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The Social Services Department of Waltham Forest is of an average size among the London boroughs with a workforce of 1,450 and a budget (in 1985) of about £20 million. In the autumn of 1983 the department was unexpectedly faced with sudden and fundamental changes to the senior management team. The Director who had formed and led the department since its inception in 1971 with a highly personalised and positively directive style, was retired on health grounds following a protracted illness and almost simultaneously one of the Assistant Directors elected for early retirement.

This paper brings together new and existing resource material to provide a detailed profile of the regulatory environments affecting the practice of public relations in the UK, Italy and South Africa. It is hoped that by contextualising the social, political and economic factors specific to each country, readers will be more acutely aware of similarities and differences between PR practices in each country. This approach aims to help drive PR policy development by providing a useful template for further national and continental PR regulatory environment mapping.

Under the heading “ Science and Alcohol ” The Times recently observed in a leading article that the “ Central Control Board ” had placed the “ liquor ” question on a new plane by administrative action, and were now undertaking to illuminate it in a more general and radical way by bringing “ science ” to bear. This statement appears to be based on the fact that a little book issued by the Control Hoard under the title of “ Alcohol: Its Action on the Human Organism ” is a “ first instalment ” of this attempt. It is alleged that this book is “ a review of the existing knowledge on the subject prepared by a committee of eight gentlemen representing different branches of science and of acknowledged standing in their several spheres, under the chairmanship of Lord D'Abernon, who contributes a preface.” The Times imagines that “ all sincere seekers after knowledge on the subject will be grateful for the work, which places in their hands a compact summary of the results of past investigation and evolves some sort of order out of a pre‐existing chaos,” and observes that in recent years “ a good deal of research into the action of alcohol has been carried on in different countries, but, as usual, the investigators have been isolated, their observations vary much in value, and the results are scattered about in numerous technical journals, which are not within the reach of ordinary readers. To put these scattered utterances together, sift the grain from the chaff, and present it in an orderly form is a task which few men would have been either able or willing to undertake. Yet a dipassionate survey was badly needed.”

Case studies in public relations are often used as illustrations in textbooks or for promoting good practices. This paper examines the use of case studies to understand the basics of PR strategies. Canadian award‐winning communication campaigns are analysed through a model based on communication theories. The outputs of different campaigns with similar objectives are compared and their methods of practice deduced. The model will be explained and Canadian lobbying campaigns used as examples.

The purpose of this paper is to outline concepts that explore and extend the significance of public relations as a relationship management discipline.

The paper postulates practice through which value is created to meet organisational objectives from the known or latent potential of tangible and intangible assets. In doing so, a definition and early research findings into the nature of relationships is put forwards and a definition of organisations as the nexus of relationships is proposed. The differentiation between organisational and interpersonal relationships is explored through a concept that organisations' tangible and intangible tokens are limited by a concept of materiality in a cultural setting.

The paper posits that material value is released through a process of relationship change and a public relations practice of relationship management is put forward as a management discipline that can create value when the process of relationship management acting on material tokens is deployed.

The paper explores how public relations is an agent for changing the value of organisations.

This paper documents the motivations of modern corporations in issuing corporate social responsibility (CSR) reports to their stakeholders. It further demonstrates why these entities have suddenly become more moral or ethical.

An empirical methodology was used to gather and analyse the required information from companies drawn from two sectors of the capital market.

The study results suggest that UK companies have different reasons for issuing CSR reports, for instance; in response to an increasing number of stakeholders requesting information on CSR, companies believe that doing so is good for business, to derive positive public relations benefits, to comply with the government's request for them to issue information on CSR, etc.

Information on corporate entities' CSR activities is considered to be valuable by both academic researchers and business managers as it provides a working framework on which future studies can be based. In addition, it improves understanding of the social obligations which corporate entities owe to their stakeholders and society in general.

Economically, Malaysia has one of the fastest growing construction industries in the world; however, the necessary balance between socio-economic and ecological systems – to avoid further environmental damage – has not yet been reached by the industry. This paper aims to explore the extent of sustainable development practices (socially, environmentally and economically) in the Malaysian construction industry, focusing on the office building sector.

Semi-structured in-depth interviews with 30 stakeholders from various backgrounds of the Malaysian construction industry are used to explore their challenges and motivations for pursuing sustainable outcomes.

The study finds that economic issues are the first priorities among stakeholders in any decision-makings for building projects and cost becomes one of the major reasons for the slow progress in implementing sustainable practices in building projects. Socially, there is still a wide gap of knowledge and awareness on sustainability issues among stakeholders, explaining the lack of commitment in achieving sustainability.

The sample size is only adequate to enable internal generalisation; hence, further research is required to test the generalisability of the findings in this research.

This paper informs the government and regulatory stakeholders, research and education sector, private sector, and clients of the building industry, where the authors currently are and the gaps that the authors have to bridge in order to make sustainability more socially acceptable and integral in the local construction industry.

There have been very limited studies on exploring the views from various groups of stakeholders regarding all the three components of sustainable development in the Malaysian construction industry.

The research of lobbying within public relations scholarship is a small but emerging field, having hitherto been largely the reserve of political science. While there is rightly interaction between the two disciplines, lobbying is a communicative act with a clear human element, usually involving (and in some cases, required by law before it is deemed to be lobbying) face to face interactions between actors, namely lobbying practitioners and those with influence and power such as politicians. This chapter contains the findings of a survey of professional lobbyists working in Scotland. The survey seeks to gain a better understanding of the profile of Scottish lobbyists, and to understand if there is any change in their practice as a result of the lobbying transparency legislation which was introduced shortly before the study commenced. The survey was conducted by online questionnaire and completed by 71 respondents between September 2019 and February 2020. The study finds that lobbyists in Scotland are predominantly male, have at some point been active in party politics and that there has been little behaviour change since the introduction of lobbying transparency regulation. It also finds that non-commercial interest groups are the largest group in Scottish lobbying, but only slightly. This study adds to the literature of lobbying practice and lobbying regulation and aims to create a better understanding of the relatively young Scottish lobbying sector. It therefore provides a basis from which to conduct further studies in Scotland and other jurisdictions.

The research explored, over seven years, the strategies and impact of six UK pressure groups. The main method used was in‐depth interviews. In addition, extensive searches of several literatures and database, archival, print, government and online works were undertaken, as was unobtrusive monitoring of consultations and other group communications. The data strongly suggested that these groups raised awareness of, and debate about, compelling broadcasting issues that affect viewers and listeners as citizens. At times, they achieved legislative changes. Groups that built strategic relationships with target publics, in tandem with media advocacy and media education, were more likely to achieve their goals, but relationship building was itself a successful outcome and contributed to ad hoc alliances/coalitions that increased organizational effectiveness. Overall, these groups had an impact on the range and quality of broadcasting issues discussed and on citizen engagement in broadcasting issues on national, regional and, increasingly, global levels. This research is one of the first studies from the activist perspective and posits public relations' value to democratic dialogue. It also presents a cross‐cultural perspective that may be transferable to other societies.

The purpose of this is to present the characteristics of emerging concepts and practices of corporate social responsibility (CSR) in Latvia.

The paper includes reviews of CSR concepts and related values, a mail survey of CSR benchmarks, action research on emerging SCR programs, and concluding remarks on prospective CSR development. Survey data are supplemented with validation checks and selected interviews. This empirical survey information is intended be the starting point for comparative studies of CSR in Latvia.

The survey shows understanding and CSR applications at a very early stage of development. Minimization of external social costs is unknown to most respondents. Conceptual understanding is complicated by traditional beliefs in conflict with remnants of collectivist expectations. Follow up interviews suggest the most common CSR principle is the ethical “doing right” to achieve business goals. As related research done by authors of this study show, these goals are shaped by institutional environment and the personal values. Significant CSR is practiced by larger firms. Education, personal and public communications are the expected change factors.

The basic weakness is that the external cost concept is new to respondents. Wider CSR acceptance is linkable to a situation where personal and public communications and education are major factors of change.

The information and related analyses of CSR extend the original survey data, first published in Latvian. This first study of externalities leads to further study of CSR and related strategic actions.