While public relations offers numerous assets for organization-stakeholder relationship building and for ethical corporate social responsibility and sustainability communication, it also faces challenges linked to negative perceptions of the profession which can lead to accusations of "greenwashing." This innovative book critically explores the growing, complex and sometimes contradictory connections among public relations, corporate social responsibility and sustainability. This book advocates a postmodern insider-activist role for public relations which can transform organizations into moral places committed to people, planet, and profit. By amplifying voices of nearly 100 for-profit and nonprofit professionals, and using hermeneutic phenomenological theme analyses of CSR/Sustainability reports and websites, this book invokes public relations, postmodern and critical theories to empower public relations professionals to transform organizations into ethical, authentic and transparent actors in the public sphere. It is essential reading for scholars, educators and enquiring professionals working in public relations, corporate communication, sustainability and corporate social responsibility.

This book offers practical advice for building organizations with social responsibility and sustainability organically built in – based on two-way communication between human resources (HR) and public relations (PR) departments working together as an organizational conscience touchstone benefiting People, Planet, and Profit.

This inaugural edited collection for the Communicating Responsible Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion series explores the active promotion of diversity, equity, and inclusion as a public relations responsibility and provides new avenues for critiquing the ways in which power operates through public relations work and theory building.

This comprehensive Handbook offers an extensive overview of current knowledge of corporate communication from a digital perspective. It provides a state-of-the-art view of the ubiquitous impact, both positive and negative, of digital technologies and digitalisation processes on corporate communication.

The comprehensive guide to applied PR theory in the 21st century Public Relations Theory explores the central principles and theoretical components of public relations and their practical applications in actual situations. This informative text helps readers to understand the concepts, approaches, and perspectives of PR theory and learn development methods, implementation strategies, management techniques, and more. Chapters written by recognized experts on each topic provide readers with knowledge on how, when, and why appropriate theories are applied. Focusing on how organizations and individuals integrate theory in a public relations framework, each chapter explains one function, explores its potential challenges and opportunities, provides an example of the function in practice, and offers discussion questions and additional reading suggestions. Unique in structure, this text arranges chapters by function, rather than theory, allowing readers to see how multiple theories can be applied to each public relations function and how theories can be used in different professional settings. Comprehensive treatment of topics including social and emerging media, globalization, public diplomacy, corporate and investor relations, and others ensures relevant and timely coverage of contemporary PR issues. Demonstrates how public relations theory is applied in real-world practice Illustrates how successfully applied public relations theories lead to positive outcomes Discusses the relevance of public relations with accessible and engaging language Offers multiple perspectives from leading international public relations scholars Includes pedagogical tools including chapter discussion questions, practical examples, tables, and suggested reading lists Public Relations Theory: Application and Understanding is suitable for instructors and graduate and advanced undergraduate students in courses on public relations theory, as well as practitioners seeking further knowledge on the most current developments in the field.

Public relations is a uniquely pervasive force in our modern economy, influencing every aspect of our lives from the personal to the political. This comprehensive volume provides an expert overview of current scholarship, reflecting the impact of technology, society, and demographic shifts in a complex global environment. The last century saw the emergence of the public relations discipline. This expertly curated collection explores the dynamic growth in thinking about public relations’ role in our changing global society, now and into the future. It reflects the challenges and perspectives of postcolonial, postmodern, feminist, critical race theory, social responsibility, sustainability, activist standpoints, as well as the profound and unpredictable impact of technological change and social media. Each chapter provides an overview of current knowledge and its roots, while engaging with emerging new directions and old debates – and advocates for where the research agenda is likely to advance in the future. This unique Companion will be an essential resource for students and researchers in public relations, communication, marketing, media, and cultural studies. It provides an authoritative reference for educators and a one-stop repository of public relations knowledge, scholarship, and debates for the enquiring professional.

This book explores how the interrelated concepts of responsible citizenship, corporate social responsibility (CSR) and sustainability can be interpreted, researched and taught. It contributes to the much-needed debate on the role of universities – and business schools in particular – in the context of rising social and environmental stakes and growing calls for 'doing business the right way'. The book offers diverse perspectives on the concepts of responsible citizenship, CSR and sustainability, with individual contributions focusing on the conceptual implications for specific disciplines, exploring associated challenges and opportunities, and raising methodological and theoretical concerns for the teaching and research of these concepts laden with complexity and ambiguity. The book is divided into three major parts, the first of which presents conceptual, theoretical and ethical issues. In turn, part two explores specific disciplines' perspectives. Lastly, part three presents hands-on experiences from the field. Thanks to this threefold approach, the book not only offers a guide to direct future research, but can also be used as a text for advanced courses on responsible citizenship, CSR and sustainability.

An overview of the practice of strategic global and multicultural public relations in various sectors Global and Multicultural Public Relations offers students an expert overview of specific public relations practices, focused on strategic analyses of actual case studies and real-world examples. Emphasizing practice rather than theory, this valuable resource explores innovative communication programs that are designed to address culturally-diverse communities worldwide. The five-step strategic public relations process—formative research, planning, implementation, evaluation, and stewardship—is extensively examined and applied to a variety of scenarios, helping students understand the realty of modern public relations practice. All aspects of public relations practice, including media relations, government relations, employee communications, and shareholder relations are covered to help students gain solid foundational knowledge. Broad in scope, this textbook identifies and describes the strategy formulation and implementation process in private, government, non-profit, and various other sectors. Academic and trade articles, book chapters, original case studies, and new primary research offer students a realistic and sophisticated approach to global public relations. Figures, tables, photographs, and charts illustrate each topic, while highlighted learning objectives and key points, discussion questions, and framed sections on ethical considerations and best practices strengthen student comprehension. Employs a real-world approach to public relations principles, practices, and strategies Focuses on global public relations rather than outdated nation-centered models Fills a gap in current literature on multinational and multicultural public relations Explains the public relations strategies that are best suited for each sector Includes summary sections that contain suggested readings and supplemental online links Designed for upper-level undergraduate and graduate students, Global and Multicultural Public Relations is an ideal textbook for courses in international public relations, global communication, public relations management, and multinational management, as well as business, political sciences, and public administration.

An ecofeminist criticism of neoliberalism, this book uses economic growth, CSR and the press coverage of environmental affairs as a case study. The author argues that CSR is part of a wheel of neoliberalism that continually perpetuates inequality and the exploitation of women and Nature. Using an ecofeminist sense-making analysis of media coverage of food waste, global warming, plastic, economic growth and CSR, the author shows how the press discourse in writing is always similar and serves to preserve the status quo with CSR being just a smokescreen that saved capitalism and just one cog in the wheel of neoliberalism. While available research offers perspectives from business and public relations studies, looking at how CSR is implemented and how it contributes towards the reputation of businesses, this book explores how the media enforce CSR discourse while at the same time arguing for environmental preservation. The book presents a combination of quantitative and qualitative methods to explain how and why CSR is being pushed forward by the news media, and how the media preserves the status quo by creating moral panic on environmental issues while at the same time pushing for CSR discourse and economic growth, which only contributes towards environmental degradation. The original research presented in the book looks at how the media write about economic growth, plastics, food waste, CSR and global warming. This interdisciplinary study draws on ecofeminist theory and media feminist theory to provide a novel analysis of CSR, making the case that enforcing CSR as a way to do business damages the environment and that the media enforce a neoliberal discourse of promoting both economic growth and environmentalism, which does not go together. Examining the UK media as a case study, a detailed methodological account is provided so that the study can be repeated and compared elsewhere. The book is aimed at academics and researchers in business and media studies, as well as those in women’s studies. It will also be relevant to scholars in business management and marketing.

This handbook is a resource for students, faculty, and researchers who are focused on understanding the role communication plays in the formation and execution of corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities. Bringing together authors who are thought-leaders and emerging scholars from diverse theoretical and methodological perspectives, it examines the issues central to CSR communication including: theoretical underpinnings, form and content of CSR messaging, the boundaries of engagement, and the tensions associated with CSR communication. It offers a unique combination of functional and formative approaches to CSR communication designed to expose readers to a blend of approaches. With attention to issues of diversity, equity, and inclusion, this handbook also explicitly addresses recent societal changes and how those changes will impact CSR communication research and practices in the future. Offering both a strong introduction to topics for novices as well as a more advanced interrogation of CSR communication for more knowledgeable readers, the handbook is appropriate for advanced students and researchers in public relations, strategic communication, organizational communication, and allied fields.