Corporate social responsibility (CSR) services: What are public relations agencies selling?

Abstract

Different discourse communities have associated corporate social responsibility (CSR) with different meanings. Because of the lack of a universal definition, organizations could attach different labels to the concept to their own advantage. Public relations agencies are one type of consultancies which has packaged CSR as a service for which they offer advice for planning and implementation. Based on an analysis of the web sites of 22 public relations agencies in the United States, this study found that these agencies presented to be offering a variety of services for different purposes, some of which are related to their expertise in communication and some of which are not. They highlighted their expertise, experience and innovative approaches in their services but failed to fully make use of their specialty in public relations to assist their clients in making CSR-related decisions. Thus, based on the findings, this study has suggested several areas to which public relations agencies could be hired to best contribute to their corporate clients’ CSR strategies, including understanding publics, segmenting publics and relationship building. By hiring agencies to help with CSR strategy formulation, corporations could benefit from a more effective allocation of resources to achieve desired outcomes.