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Article published In:
Strategic Communication: Beyond nation cultural adaption, images and identity
Edited by Hassan Abu Bakar and Bahtiar Bin Mohamad
[Journal of Asian Pacific Communication 28:1] 2018
► pp. 1–19

Theorizing corporate-community relationships and the role of contextual factors in peacebuilding and beyond

| The Brian Lamb School of Communication, Purdue University
| Department of Communication, University of Dayton
| Department of Mass Communication, Advertising, and Public Relations, Boston University
| The Brian Lamb School of Communication, Purdue University
| The Brian Lamb School of Communication, Purdue University

The concept of relationships is one that is central to numerous subfields within communication, including interpersonal, organizational, and public relations. This conceptual paper investigates the notion of relationships and proposes a framework to understand and explicate corporate-community relationships (CCRs), a specific type of organization-public relationships (OPRs). In developing this framework, we draw upon existing literature and our experiences in Liberia related to natural resource management (NRM) as part of a multi-year collaborative peacebuilding initiative. We advance a framework of CCRs that (a) helps develop further empirical research and knowledge about these relationships and (b) contributes to the practice of more transformative relationships between Western and Asian multinational corporations (MNCs) and local communities in West Africa and beyond. This framework puts forth our conceptualization of CCRs as (a) constituted by the communicative, (b) dynamic, constantly influenced by macro and micro factors, and (c) complex. Drawing on our framework, we also advance some guiding questions for a research agenda in this area.

Keywords: community-corporate relationships, Liberia, peacebuilding, relationship
Article outline
  • Literature review
    • Problematizing and conceptualizing relationships
    • Organization-public relationships
    • Corporate-community relationships
    • Moving the Broom et al. (1997) framework forward
  • The Purdue Peace Project: A lens through which to unpack CCRs
    • CCR and NRM: Asia-Pacific and Western corporations in Liberia
  • A framework of corporate-community relationships
    • Contextual factors
      • Historical factors
      • Structural discrepancies
      • Discourses
      • Social and cultural norms
      • Legal/voluntary necessity of the relationship
    • Antecedents
    • Relationships
    • Consequences
  • An agenda for future research
    • How do contextual factors influence the ways in which CCRs are perceived, talked about, and constituted?
      • Post-positivists
      • Interpretivists
      • Critical and feminist scholars
    • How are relationships constituted by the cognitive and interactional perceptions of actors?
      • Post-positivists
      • Interpretivists
      • Critical and feminist scholars
  • Conclusion
  • References
Published online: 19 January 2018
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/japc.00001.con
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