Better stay single? Public relations and CSR leadership in India

Public Relations Review 38 (2012) 141–143

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Public Relations Review

Short communication

Better stay single? Public relations and CSR leadership in India

Ganga S. Dhanesh∗

Department of Communications and New Media, Faculty of Arts & Social Sciences, National University of Singapore, Blk AS6, #03-41, 11 Computing Drive,

Singapore 117416, Singapore

a r t i c l e i n f o

Article history:

Received 13 May 2011

Received in revised form 8 September 2011

Accepted 12 September 2011

Keywords:

Corporate social responsibility

Public relations

Leadership

India

a b s t r a c t

Public relations scholars have argued that public relations practitioners, as boundary

spanners between organizations and their diverse publics, are well positioned to assume

leadership and become the “conscience” of their organization’s CSR efforts. Conversely,

scholars have also questioned public relations practitioners’ assumption of leadership of

CSR. Much of the debate, both for and against, has been generated in Euro/American con￾texts of practice. As part of a larger study, this research aimed to examine whether the

argument for public relations’ leadership of CSR holds true in non-Western contexts as

well, specifically, by examining CSR leadership in corporations in India that are known to

be socially responsible. This study found that in the majority of companies that are heavily

engaged in CSR in India, it was the senior business executives and managers, instead of the

PR practitioners, that were tasked with CSR leadership. Based on the findings of this study,

this paper questions the assumption of CSR leadership by public relations practitioners.

© 2011 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction

Public relations scholars have argued that public relations practitioners, as boundary spanners between organizations

and their multiple publics, are aptly positioned to assume leadership for their organization’s social responsibility and moral

consciousness (Heath & Ryan, 1989; Starck & Kruckeberg, 2003). However, a discussion session, under the Public Relations

division of the ICA 2010 conference in Singapore, titled Public Relations, Issues Management, and CSR: Marriage or Divorce?,

cast doubt on this argument. Whether arguing for or against public relations practitioners assuming the leadership role in

CSR, most of this scholarship has been generated within Euro/American contexts of research and practice, highlighting the

ethnocentricity that characterizes much of extant research in the fields of public relations (Pal & Dutta, 2008; Sriramesh,

2008) and corporate social responsibility (CSR) (Mohan, 2001).

Who leads CSR in non-Western contexts of practice? This study aimed to examine CSR leadership in non-Euro/American

contexts of practice, specifically in India, for the following reasons: First, India is the fourth-largest economy in the world,

measured on the basis of purchasing power parity exchange rates, and is projected to be one of the world’s fastest-growing

economies from 2010 to 2014 (Economist Intelligence Unit, India country forecast, 2010). Second, India has had an unbroken

commercial tradition with a long history of social responsibility of commercial organizations, and a cultural ethos of caring

and sharing (Mitra, 2007; Sundar, 2000). Third, since its economic liberalization in the 1990s, India has experienced rapid

rates of economic growth and Indian companies have also increasingly made their presence felt worldwide (Economist

Intelligence Unit, India country report, 2010). Fourth, the unevenly distributed gains of national economic growth have

exacerbated existing social disparities in the country. Such a confluence of factors provides a fertile context to study the

phenomenon of CSR and CSR leadership in India.

∗ Tel.: +65 6516 1023; fax: +65 6779 4911.

E-mail address: [email protected]

0363-8111/$ – see front matter © 2011 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

doi:10.1016/j.pubrev.2011.09.002