Irresponsible Engagement and the Citizen Investor

Abstract

The study investigates how shareholders are constructed and engaged with through public relations in the Australian financial sector. The web sites and annual and sustainability reports of major Australian companies and investment funds were examined through qualitative content analysis. Findings indicate that a hierarchical distinction exists within the discrete but amorphous stakeholder group known as shareholders, where privilege and disadvantage exist alongside disparate levels of power and agency. This is perpetuated by and through irresponsible public relations, which constructs a discourse of ownership that excludes citizens as legitimate stakeholders limiting their capacity to influence more ethical corporate decisions and practices. Recommendations are offered for how public relations might engage shareholders more responsibly. may call a pension fund. 1 We posit that, because of irresponsible corporate public relations practices that fail to engage with citizen investors, citizens are unfamiliar with the rights and responsibilities they hold as shareholders, and therefore are inhibited from influencing how the financial sector and large companies are governed. This has consequences for the accountability of large business to society.We focus our study on one major sector of the Australian economy and seek to identify, illustrate, and interrogate the process of engagement with shareholders as stakeholders in the Australian financial sector. We are interested in understanding how shareholders, as primary stakeholders, are constructed and engaged with through the formal public relations' activities of listed companies and the institutional funds (superannuation funds) 2 that invest in them. Because we are concerned with the ethical status of stakeholder engagement, our aim is to examine the (ir)responsibility of public relations as stakeholder engagement.

(Un)willing to engage? First look at the engagement types of millennials

“…In recent public relations and corporate communications research, the concept of engagement has been applied in the context of issues management and crisis communication (Byrd, 2012), relational satisfaction, corporate social responsibility (Johansen and Nielsen, 2011; Schmeltz, 2011; Kim and Lee, 2012), the use of new and social media (Paek et al , 2013; Men and Tsai, 2014), and public engagement (Cho et al , 2014; Men and Tsai, 2013). It has been criticized that engagement research has focused mostly on organizational and reputational perspectives and less on stakeholders or engagement as a genuine dialogue (Taylor and Kent, 2014; O’Byrne and Daymon, 2014). The proponents of engagement stress, however, that it becomes sustainable and mutually beneficial only if both parties’ interests are taken into consideration (Foster and Jonker, 2005).…”

“…The proponents of engagement stress, however, that it becomes sustainable and mutually beneficial only if both parties’ interests are taken into consideration (Foster and Jonker, 2005). Ethics and morals remain as important topics of engagement (Johnston, 2014; O’Byrne and Daymon, 2014).…”

Citizen Engagement and Effectiveness Local Governance Development: The Case of Khon Kaen Province,,Thailand

“…And thirdly, by providing opportunities for detailed learning and by structuring the discussions to be both deliberative and inclusive, it enhances the likelihood that conclusions are well informed and based on careful consideration of a range of arguments and evidence. 8 The critical objective of citizen engagement is to encourage the community to be involved, from the beginning, in the local administration through a community-based convention so that the needs of the community and local offices can be met. The local government defines the pattern of the new relationships.…”

A step-by-step method to classify corporate sustainability practices based on the Signaling Theory

“…Specifically, qualitative content analysis is considered “ a research method for the interpretation of textual data content through the systematic process of classification, coding and identification of themes or patterns ” [4] (p. 1278). This type of analysis is particularly suitable for analyzing documentary information because it constitutes a means to not only analyze the express content of the data but also the latent content, which holds the deep meanings in the texts analyzed [12] .…”

“…The search found eleven research studies, of which only one uses the qualitative content analysis technique to analyze sustainability reports. There is a lack of qualitative analysis in this area of knowledge, despite the fact that this type of analysis of sustainability reports is considered to favor not only the study of the express content disclosed through these documents but also the exploration of the latent content and the undercurrents that may emerge from them [12] .…”