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The purpose of this paper is threefold: how companies perceive corporate social responsibility (CSR) and public relations (PR); how companies perceive the interconnection between these functions; and what factors contributing to their perceptions.

An interpretive qualitative study was employed, where semi-structured interviews with 34 members of PR and CSR departments and three top executives of three big mining (state-owned, private Indonesian, and multinational) companies in Indonesia were carried out. Archival data (e.g. newsletters, websites, and annual reports) were also utilized.

CSR and PR are perceived to be community relationship functions to gain and maintain organizational legitimacy from the communities and shareholders. Three factors shaping these functions: the social and political changes in Indonesia; the communities’ collective culture; and the nature of mining industry.

The current study focused on how companies interpret and enact their interpretations of their organizational environment. This study suggests further research into how the community and other stakeholders interpret the company’s activities and environment. This study also suggests further study on another type of industry.

The present study provides another approach to understanding how CSR and PR are constructed and enacted in an organization as well as to understanding the company’s justification in enacting particular CSR and PR functions. This study maintains the need to consider local values while keeping the global standard.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the process in which organizational members construct and enact public relations (PR) functions as well as how the organization accommodates local values in the PR enactment.

A case study of three large mining companies representing multinational, state-owned, and privately owned mining companies in Indonesia was employed. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 37 key informants (three top executives and 34 members of PR units).

The Indonesian private mining company and the multinational corporation actively engaged in their environment during the post-Suharto era. They perceived the local community to be more powerful than ever before as a result of the socio-cultural and political changes in the country. They changed their organization designs to gain organizational legitimacy by establishing independent PR divisions at the mining sites and assigning field officers who had the same cultural background as the community. These companies enacted the role of PR as relationship agents and cultural interpreters. Unlike these two companies, the state-owned mining company did not actively search for information from its environment. It relied on the government support for its organizational legitimacy and ignored the environmental changes.

This study is one of the first few studies examining the enactment of PR functions in Indonesia, an emerging country that is under-represented in the marketing and PR literature.