The Use of Interactive PR and Corporate Social Responsibility - Literature review Example

Interactive PR and CSR application Name: Unit: Submission Date: Introduction Tilley (2005) interactive public relation helps an organisation to manage communication and it aims at making an organisation responsive and transparent. It helps an organisation to understand the behaviour, expectation of the public, protect its reputation and its responsibility to the public and society at large. Crowther & Aras (2008) corporate social responsibility refers to the business is supposed to play in the society. Organisations come up with programmes and strategies that demonstrate concern to the society and the environment. Pontinen (2015) the role of social responsibility to the corporate has raised lots of debates, as it is referred as a way of increasing an organisations profits and a public relation that earns them more clients hence expanding the business and popularizing them. This study will look into the use of interactive public relations and corporate social responsibility Interactive public relation and corporate social responsibility interrelate to promote business operations. Burson’s (2008) interactive public relations get let the public know what the business in doing including the social responsibility they are carrying out while from the public the organisation get to know what more the society needs and what needs to be done. The organisation gets to improve its operation and make better decisions that favour the public and the organisation for the better. However Llllia (2015), despite the fact that some companies consider CSR is a vital platform in their organization, in some cases its use may be exaggerated and corporations may in turn-get negative results compared to their expectations. A fact which Robert K. Merton, & Patricia L. Kendall refers to “boomerang response”. Corporations and organization ought to be careful in what they report to the public, as public relations can be used to sugar-coat the undertakings of the company and subsequently hurt the company at the end as consumers gets to understand the reality of the organizations practices to their environment and life in general. This does not rule out the fact that there are serious companies that employ CSR, but they can as well be mistrusted by the stakeholders, since these stakeholders cannot access the CSR initiatives and policies of the corporations, and basically rely on the CSR reports from the corporations. Therefore, organizations managers face the challenge of communicating achievements of CSR with great zeal of transparency to reduce chances of skepticism from the stakeholders and greenwashing accusations. Corporate social responsibility as an ethical responsibility D’Amato, Henderson & Florence (2009) businesses have ethics that acts as their principles and standards that are acceptable on how they conduct their activities. The behaviour to be accepted is determined by the consumers, products, government, creditors, stakeholders, competitors, interest groups as well as the individual’s personal values and believes. The Saylor Foundation (2013) refers CSR as a mechanism that regulates every individual organization to ensure it complies with the standards of the law, ethical principles, global trends, the environment and the society in line with the organization mission statement. A CSR compliance business demonstrates its responsibility by being economical (profit), legal (law), ethical, discretionary (being a good-corporate-citizen) responsible (see pyramid 1). Figure 1: Carrol’s CSR pyramid Accessed 11/7/2015 from, http://www.csrquest.net/imagefiles/CSR%20Pyramid.jpg However, while CSR use is a means used by many companies and organizations to make profits some do so negatively hurting the target persons, economy and the environment. As a result, Huhmann & Conner, (2014), did find that various corporate in an annual report of between 2010-2012 on US and across production the inclusion of Dow Jones Sustainability (DJSI) there existed differences on how the activities of business ethics were promoted. The companies listed on DJSI did indicate that they did not include how they promoted their ethical activities. In addition, such companies did not get the DJSI’s third-party verification of how they planned to ethically commit their activities to the target investors. Unfortunately, despite this they use their annual reports inadequately to show the media, suppliers, competitors, regulators, or activists how their business is ethical abiding. Shah, (2007) it is for this fact that developed countries move their unethical corporations to areas where there are less social and environmental standards. Subsequently, while such countries may face pollution it could be those companies polluting their nation. An example is given by, studies done in china in Pearl River Delta, 40% of pollutants in the air are linked to North America and Europe who are the major importers, yet limited data is available to support such fundamental information. Interactive Public Relation and customer relations Malthouse, Haenlein, Skiera, Wege, & Zhang, (2013) with technology, development of ICT as a platform for interactive PR has helped improve and sustain customer relations management. An increase in the use of social media is challenging the traditional customer relationship management introducing the new one that uses social media and interactive public relation. Social media influences the degree of which customers interact with the organisation. Interactive public relations can lead to a higher customer engagement or a lower customer engagement. Parvatiyar & Sheth (2002) an organisation will focus on acquisition where they promote consumer relation and create awareness to the consumers by promoting their products and advertising. The public relations in different media platforms leads to changing the attitude, believes and perspectives of the consumer hence acquiring new consumers. Rutzou (2015) with a lot of advertising and information about an organisation and its product in the social media, creating awareness to the people leads to improved consumer confidence. Oyer (2010) an increase in consumer confidence has a positive implication to the business. This helps increase the number of consumers or the acquisition of consumers. With confident consumers, it is easy to retain them and avoid termination of relationship. This mean the business will make more sales hence more profits which is the goal of any organization. CSR and ICT provide a strong link. However Hasnaoui & Freeman (2010), ICT has not be used and researched in-depth as means in which CSR should be implemented globally. Unfortunately, ICT remains the logical modality which can develop, implement, drive, monitor and evaluate business operation site and CSR applications. Interactive PR application is fundamental in CSR compliance since it can transform and share the corporate objectives to nations where differences, ethnic, linguistic and cultural could be a building block towards CSR implementation as it is not always globally understood. ICT platforms also offer an opportunity for various CSR experts to meet in various forums and sensitize the public on meaning embedded on CSR. Hence, it is only through understanding of social embedded within CSR that the stakeholder’s theory can be practical, as organizations will ensure compliance through corporate strategy that gives the community needs a milestone. Benefits of corporate social responsibility To the organisation Corporate social responsibility has advantages to the organisation that is providing them. They are based as per the division in which the social responsibility is achieved. Saeed & Arshad (2012) it can be social responsibility to the community, to the human resources or to the environment. In this study, the benefits shall be handled in general. Corporate social responsibility helps the organisation increase its competitive advantage. An organisation that is social responsible more than the other is in a position to have an upper hand in competition. It strikes the society as a better organisation since it is mindful of the society and hence it has a competitive advantage over its counterparts who are not into corporate social responsibility. An example, Olanrewaju (2012) is given by 1997 Japanese External Trade Organization (JETRO) survey which showed that about 80% of Japanese companies working in US engaged in corporate philanthropy (see appendix 1) Militaru & Ionescu (2006) it also acts as a strategic investment for the organisation. Since corporate social responsibility is an integral part of an organisation there are different levels of differential strategies. It is a form of a strategic investment to the organisation. It helps build and maintaining the reputation of the organisation. There is no better investment for an organisation than its reputation and customer confidence. A firm faces market implications. If businesses act wrongly on the environment by not taking care of it, it will be faced by externalities associated with bad behaviour affecting its productivity. While good business behaviour is rewarded by increased productivity. The effect may take time to be realized and it strikes the hardest. Persuasiveness also affects the market trends, if the social activities of a firm are good, informative and persuasive enough then it will be advantages to the business. If the social responsibility from an organisation takes good care of its human resources by taking care of their affairs then there will be increased employee satisfaction. A firm ensures good salary to the employees and take care of the employee’s welfare then the workers will be satisfied and increase their productivity. The employees will be retained in the firm the employees turn over will be low which is good for the organisation. With productive satisfied workers then the organisation will be a nice place to work in and will make more profits. For example Olanrewaju (2012) in South Africa Coca-Cola bottlers company did come up with a program to extend support among the HIV/AIDS infected and promote prevention within its workplace (see appendix 1) Finally corporate social responsibility has technological impacts on the organisation. The increasing concern of protecting and sustaining the environment has led to organisations innovating new technological methods. These are some methods that are used to purify waste products before releasing it to the environment. Methods of recycling waste into useful products have also been innovated. The concerns have led to increased technological uses. The Kyoto Corporate Standard is a key example (see appendix 2) Greening EPA (2012) If the organisation corporate social responsibility is not carefully planned, the organisation can lose money. Proper cost benefits analysis should be done so that any activity taken is not to the disadvantage of the organisation financially even if it is profitable to the community and other stakeholders. To the community Balsamo (2013) corporate social responsibility is mainly directed to the society and it is for the benefit of the community. An organisation that is involved in social responsibility will support programmes like lower pollution, lower energy output, and have programmes that help the community. Mainly the organisation use some of its profits to charity acts such as support the children homes, the elderly homes and give some money to sponsor poor children to school. The organisations are committed to facilitate people to contribute and carry out charitable functions such as cater for the medication of people who cannot afford it. An example is Zenith Bank in Nigeria as part of how it demonstrates its CSR practicality which takes giving back to the society as a passionate undertaking which should be taken seriously and MTN telecommunication corporate (see appendix 3 & 4) (Olanrewaju, 2012). Implication on customer confidence Heim (2010) consumer confidence is boosted by interactive public relations, customer relation and corporate social responsibility. Consumer confidence implies increased consumption of the goods and services being produced and increased consumer spending. Ludvigson (2004) consumer confidence leads to a change in the attitude and believes of the consumer. Their confidence has a great impact in the economy since they will consume more and hence save more. More savings leads to more investments in the economy. So consumer confidence leads indirectly to improved economy. Implementation of the interactive Public Relation and Corporate Social Responsibility in an organization Shah & Chen (2010) organisations over time have incorporated social responsibility and public relations in their operations. The two have been implemented in organisations since they have different benefits as mentioned above. Each has four steps that are used in implementing. For public relations the following steps are used: identification of the problem or the prospect, planning on how to handle the problem, taking action and communicating on how to do so and to evaluate the program that will be used. The corporate social responsibility has stages to be followed too during the implementation. The four stages are in short terms referred to as “Plan, Do, Check, Act” (Primus, 2010, p1). Hohnnen (2007) first stage is to come up with the plan of issues on stake based on the real needs of the targeted group. At this stage regulations and other legal requirements are laid down to help understand how to address the matter. The second stage is implementation. Action should be in terms of policy development, policies that will work best for the issue identified to meet the laid goals and objectives. The execution of the program, the program is meant to solve an issue that was identified and be of help to all the stakeholders involved. Third stage is measuring progress as well as involving the stakeholders to take analysis of whether the move taken has met their expected needs. Finally, action should be taken to improve the programme through evaluation of the performances. Table 1: CSR compliance Organization that have employed CSR stages Duties and responsibilities Outcome ThaiBev in Thailand http://www.thaibev.com/en08/detailnews.aspx?ngID=285&tngID=2 A beverage company manufacturing beer Increased community awareness of the roles and support of the locals by the beverage company increasing. This has led to the community have a positive outlook on the company. MacDonald shift from use of polysterene packaging to paper products http://first.emeraldinsight.com/samples/mcdonalds2.pdf Fast food company Increased recycling of plastics and replacing polysterene with paper products Zenith Bank in Nigeria Olanrewaju (2012) Finance institute Increased customer base, following a highly pronounced brand name that recognizes and supports the needs of the local community and protects the environment Clark (2010) public relations and corporate social responsibility have similarities and differences. There are factors that have contributed to their growth this far. These factors have led to an increased growth in interest of the two concepts. However, various factors as brought in below have contributed to the CSR growth tremendously. According to Epistein-Revees (2012) organisations are motivated to implement social responsibility because of different reasons. Innovation is a key motivator. There should be a lot of innovation of new products to benefit the society in different ways. It is cost saving, engaging in sustainability help an organisation to save on cost used. Saving energy, using less packaging and less chemicals helps the organisation to save costs. It is through social responsibility that organisations establish a brand differentiation. It is easier to identify a brand and differentiate it from another due to their differences in level and type of innovation. Long term thinking also drive organisations to embrace social responsibility as by being responsible they have to look at the long term goals. Finally social responsibility is encouraged by efficient customer engagement and employee engagement. Public relation is greatly motivated by the need of interacting with the consumers, the need to create awareness for the products, countering competition and marketing their products. Interactive PR is practically implemented by using social media to popularize the organisation while they use CSR to improve operations. Conclusion The ICT has wealth forms of interactive PR platforms that help in passing information. The PR platforms used helps organization communicate their defining polices and frameworks that aid in ensuring they remain CSR focused. PR and CSR together interrelate to improve the organizations activities as they meet the needs of the society without compromising other issues like economic and environment. However, some organization bearing in mind the significance that comes with compliance with CSR use it as a marketing tool while in reality their activities expose the target community and the general environment at other unforeseen risks. Companies ought to realize that following technology improvement, consumers understands what encompasses CSR, and continued awareness creation on CSR subsequently ensures the community understands how a given organization impacts on them and with time it will lose its customer base if it did not sincerely use CSR. ICT use however has not been maximized in CSR development and implementation. Nevertheless, CSR compliance brings beneficial effects to the organizations, the stakeholders and the target community. A successful CSR implementation in any organization goes through four stages “Plan-Do-Check-Act”. While this occurs in a chronological order, they do not have to be applied in that order. That explains why MacDonald Company and ThaiBev Company continue reviewing their CSR to ensure environment and social responsibility as some detrimental health effects did arise as they progressed yet they were not foreseen during planning. References Balsamo, C. 2013. 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Prism 3. http://www.prismjournal.org/fileadmin/Praxis/Files/Journal_Files/Issue3/Tilley.pdf Appedix 1: CSR embracing company: Coca-cola bottler in South Africa Appedix 2a: Greening EPA Appedix 2b: Greening EPA Appedix 3: Zenith Bank CSR Appedix 4: MTN telecommunication and CSR compliance Read More