A Rising Tide Lifts All Boats? The Constitutive Reality of CSR in Public Relations

Managing intractability: Wrestling with wicked problems and seeing beyond consensus in public relations

“…While CSR "remains a corporate ideal, not evidence of societal improvement," even the act of such aspirational speech drive changing expectations and, potentially, more socially responsible actions (Stokes, 2016).…”

“…For example, participants who spoke to the related impact of messages on multiple publics or stakeholders-such as public health advocates balancing the need to craft messages that encouraged vaccinations among both those who agreed and did not agree with the supporting science or advocacy groups building diverse issue coalitions-envisioned the value of their relationships beyond the dyadic (Capizzo, 2018;Heath, 2013;Saffer, 2016;Saffer, Yang, & Taylor, 2018;Sommerfeldt & Yang, 2017). In order to effectively understand and manage intractable problems, practitioners must continue to prioritize community and civic conceptualizations of the public relations function (e.g., Hallahan, 2004;Heath, 2006;Kruckeberg, Starck, & Vujnovic, 2006;Taylor, 2018) and understand the potential for CSR expectations to act as a tool for organizational engagement in such issues (e.g., Gaither, Austin, & Schulz, 2018;Scherer, Palazzo, & Baumann, 2006;Scherer et al, 2016;Stokes, 2016). This means that practitioners should continue to look for ways that organizations can act as good citizens and good neighbors, such as understanding the community consequences of their actions (Heath, 2006;Kruckeberg, Starck, & Vujnovic, 2006) and making civic contributions such as helping to solve shared problems (Edwards, 2016, Scherer et al, 2016.…”