Businesses' social engagement, public relations and social development : a beyond modernist conceptual model

Abstract

This study proposes a beyond modernist conceptual model for businesses' social engagement to address social development through public relations. This model is based on the premises that social thinking shifted towards beyond modernist thinking, that the same shift is evident in social development and that businesses' social engagement to address social development through public relations should be aligned with this shift in social thinking and in social development. The social shift towards beyond modernist thinking means that it is assumed that people are interdependent on one another for their future survival on earth, and that people and nature are, in the same way, interdependent. Accepting interdependency implies acceptance of 'multiplicity' and 'reciprocity'. This leads society to increasingly expect that businesses should be socially engaged. In developing countries this implies social development. This shift in society towards beyond modernist thinking is echoed in social development discourse: through an an equal-status relationship between benefactor and beneficiary beyond modernist social development enables members of a developing community to develop themselves. These shifts in social thinking and in the field of social development, has not matured to the same extent in the practice and theory of businesses' social engagement to address social development through public relations. The conceptual model proposed in this study addresses this concern. The proposed conceptual model formalises this shift in thinking on a theoretical/conceptual level, which indicates an ecological business-society relationship where the business regards itself as being part of society, where public relations should have a social orientation and where the businesses' social engagement through public relations should be directed towards the improvement of society. Based on this model, guidelines towards the practice of businesses' social engagement to address social development through public relations are deduced