Corporate Citizenship: Let Not Relationship Marketing Escape the Management Toolbox

Abstract

Over the past decades, there has been a continual proliferation in marketing concepts and 'paradigms' that supposedly offer solutions to the challenges that companies are facing. Relationship marketing is one such concept that has moved to the forefront of research and practice; it promises companies a management tool to build economically profitable relationships, networks, and interactions with different, but equally important stakeholder markets. Corporate citizenship is another concept that has become increasingly popular with researchers and practitioners alike. The argument is that companies should seek to fulfill their legal, ethical, economic, and discretionary obligations to shareholders, employees, customers, and the community at large. The objective of our paper is to demonstrate that companies, which seek to implement corporate citizenship, consciously, but more frequently unconsciously, employ relationship marketing tools. By way of real-life examples we show how the use of such tools has facilitated the implementation of corporate citizenship. The paper is organized as follows. We first review the literatures on relationship marketing and corporate citizenship. Then we discuss different corporate citizenship initiatives relating this discussion to relationship marketing. Lastly, we outline future research that can examine further the proposed relationship between corporate citizenship and relationship marketing.

Broadening the Concept of Expectations in Public Relations

“…However, a common assumption presented was that the expectations for corporate responsibility have, and most probably will continue to increase (see e.g. Hanson & Stuart, 2001;Lindgreen & Swaen, 2005;Steyn & Niemann, 2010). Hence, being able to meet, exceed, or even to anticipate different societal expectations was seen essential for gaining legitimacy (Bitektine, 2008;Johansen & Nielsen, 2012;Westhues & Einwiller, 2006).…”

Corporate Responsibility and Corporate Reputation: Two Separate Concepts or Two Sides of the Same Coin?

“…Schnietz and Epstein (2005) , for example, identify social responsibility as a key dimension of reputation; Tucker and Melewar (2005) see social responsibility as a critical element of reputation relevant to crisis management and Lindgreen and Swaen (2005) argue that issues relating to responsibility are embedded within the functional relationships that underpin business activities. They suggest, therefore, that there will be a signifi cant overlap between the reputation for these activities and the reputation for issues relating to responsibility.…”

Corporate Citizenship, Social Responsibility, and Sustainability Reports as “Would-be” Narratives

“…It deals with issues that make social and nonsocial stakeholders, employees, customers and governements expecting corporate engagement towards a better collective wellbeing (Turker 2009). In the same way, corporate citizenship reports seem to be guided by stakeholders' pressures as well as the import of corporate culture (Lindgreen and Swaen 2005). Taking stakeholders' pressures into account means that corporate citizenship has been politicized.…”