PR Practitioners and Corporate Social Responsibility
There is one question I have recently been asked:
What role does public relations practitioners take in corporate social responsibilty?
(To be honest I did not know at first so I had to do a little bit of reading.)
According to this research paper a PR practitioner’s role is to provide qualitative evaluation of social trends which help the practioner develop policies leading to a corporate social response. Bernays himself said, “Public relations is the practice of social responsibility. It holds the key to America’s future.” I agree that this is the kind of role, if chosen by the practitioner, that can be taken in corporate social responsibility.
There is no reason that a PR practitioner shouldn’t take this role because their primary focus is reputation and for a company to take corporate social responsibility as discussed in this article. So, IF the PR takes this role they take on the responsibility of figuring out what their corporation must consider in the interests of society by taking responsibility for the impact of their activities on customers, employees, shareholders, communities and the environment in all aspects of their operations. The practitioner does the work that determines what factors that connect the corporation to each of these and the impacts of each of these and how the corporation can change the impact if negative to good. The practitioner can then incorporate a plan to encourage this social responsibility. After this, if successful, the PR practitioner actual improves their companies public relations.
If that makes sense at all, thats all I have to say.
