Rethinking the Corporate Community Engagement Continuum

Abstract

There is more than one-way business can engage with their local communities. Previous research has organised this diversity of interests, responses and impacts using both dichotomous and continuous typologies that mainly focus on corporate behaviours and actions. Although these typologies present a clear view about what firms have to do, little thought is given to understanding how firms engage with their social responsibilities and stakeholders in a more abstract level. It is clear that corporate community engagement involves a visible side of actions and techniques, but it is less clear which are the underlying assumptions firms implicitly or explicitly consider to develop these engagement methods. The purpose of this paper is to rethink the continuum of corporate community engagement in relation to the organisational contexts. In particular, by investigating the distinct but interrelated approaches to social responsibilities and stakeholder engagement firms might prioritise in transactional, transitional and transformational strategies. Acknowledging these approaches is relevant because they not only inform the community engagement strategy but the whole business strategy.