organizations. Despite lack of clarity on the concept of engagement, research has been thriving, propelled by the increasing prevalence of social media and organizations’ consequent rush to digitally engage publics. This paper assesses the use of engagement in the field of public relations and critiques the equation of engagement with communicative interaction, with its foregrounding engagement as collaboration over that of engagement as control. It also builds upon theoretical conceptualizations of public/stakeholder engagement, employee engagement, and digital engagement to propose a practice-relevant and theoretically informed model and definition of engagement: Engagement is an affective, cognitive, and behavioral state wherein publics and organizations who share mutual interests in salient topics interact along continua that range from passive to active and from control to collaboration, and is aimed at goal attainment, adjustment, and adaptation for both publics and organizations

The Role of Color in Influencing Trust The Role of Color in Influencing Trust in e-Commerce Web Site

MWAIS 2007 Proceedings1

Relationship management through social media influencers: Effects of followers’ awareness of paid endorsement

© 2019 Elsevier Inc. This study aimed to examine the effects of awareness of paid endorsements by social media influencers on followers’ cognitive persuasion knowledge (ad recognition), attitudinal persuasion knowledge (relationships with the influencer), and behavioral intentions, specifically eWOM intention and purchase intention. Employing an online survey (N = 269), this study found that awareness of paid endorsement relates to ad recognition, which is correlated with purchase and eWOM intentions. We also found that awareness of paid endorsement is correlated with influencer-follower relationship, which is associated with purchase and eWOM intentions. However, ad recognition does not affect influencer-follower relationship. Implications for public relations theory, practice, and policy are discussed

Facts Over Stories for Involved Publics: Framing Effects in CSR Messaging and the Roles of Issue Involvement, Message Elaboration, Affect, and Skepticism

© The Author(s) 2018. This project investigated how issue involvement and positive affect are related to attitude and behavioral intention in the context of episodically and thematically framed corporate social responsibility (CSR) messages. We examined mediation effects of message elaboration on issue involvement and affect as well as moderation effects of dispositional skepticism on the relationships between affect, and attitude and behavioral intention. Results from two message-embedded surveys show that for the two types of messages used, issue involvement was positively correlated with positive affect and, consequently, with attitude and behavioral intention. However, for episodically framed messages, route-of-information processing mediated the relationship between issue involvement and affect. Dispositional skepticism moderated the relationship between positive affect and attitude toward the organization for these messages but did not affect behavioral intention. Overall, the findings suggest that prioritizing fact-based messaging over story-based messaging for involved publics could improve communication of the impact of CSR programs

Visual communication and public relations: Visual frame building strategies in war and conflict stories

© 2020 Elsevier Inc. Considering the pervasiveness of social media platforms that foreground visuals over text and the consequent rise of visually acculturated publics, this study examined the visual frame building strategies employed by international news media and organizational communication personnel in their coverage of war, conflict and humanitarian crises. Findings generated through 15 in-depth elite interviews with senior media and communication practitioners drawn from large, international news and multilateral organizations revealed four main visual frame building strategies. These strategies include audience-centered strategies of (1) using strong narrative pictures to create a compelling visual hook (2) selecting humanized and personalized images to cut through compassion fatigue, and (3) scripting to the visual; and humanitarian organizations’ character-centred strategy of (4) eschewing negative imagery in favour of framing the characters using positive frames of agency and dignity. These rich insights are explained by the simultaneous influences of traditional and social media, particularly the trend of humanization and personalization of subjects in war and conflict stories, a development largely effected by social media logics. Implications for public relations theory and practice are discussed

The role of corporate social responsibility (CSR) and internal CSR communication in predicting employee engagement: Perspectives from the United Arab Emirates (UAE)

© 2018 Elsevier Inc. This study examined relationships among employees’ perception of CSR, three models of internal CSR communication and employee engagement. The findings, based on 516 valid survey responses from employees across different sectors in the United Arab Emirates, revealed that internal communication of CSR, both one-way and two-way symmetrical, predicted employee perceptions of CSR, with two-way asymmetrical communication being a negative predictor; perceptions of CSR predicted employee engagement; social and sustainable dimensions of CSR most strongly predicted social and affective dimensions of employee engagement; and both two-way symmetrical communication of CSR and employee perceptions of CSR strongly predicted employee engagement. Implications for theory and practice are discussed

Culture and Crisis Communication: Nestle India\u27s Maggi Noodles Case

© 2017 Elsevier Inc. Extant theoretical paradigms in the field of crisis communication are organization-centric and do not adequately recognize the role of culture. The purpose of this essay is to analyze a crisis faced by Nestle India using the framework of global public relations which defines culture broadly to include political, economic, media, societal, and activist cultures. Our analysis revealed that a multinational corporation with over a century of presence in the country struggled to align itself to the complexities of the cultures of the host country. In the case of Nestle India, whereas environmental variables such as political economy and Westernization of urban India boosted the growth of its instant noodles, the multinational also struggled to cope with the rise of media corporatization, activist pressure and the vagaries of regulatory enforcement not to speak of cultural nationalism. It is evident that Nestlé\u27s crisis response was governed more by its traditional corporate culture than by an ability to keep pace with the changing demands of its environment, leading to the amplification of an issue into a crisis. The study concludes that multinationals that ignore culture will be forced to pay a heavy price both in terms of reputation and the bottom line