Interpreting corporate community relations
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2006
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Abstract
This study explores the ways in which seventeen corporate community relations practitioners experience, learn and interpret their practice. It responds to such questions as: How do the practitioners perceive their work? What are some of the contexts in which they function? What activities are they pursuing, what programs do they develop, and what meanings do they attach to them? Which experiences of their practice do they recall most vividly? How do they learn their craft? The research approach combines two traditions of qualitative inquiry (Creswell, 1998). The principle approach is phenomenology (Moustakas, 1994; Polkinghorne, 1989; Van Manen, 1997); the second is case study (Stake, 1995; Yin, 1989). Research methods include semi-structured interviewing, personal experience stories, personal journaling and participant observation. Procedures for analysing and representing the data are drawn from interpretive processes conceived by Denzin (1989a), Van Manen (1997) and Stake (1994, 1995). The study offers a constructivist learning perspective of corporate community relations practice. Drawing from anecdotes recounted by the practitioner participants, ten themes are developed: defining corporate community relations; learning from communities; transparency and accountability; learning from others; formal and informal learning; learning from failure; learning from success; emotions at work; the need for executive support; and the challenges of practice. The themes are examined within the context of existing theories about corporate community relations and experiential learning, leading to a focus on three overarching themes: community as a source of learning; the congruence of personal and professional values; and the role of emotional and interpersonal intelligences in corporate community relations practice. The overarching themes developed in the study suggest three principles that form the essential structure of good corporate community relations practice: good values are the heart of good corporate community relations practice; a primary responsibility of corporate community relations practitioners is to develop emotional and interpersonal intelligences; and socially responsible corporate community relations practitioners understand themselves and their companies as citizens of the communities and societies in which they live and work.
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Bibliography: p. 223-234
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Citation
Ulmer, H. (2006). Interpreting corporate community relations (Doctoral thesis, University of Calgary, Calgary, Canada). Retrieved from https://prism.ucalgary.ca. doi:10.11575/PRISM/388