Corporate Communication: CSR, Issues Management, and Strategies

This report delves into the significance of corporate social responsibility (CSR) and issues management within organizations, with a specific focus on Commonwealth Bank in Australia. It examines how CSR activities contribute to organizational sustainability and serve as a marketing tool, highlighting the importance of corporate communication strategies in connecting with stakeholders. The report explores the issues management process, discusses various communication strategies, and analyzes Commonwealth Bank's CSR initiatives, stakeholder engagement, and corporate governance. It also covers media relations, consistency in corporate messaging, and green marketing, culminating in recommendations for improving services and overall communication effectiveness. The report provides a comprehensive overview of CSR issues, their impact on brand reputation, and the importance of stakeholder engagement for the bank.

Running head: CORPORATE COMMUNICATION
Corporate Communication
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

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Executive summary
The purpose of the following paper is to focus on the importance of corporate social
responsibility within the organizations and the ways the issues management process can be
handled. Many things have been found in this discussion as CSR activities are very useful for
the sustainability of the organizations. This is a social duty for all the organization and it serves
as a marketing tool for the organizations as well. Many organizations take it as a weapon to
serve the society and gain a better target market. The issues management process has been
discussed in this paper as well. The various issues have been explained in this context and the
corporate communication strategies have been discussed by focusing on the selected
organization Commonwealth bank in Australia. This paper also sheds light on the various
communication strategies in the corporate world and they look to concentrate on the ways in
which the companies can connect and communicate with their stakeholders. These things have
been portrayed in the entire discussion well enough to construct an idea about the corporate
social responsibilities of Commonwealth Bank, issues management and corporate
communication strategies with the recommendations for improving the services.

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Table of Contents
Introduction....................................................................................................................................3
Theory............................................................................................................................................3
Integrating CSR..........................................................................................................................3
Issues Management...................................................................................................................4
The role of CSR within the selected organization..........................................................................4
Role of CSR issues in the organization.........................................................................................6
CSR issues................................................................................................................................6
Media relations...........................................................................................................................7
Consistency of the company corporate communication messages...............................................8
Stakeholder theory.....................................................................................................................8
Green marketing........................................................................................................................8
Overall communication and recommendations..........................................................................9
Conclusion...................................................................................................................................10
References..................................................................................................................................11

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Introduction
The following paper deals about the integrated CSR and Issues management activities
and the focus will be on the real world organization, Commonwealth Bank. The corporate social
responsibility is one of the most important parts in the activities of an organization and the
organizations have to play this role very effectively since they operate within a certain society
and make profits from their society using the resources of the society. So, it is one of their major
responsibilities to serve the society as well. The corporate communication is also a main aspect
of this paper. The corporate industries and organizations must be dealing with the several
issues and in order to perform their tasks really well, they must communicate with each other
smoothly within the various departments. The Commonwealth Bank has been selected for this
paper because this organization deals with a major segment of common people within Australia
and they have many responsibilities to them as well as their issues management.
Theory
Integrating CSR
Corporate Social Responsibility is one of the major parts of the organization’s activities.
It is a part of the corporate governance reform and stakeholder activism (Vasi & King, 2012). It
has become one of the major things in the marketing for the organizations as well. An
organization has to adapt to many activities since they must be targeting their audiences by
focusing on their behaviors. This is determined by the fact what they want and what are their
likes and dislikes within their locality. The organizations have to provide these things properly to
their target audience by catering to some social responsibilities towards them (Tai & Chuang,
2014).
Corporate social responsibility has become a very common thing for the marketing
practitioners in the Common Era and the marketing practitioners are very serious about it. CSR
has been seen and developed from viewing it from different angles. This concept has been
looked upon from the views of social obligation, stakeholder obligation, managerial processes,
ethics and so on. Social obligation has been considered as an effective source for CSR
(Schneider & Schmidpeter, 2012). It has been argued that most of the CSR activities are
influenced by the facts that affect or get affected by the activities of the organizations. From the
viewpoint of ethics, it has been termed that self-interest is the thing that motivates or drives the
CSR activities. The bodies or stakeholder pillars to whom the organizations have a responsibility

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are the employees, customers, shareholders, suppliers, local residents, special interest groups,
local corporations or municipalities, legal regulatory systems or the media stakeholders.
Issues Management
One of the most recent methods in the modern day management is the issues
Management (Weiss, 2014). The business environment in the modern days is very much
uncertain and the business organizations have to manage its way through the difficult moments
in the business context. There are various social and political issues that are included in the
external business environment of the business. Through the process of the Issues
Management, the organizations will be able to discover and identify these issues and
challenges. The Issues Management will be an important aspect to address the different social
issues, issues related to public policy and the strategic issues (Hill, Jones & Schilling, 2014).
Generally, there are two purposes of applying the Issues Management into an
organization. On the first hand, Issues Management addresses these problems and restricts the
social and political challenges that affect an organization’s activities. Secondly, Issues
Management helps to take more prompt actions against these challenges and issues aroused
within the organization (Eden & Ackermann, 2013). The organization has to analyze the
important issues within the organization and then they can apply the Issues Management within
the organization for achieving better responses within the organization.
It is notable that the Issues Management had begun in the early 1960s and 1970s. A
social issue in that time was the fact of the women’s rights in the workplaces. These issues had
been tackled within the organization named General Electric. There were new demands in the
workplaces and they were analyzed by the organization authority and found out that they had
been operating in a whole new business environment. It was in the middle of the 1970s that
Issues Management came to be known and considered to be a proper corporate activity (Hill,
Jones & Schilling, 2014). The Issues Management has to be applied to an organization by
using three stages. These three stages are identification of the problem, evaluation and
responding to it in a positive manner.
Source 1
In this source the topic for discussion is the CSR facts. The various issues about the
CSR activities are discussed over here. CSR has been looked upon as an important part from

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the past times. There are several issues in the CSR. This ranges from the various ways in which
the CSR values work in the society.
Source 2
In this source, the topic of discussion is about the strategic isues management because
there are several issues in this way as well. Social issues management is one of the key things
in this aspect since the entire paper deals about the issues management and CSR activities.
Source 3
This source deals about the Issues management process. The Issues management is
one of the most important aspects in the management system of the organizations. There are
various purposes of the issues management in the organizations. These issues have been
displayed and discussed in various ways through the paper.
Source 4
This paper deals about the various factors about the corporate social responsibility and
the corporate communication. Corporate communication is one of the main factors in the case
of the organizations because the case of employee engagement is largely dependent on it.
Source 5
The corporate communication and the stakeholder study is the main talking point of this
paper. The various aspects are dealt with in this paper regarding the corporate communication
and the CSR activities. The corporate organizations are socially responsible as well and the
related things to CSR are discussed over here.
Source 6
The stakeholders are much responsible for a positive marketing in various aspects and
these aspects have been discussed about in this section. The marketers are very much
responsible for taking up a positive approach to the customers about the social responsibilities
of the organizations.
Source 7

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In this source, the corporate social responsibility in USA and United Kingdom are
discussed in various ways. The social responsibilities of the organization towards their
customers and other stakeholders have been compared between that of USA and UK.
The role of CSR within the selected organization
In this part of the assignment, the criterion is to discuss about the different issues related
to the corporate social responsibility within the selected organization, Commonwealth Bank
("CommBank", 2017). It is a well known organization all over the country and they have catered
to respond to various social issues. Commonwealth Bank has been a pioneering organization
within Australia to perform the corporate social responsibilities. They have been fighting against
the various social issues like poverty and inequality among the poor people of the society,
providing jobs to the unemployed young people, use the technological advancement to improve
the proceedings of the country, urbanizing of the lagged behind social classes, launching new
plans for the benefits of the poor and ageing people of the society, catering to the housing
needs of the people, meeting the needs of the shareholders, adapting new policies to fight
against the climate change (Chomvilailuk & Butcher, 2013). Commonwealth Bank has catered
to the several needs of the people and the society in different ways ("CommBank", 2017). They
are committed to bring the best out of their society.
Corporate governance
The Commonwealth Bank group has committed themselves to make sure that their
policies and practices will be maintained properly (Tricker & Tricker, 2015). They are determined
to provide the best kind of corporate governance to their society and the people. The Board of
Directors has adopted some strategies by which they will create a proper framework of
Corporate Governance Guidelines. These guidelines will be designed to maintain the balance
between performance and compliance ("CommBank", 2017).
Political donations
The policy of the Commonwealth bank has made the policies to make the political
donations. They may have to pay the money to the political parties for the events that are
hosted by them. These donations would be disclosed in their annual meetings with significant
electoral laws ("CommBank", 2017).
Group Whistleblower Policy

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Group Whistleblower policy is another relevant policy that must be included in their
corporate social responsibility activities (Trongmateerut & Sweeney, 2013). They have always
taken up the ‘speak up’ culture within their organization. The whistleblower policy and
procedures of the Commonwealth Bank makes sure that the reports of the bank are treated
properly and concerns about the employee raising are protected ("CommBank", 2017).
Stakeholder engagement approach
There are varied stakeholders for the Commonwealth Bank. They always review and
make the engagement priorities for the stakeholders in different ways. They have some
objectives regarding the enegegement with their stakeholders. Thse are:-
 Enhancing the partnerships with the stakeholders and enriching the participation of the
community (Buchholtz & Carroll, 2012).
 The perspectives of the stakeholders have to be listened to, understood and provide
proper responses in these matters. The expectations of the stakeholders have to be
fulfilled.
 The insight views from the stakeholders have to be reviewed and utilized by the authority
and take under considerations the risks and challenges that are associated with it. This
would enhance and improve the strategic operations of Commonwealth Bank.
The brand reputation of the organization Commonwealth Bank is greatly affected by the
CSR activities of the organization (Brown, Bessant & Lamming, 2013). Other policies like
detecting the frauds have been very effective within the organization as well. The anti-bribery
and corruption policies have helped the customers and other stakeholders in great many ways.
Role of CSR issues in the organization
The CSR issues within the Commonwealth Bank have been very interesting to be noted.
These issues are the ones in determining the brand image and reputation of Commonwealth
Bank. The impact of media relations has a deep impact on the same as well.
CSR issues
There are several issues that can be seen within the Commonwealth Bank though it has
been one of the most successful banks in Australia. They have been putting their best efforts to
shape up these CSR issues in great ways. There are some very important things that the CSR
practices in case of Commonwealth Bank should include. These issues include the factors like

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risk management, customer data protection policies and maintaining their privacy, sustainable
financial development, community engagement and providing a clean financial system for the
customers (Hull, 2012).
Risk management issues
The customers’ money and their well-being are always at stake from the time they invest
their money in the banks. The well-being of the society has to be made sure by the capital
adequacy and focusing on lending for the risks (Hull, 2012). This matter is critical and it has
been on eo fthe major problems within the Commonwealth Bank since it has a huge negative
impact on that country’s economy. These banking failures also impose a cost on the people who
pay taxes.
Sustainable financial development
The banks always have to be careful about the people or the organizations from where
they lend. In case of Commonwealth Bank, it is not a big problem since they have been a
trustable bank for years now. Commonwealth Bank should always pose a caution on the cases
where the environmental degradation or pollution is being caused.
Data privacy policies
The banks have to secure the data of the customers since they are extremely
confidential. Thje banks should take the proper steps in this context so that the loss of the
personal data can be prevented. Commonwealth Bank has been taking this context under their
consideration for a long time now. They have taken the help of the technological advancement
in this context and have provided the customers with some technological tools that will make the
personal data safe (Horvitz & Mulligan, 2015).
Media relations
Commonwealth Bank is hugely present in the media platforms- both offline and online.
This helps them to connect with their customers and positively try to solve their problems. They
are open to the media contact and they answer to the journalist enquiries (Tuten & Solomon,
2014). The journalists can also email them for explanations that will be needed for them to
know any information. They have their advertising and marketing teams who can be contacted
in any case of urgency and sponsors can be contacted as well. They have professional profiles

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on the social media platforms like Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin, YouTube, Snapchat and
Instagram (Tuten & Solomon, 2014)
These things are very significant in relation to keeping good connections with the
journalists as well as their customers. This caters to improve their brand reputation as their
works are well spread among their customers and the customers can feel the change very
easily as they get the best services from them. These positive points help them to stay ahead of
their competitors (Tuten & Solomon, 2014)
Consistency of the company corporate communication messages
Corporate communication message is a very important aspect in case of the CSR
activities of an organization (Argenti, 2015). These communication messages help to keep track
of the different things in the domain of the banking industry that involves most of their
customers. The corporate social responsibility is generally linked with the positive virtues. Every
organization has some social obligations and Commonwealth Bank, too, have their own ones.
These are positive attitudes to the society. The companies have to open up their ethical
obligations to the society they are operating in. The stakeholder engagement is a very important
aspect in this matter because the proper corporate communication needs the organizations to
be aware of their stakeholders with sophistication (Argenti, 2015).
Stakeholder theory
The stakeholder theory is an important matter in the determining the brand reputation of
the organization and knowing how the external and internal stakeholders can contribute to their
duties (Harrison & Wicks, 2013). Stakeholders are a significant part of the strategic planning of
Commonwealth bank. Both the internal and external stakeholders have to be engaged in the
sense giving and sense making process of the organization and thus communicate with the
various stakeholders of the company. For instance, Commonwealth Bank will be looking to
address their customers and the service providers to communicate with them the values,
missions and strategies of the bank so that they can improve their brand reputation (Roper &
Fill, 2012). .
Green marketing
Commonwealth bank has been one of the pioneering organizations in this aspect of
green marketing because they have achieved the first Green star assessment. They have been
awarded because of their branch design that was environmentally sustainable (Boztepe, 2012).

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They have followed the standard branch design and got the 5 Star Green Star Assessment
Award as a mark of ‘Australian Excellence’. They have been awarded with this because the
design had been assessed with nine impact categories and many sustainable elements that
includes low chemical paints, Forestry Standard certified timber, reduced water and energy
consumption and it saves up to at least 40% of energy when another branches are compared.
These sustainable things are implemented in Commonwealth Bank and serves for keeping the
integrity of the green marketing for the benefit of the stakeholders (Boztepe, 2012).
Overall communication and recommendations
The corporate communication is indeed proved to be an essential component in the
betterment of the organization. This has to be done because of maintaining a better
communication with the stakeholders and the other societal influences across their operational
domain. A productive relationship has to be created by keeping a good corporate
communication with these institutions or individuals. The individual or the organization has to
influence the individual or the organization. The action of sense making is the fact when an
abstract vision can be articulated and the corporate engagement has to be incorporated by the
involvement of the corporate management (Cornelissen & Cornelissen, 2017). Mainly there are
three communication strategies that could be highlighted in terms of the corporate
communication. The public relations theory has viewed the scenario from the area that most of
the companies are engaged in a one way communication with each other. This is called the
asymmetric communication while in some companies symmetric communication could be done
by two-way communication between the hierarchy and stakeholders. The two-way
communication process is dependent on the sense giving and sense making process
(Cornelissen & Cornelissen, 2017). Another communications model for the corporate
communications model is the propaganda model. The sense giving process is one of the most
important corporate communication processes in the modern business environment.
Recommendations
Commonwealth Bank should always focus on the two-way communications strategy as the
stakeholders will be able to communicate with the authority.
Commonwealth Bank should always try to innovate new technologies in trying to protect the
personal data of the customers.

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The Commonwealth Bank should look to focus on taking the opinions from their customers
since they are to be served by the bank and their likes and dislikes should be known by the
bank.
Commonwealth bank should look to concentrate on the Issues Management process to cater to
more customers.
The CSR activities of Commonwealth Bank should be increased and it should be expanded in
various other fields to increase the sustainability of the organization.
Conclusion
The paper can be concluded by saying that corporate social responsibility is one of the
main things in the operations of the organization. The selected organization for this paper
Commonwealth Bank has catered to the sustainability of the environment as well as the
protection of their customers in various means. This resolves the fact that Commonwealth Bank
has targeted to ensure the customers satisfaction through the CSR activities they perform in
their industry. They have fairly a good idea about the main things that surround their industry
and they have taken the positive steps to resolve those issues. The CSR activities of the
organization has been fairly compatible with the mission and vision of Commonwealth Bank
where the management of the various issues will be helpful for them to tackle with the
sustainability problems within the organization.