ABSTRACT
Professionals working to install corporate social responsibility (CSR)/Sustainability processes in organizations and those who work in industries designed to report on or support those efforts have witnessed varying degrees of success. Opportunities for reflection about recalibration of organizational mindsets ultimately reveal suggestions for how to reform organizations to make them more committed to CSR/Sustainability and more ethical. When working in a CSR/Sustainability context, public relations counselors should enact the insider-activist role by endeavoring to serve as a change agent promoting and driving change ethically, across organizational culture and its systems. Even though public relations are so much more than publicity, organizations frame public relations almost exclusively as a means to maximize positive news and to minimize negative news via traditional and social media. A key entry point for critically examining the interplay among public relations, communication, and CSR/sustainability is to identify where these functions are housed in organizations.
