CSR and Public Relations

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is the commitment displayed by organizations and corporations to contribute to the economic and social development of their local communities and society at large. It is also a method, which corporate organizations carry out actions that benefit the society without revenue being the driving force and with the ultimate goal of making a positive impact on society. It is set of standards in which an organization or corporation takes on in order to make its impact on society.

According to Edelman "a company’s corporate social responsibility, citizenship and sustainability strategy should go beyond traditional reputation considerations and be directly related to its business continuity, employee morale and market expansion. According to the 2010 Edelman goodpurpose® study, eighty-six percent of citizens globally believe that business needs to place at least equal weight on society’s interests as on those of business."

So why does CSR matter to PR I like to use this analogy to break down the relationship with the two. Based on a study by the work foundation 4 out of 5 companies have made their CSR the responsibility of their PR departments so my take is this simple. If you have a good story to tell which theses companies do because of what they are doing with their CSR practices then let people know, shout it out to the world and that is where PR comes into it.

The topic of CSR is being discussed more and more frequently and on a global level, undeveloped countries are now beginning to mandate CSR as part of any good ethical business practice. I will be studying this further because I have chosen to write my dissertation in Corporate Social Responsibility in Nigeria. I am interested to know what the perception and practice of CSR is in Nigeria.

While there are a few models on CSR I am also very interested to know through my research what would be the best model to fit a place like Nigeria.