Communication in CSR project management under partnership

Abstract

Globalization and the advance of technologies bring the development of economics, cultures and societies. However, together with that a number of challenges such as unemployment, worker exploitation, climate and environment issues, inequality, also arise. Many businesses are committing corporate social responsibility (CSR) as a way to contribute to sustainable economic and societal development. To ease the risks and strengthen the efficiency of the commitment performance, many businesses are conducting CSR projects under partnership with local authorities, agencies, organizations or other businesses. Nonetheless, not all the partnerships are fruitful. Failures of project partnerships mostly stem from the shortcomings of project management while over half of problems in project management stem from poor communication as affirmed by Ruuska [66]. Sweden is well-known for a large number of businesses committing CSR and a quantity of CSR projects launched. This inspires author to study communication in CSR projects management under the partnership between Swedish businesses and project partners. The study explores the challenges CSR project managers face and their strategies in communicating with partners when managing CSR projects. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with CSR project managers through face-to-face meeting or via Skype to collect data for the study. The data were organized, coded and labeled under following categories for analysis: Communication medium, decision making, working style, gender bias, individuals, cost and time. The result showed that communication medium, individuals, cost and time were influential challenges in managing CSR projects under domestic and foreign partnership. Culture was seen as another challenge as well when it comes to foreign partnership. The analysis revealed CSR project managers suffer much pressure as managing partnership project when according to Morsinga et al [63b], partners are rather skeptical toward CSR communication while their opinions affect the reputation of companies. The findings indicated the combination and flexible application of communication medium, interpersonal communication and intercultural communication are the strategies that help CSR project managers deal with challenges, communicate effectively with project partners and facilitate project management in general and project results in particular.