Test Your Knowledge on CSR Communication with Stakeholders

Study Notes

Traditional approaches to communicating CSR with stakeholders are based on strategic persuasion rather than democratic communication or dialogue.
Managers are hesitant to include stakeholders in CSR decisions by disclosing information, sharing power, or granting autonomy.
The lack of democratic communication skills and models makes it difficult to coordinate the divergent interests of stakeholders.
Stanley Deetz argues that most models of stakeholder communication and dialogue are borrowed from liberal democratic communication models used in state processes of governance.
Participatory models committed to diversity, conflict, and creativity may better meet the challenge of actual stakeholder dialogue about CSR.
The conditions for stakeholder involvement in corporate decision-making discussions include reciprocity of opportunity for expression, equality in skills for expression, setting aside authority relations, open investigation of stakeholders' positions, open sharing of information, transparency of decision processes, and testing alternative claims.
These conditions are directly applicable to corporate organizations, but it is often difficult for managers to meet them.
Traditional models of stakeholder dialogue may account for the poor regard people have for processes of corporate decision-making and cynicism of the use of terms such as "stakeholder dialogue" and "participation" in CSR.
Democratic communication models drawn from participatory democracy may better meet the challenge of actual stakeholder dialogue about CSR.
Participatory models stress diversity, conflict, and creativity, while liberal democratic communication models stress commitment to representation and consensus.