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The purpose of this chapter is to examine community relations as corporate social responsibility (CSR) engagements by sport organizations through the lens of social anchor theory. Specifically, this work explores whether and how sport organizations serve as social anchors in community, and what community relations approaches have the potential to facilitate professional sport organizations as social anchors. Findings are based on textual analysis of CSR reports and community relating websites of nine professional sport organizations in the United States. Findings suggest that sport organizations act as social anchors by identifying with social issues, celebrating diversity, equality, and inclusion (DEI), and incorporating the margins into sports. Overall, partnerships, community events, and players' community engagements are the community relations approaches with potential to establish sport organizations as social anchors. The proposed best practices illustrate the intersection of sport CSR initiatives, community relations, and DEI social programs.

The purpose of this research is to look at the development of schools in their communities and the tension within it. Existing theories in social development and school administration suggest that community is a place where individuals construct identity, and that a school needs to form partnerships with its community, so that together, they work to improve educational effectiveness. However, current education policies have forced schools to compete among each other for survival in the community.

The case study method is employed, and the sample is two subsidized schools in Hong Kong, one primary and one secondary.

Findings in the present study suggest that there exists a tension between schools and their community. Pressure to survive has forced schools to try various means to promote their image in order to attract students. This pressure has also forced schools to change from their detached attitude towards the community, to a concern about how to develop productive relations with it.

This paper provides a conceptual framework for the sustainable development of schools.

School administration needs to give balanced attention to two needs – an internal need for program differentiation and an external need for integration into the larger community. These two needs can be mutually enhancing.

This paper provides empirical evidence to a framework of school development which involves the external community as a critical factor.

The last decade, and particularly the last few years, have witnessed a remarkable transformation in the construction industry. Today, this industry is one of the most dynamic, innovative and technically advanced of any sector in the UK’s economy. Unfortunately, the industry’s image and its reputation lag a long way behind its true picture. Further aggravated by the lack of a cohesive, coordinated, all‐encompassing body to bring this very disparate industry together, little has been done to address the gap between the exciting reality and the depressing perception of construction among the public. Fundamental issues such as skills shortages and a dramatic fall in students entering the construction professions are a real threat to the sustainability of an industry so critical to delivering the ongoing development of the country’s built environment. Nevertheless, the profound changes that have revolutionised the industry have, at the same time, demanded and even necessitated, an equally dramatic change in its approach to community relations. Of all the elements that comprise the corporate social responsibility concept that is being embraced by all businesses today, it is the success or failure of its community relations activities that will determine the outcome of several issues currently confronting the construction industry. This paper examines how the industry’s structural changes have impacted on the industry’s community relations and how, given the new importance of community, the industry is responding to the challenge of nurturing good relations with its public audience at site and project level. Guidance and guidelines are given for implementing a practical “best practice” community relations programme at this local level of construction operations.

The paper identifies a role for public relations in disaster management by analysing disaster and communication managers' understanding of community resilience and their use of communication in the context of two different cultural environments.

The research study comprised 51 in-depth qualitative interviews with disaster managers in Sri Lanka and New Zealand, which were thematically analysed using the software programme NVivo 10.

The study identified cultural differences in Sri Lanka and New Zealand that impact on how managers' communicate in natural disaster situations. The findings indicated that public relations’ understanding of communities’ cultures, their communication, networking and lobbying skills could further enhance the effectiveness of efforts to build community resilience to disasters.

Nations are complex multicultural realities; the findings cannot be generalized to make claims about how natural disasters are managed in different national contexts.

The paper identifies the unrealized potential of public relations’ expertise in communication, community relations, networking and lobbying to contribute to building community resilience to natural disasters.

By supporting efforts to build community resilience to disasters, public relations practitioners can contribute to social well-being in times of catastrophic natural disasters.

The paper adds an innovative perspective to public relations crisis literature by identifying the potential contribution of public relations’ concepts and practices to build community resilience to natural disasters. It demonstrates how sociocultural differences may affect disaster communication strategies.

This article examines the context of public relations as a communication activity in today’s business organizations. This is one of the most important communication activities carried out by the organization. Maintaining favorable relations with the community is as essential as maintaining favorable relations with other audiences such as customers, clients and employees. An organization will not be successful unless it can relate favorably to the community in which it is located. As a major audience for organizational communication, the community consists of all people in all walks of life who are affected significantly by the organization and who, in turn, affect it. Public opinion is an emerging force in the world today, and public opinion is shaped by communication. Some of the community audiences with which a company will regularly communicate are employees, shareholders, creditors, consumers, the media, the public, and government agencies.

The role of macro‐level processes in determining the effectiveness or otherwise of micro‐level initiatives is a theme that is developed in this paper. Based on efforts to tackle division between Protestants and Catholics in Northern Ireland through cross‐community contact, the paper will argue that the structural context within which contact occurs has important implications for the extent to which achievements of particular encounters are extrapolated to the wider community.

The purpose of this study to investigate the relationships between South Africa (SA) universities and universities surrounding communities (USC) for preserving community histories and serve the universities’ mandate to support their local communities and support universities’ teaching and scholarship.

The study used a multiple case study approach through interviews. The population of the study comprised representatives from selected universities and their USC.

The findings revealed a lack of effective relationships between universities and USC to preserve communities’ histories. Hence, the communities’ archives are tools for teaching and scholarship. Relations between universities and USC are to be built on trust. Accountability and transparency are to be considered by both parties.

The research is limited to selected SA universities, namely, University of Venda, Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, Pretoria and SA and USC. The findings are applicable to all SA universities and USC.

The relationship between universities and USC has a practical impact on the National archives of South Africa (NARSSA) to collect communities archives because it is in conflict with the mandate of NARSSA. The National Archives’ Act 43 of 1996 obliged NARSSA to collect and preserve communities’ archives on behalf of societies.

Lack of universities and USC can lead to the loss of communities histories or archives.

This paper appears to be the first to research the relationship between SA universities and USC.

This paper argues that a new theory of community industrial relations is needed that recognises fewer boundaries between work and family. The theory needs to recognise a mutual exchange between the traditional “actors” in the industrial relationship (unions, employers and the government) and “interactors” in the community rather than continue to assume a separation between the external and internal industrial environment that has underpinned traditional industrial relations theory. More importantly the theory needs to be gender inclusive and recognise the important role played by women as a link between industrial actors and the community. The paper presents examples of community‐union activity to illustrate the reality of the decrease in separation between community and industrial parties. In so doing the paper draws on the experiences of female partners of male unionists in traditional male workplaces. The paper proposes a new gender inclusive model of community industrial relations. Based on this model the paper proposes a new theory of community industrial relations in which interchange occurs between the traditional industrial relations actors and various groups of interactors within the community within the broader social/cultural, economic, political, and legal environment, for mutual advantage of all parties. This theory is in its formative stage and this requires further testing before it can be claimed as a general theory.

The purpose of this study is to demonstrate the roles of public spaces in promoting community relations and sense of place in a coastal community, which are both important elements of sustainable community development. This study investigated how activities in public spaces can foster community relations, thereby affecting sense of place, and described how public spaces are used by local residents.

The Ban-Chaytalae community in the coastal area of Samutsakorn province, Thailand, was selected as a case study. This community has plentiful wetland resources, which provide various benefits for local people, and several areas in the community are used as public spaces for various activities, such as social interactions, recreation, sports, learning activities and cultural and traditional practices. In-depth interviews with residents in the community were conducted, and a questionnaire was administered in the Ban-Chaytalae community during August-December 2017.

The results of content analysis revealed that several places in the community are utilised as public spaces, including shrines, commercial shops, transportation routes, the coast and spaces between homes. Moreover, the results of path analysis revealed that engaging in cultural, traditional, community development and socialising activities had direct effects on residents’ sense of place and indirect effects on sense of place through community relations.

The study findings implied that land development policy should avoid the deterioration of public places, and furthermore, public spaces should be developed to facilitate activities that can strengthen the active roles of citizens in sustainable community development.

This study provided empirical evidence on the role of public activities and spaces in promoting community relations and sense of place. The study results imply that the quality and quantity of public spaces where cultural, socialising and community development activities are performed should be conserved. Any development that might change these public spaces has the potential to affect people’s ways of living, which, in turn, influences social relationships and sense of place.

The object of this research is the reconstruction of the existing legal response by European Union states to the phenomenon of immigration. It seeks to analyse the process of conferral of protection.

One main dimension is selected and discussed: the case law of the national courts. The study focuses on the legal status of immigrants resulting from the intervention of these national courts.

The research shows that although the courts have conferred an increasing protection on immigrants, this has not challenged the fundamental principle of the sovereignty of the states to decide, according to their discretionary prerogatives, which immigrants are allowed to enter and stay in their territories. Notwithstanding the differences in the general constitutional and legal structures, the research also shows that the courts of the three countries considered – France, Germany and Spain – have progressively moved towards converging solutions in protecting immigrants.

The research contributes to a better understanding of the different legal orders analysed.