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Relations in university settings are becoming more heterogeneous in terms of race, ethnicity, religion, nationality, class, and gender. In South Africa, transformation imperatives have radically changed the complexion of the country’s university campuses but have also entrenched political imperatives in its universities. As a consequence, the university is a highly politicised space. This is not new. What is new is a communication environment characterised by real-time, global networked digital communication and the uptake of digital media platforms (including social media platforms). We explore the effects of politicisation and new modes of communication using the case of a controversial article published in a South Africa journal and the ensuing polemic. Drawing on both institutional theory and Castells’ description of the network society, we conceptualise collegiality along two dimensions: horizontal collegial relations which exist for the purpose of knowledge creation and transfer which, in turn, depends on self-governance according to a taken-for-granted code of conduct; and vertical collegiality which describes collegial relations between academic staff and university management, and which is necessary for the governance of the university as a complex organisation. We conclude that the highly personal nature of communication that is propelled by digital communication has a direct impact on collegial relations within the university. The motivations of both university academic staff and management, as well as the public, extend beyond stimulating collective debate in the service of knowledge production to serving individual and/or ideological agendas as the communication of science becomes politicised. While issues pertaining to collegiality in South Africa may at first glance appear to be unique to the country, we believe that in a globally transforming academy, the South African case may offer novel insights and useful lessons for other highly politicised university systems.

The purpose of this paper is to identify what attention science pays to CSR communication for the process of career orientation and employer decision-making by the critical sought after top talent.

The review is structured as a systematic literature review of the CSR–HRM intersection. In 11 EBSCO online databases one of several “CSR-terms” was combined with one of several “HRM-terms”.

Although CSR has long been recognized as a relevant factor for organizational attractiveness (Greening and Turban, 2000) and talent attraction and its importance is reflected in the ongoing “war for talent” (Chambers et al., 1998) in which (prospective) leaders are considered a critical human resource for corporate success (Ansoff, 1965), few contributions are focusing on successfully recruited future leaders/high potentials.

There is a knowledge gap about the importance of CSR in high potential recruiting, which influences both resource-strong decisions on the company side and the communication behavior of applicants. Companies only know about a general CSR relevance for employees and applicants. Accordingly, no attention-optimized CSR communication can take place. In the highly competitive battle for the attention of high potentials, this leads to undifferentiated communication formats. At the same time, high potentials may not receive the CSR information of interest to them from an employer at the relevant time and therefore cannot present an optimal fit in the cover letters and thus cannot prove themselves as ideal candidates.

CSR is not only an obligatory field of communication for companies, but also a special opportunity in recruiting the young value-oriented generations Y and Z. The research on CSR communication in the course of their career decision has not been covered in a review so far, the research situation is thus explicitly addressed for the first time and practical implications for the post COVID-19 employer brand and recruiting communication are addressed.