By Charles kulwa n reg no 42688

CSR communication strategy

Stakeholder information strategy

In the stakeholder information strategy’s ( Gruning & Hunt) .communication is always one way, from  the  organization  to its stakeholders . Communication is basically viewed as telling, not listening (Gruning & Hunt 1984) and therefore the one way communication of the stakeholders information strategy has the purpose of disseminating.

The stakeholder’s involment strategy suggests that companies engage frequently and systematically in dialogue with their stakeholders in order to explore mutually beneficial action- assuming that both parties involved in the dialogue are willing to change.

In organizational practice, the primary top managerial task in the stakeholder involvement strategy becomes one of ensuring that the organization is capable of establishing an ongoing and systematic interaction with multiple stakeholders. The communication task becomes one of ensuring a two way dialogue ( Gruning & hunt 1984)  in an almost  habermasia sense. in which the primary  aim is to bring about mutual understanding, rational agreement  or consent .as no top management  is capable  of engaging in  dialogue with multiple  stakeholders on a con current  basis.

 the  organizational implication is an  intergraded from ( Weaver et al 1999) of stakeholder thinking in which the corporate  CSR programme depends on its ability to integrate not  only organizational members, CSR concerns  but also to integrate external  stakeholders,, CSR concerns in  a concurrent dialogue. Corporate policies dictating what organizational units can and cannot do with respect to certain stakeholders groups are sure to fail to establish successful transactions with the stakeholders, no matter how well intentioned the policy ( Freeman 1984)

CSR is a moving  target, some year  ago   CSR  had narrowed  and more well defined  limits, whereas  today any  company may in principle  be associated  with  the  violation  of  human rights  as supplier and customer  actions  are increasingly  seen  as  a  corporate  responsibility by stakeholders . Any contemporary company may in fact encounter legitimacy problems at some point. On the one hand, information about CSR initiatives may be a means of preparing to avoid such legitimacy problem concurrently informing stakeholders about corporate CSR initiatives.

 On the other hand, CSR may communication may in fact provoke a legitimacy problem if a company encounters a stakeholders concern about its legitimacy, information on CSR initiatives may then retrospectively be perceived as means of covering up or accommodating the legitimacy problem, which in turn reinforce stakeholder scepticism towards CSR initiative and corporate legitimacy. Thus a straight forward stakeholder’s scepticism towards CSR initiatives and corporate legitimacy. Thus a, straight information strategy turns, out to have a double edge.