The long-awaited Draft King III Report and its Principles have been made public by the Institute of Directors in Southern Africa (IOD). Of particular interest to Public Relations/ Corporate Communication is Chapter 8: ‘Managing Stakeholder Relationships’.
The Principles underlying King III’s Chapter 8 are stated to be the following:
8.1. The board should take account of the legitimate interests of stakeholders in its decisions.
8.2. The company should proactively manage the relationships with its stakeholders.
8.3. The company should identify mechanisms and processes that promote enhanced levels of constructive stakeholder engagement.
8.4. The board should strive to achieve the correct balance between its various stakeholder groupings, in order to advance the interests of the company.
8.5. Companies should ensure the equitable treatment of shareholders.
8.6. Transparent and effective communication is important for building and maintaining relationships.
8.7 The board should promote mutual respect between the company and its stakeholders.
(Principles 8.8 to 8.10 deal with Dispute Resolution).
I have invited Estelle de Beer to comment on the Draft of King III. She is one of the 108-member Committee, led by Mervyn King, who substantially reworked the 2002 King II Report. (After 17 yrs as a PR practitioner, Estelle joined the Dept of Marketing and Communication Management at the Univ of Pretoria, SA where she has been teaching Strategic Communication Management for the last 7 years). Estelle’s input in the King III Report has been made via the Sub Committee on Compliance and Relationships. She has played a substantial role in that, for the first time, stakeholder relationship management as part of the inclusive approach to corporate governance has been treated as a separate chapter in King III. Following are her comments.
<While initially seen to be part of the sustainability chapter, it became clear during the deliberations on the various topics covered by King III that the management of relationships with stakeholders was such an important element of corporate governance that it needed more detailed coverage. It was concluded that pro-actively focusing on stakeholders with legitimate expectations and managing the relationships with them will contribute towards transparency and enable them to determine the value of an organisation. It will also ultimately result in a positive reputation for an organisation.
Chapter 8 was compiled by representatives from practice and academia representing legal, business and communication fields. This multidisciplinary approach ensured a rich content and contributes to the legitimacy of the subject. One can now regard this chapter as being representative of the typical opinions of an organisation’s dominant coalition on stakeholder relationship management. Since King III will typically be read and applied by the dominant coalition in organisations, its approach to stakeholder relationship management should soon permeate management thinking. It can therefore be expected that the strategic positioning of the corporate communication and/or stakeholder relationship management function in the organisation should improve.
In the spirit of the Excellence Study, it is clear that there are strong expectations from top management for the stakeholder relationship and corporate communication function to be managed strategically. The challenge is now for corporate communication managers and practitioners to deliver on these expectations. In many organisations the benchmark practices set out in the King Report III for stakeholder relationship management have been part and parcel of corporate communication practices. However, in King III these practices are recognised as being strategically important for the sustainable existence of the organisation. It is recognised as being part of proper sustainability, strategic management and good governance practices, which gives stakeholder relationship management and the corporate communication function legitimacy in the organisation.
A two-way symmetrical approach (although normative) between an organisation and its stakeholders is also encouraged in King III. This is evident in the first paragraph of the chapter on Managing Stakeholder Relationships, which states: “A stakeholder-inclusive corporate governance approach recognises that a company has many stakeholders that can affect the company in the achievement of its strategy and long-term sustained growth.” The Report also states that: “Companies should take account of the fact that stakeholders’ interests in the company could change and so re-examine the interests of such stakeholders at appropriate levels.” >
There is much more to be said about the principles covered (or not covered) in King’s Chapter 8, and how it relates to public relations and corporate communication. Estelle and I therefore invite you to comment here on PRC on the Principles (or Chapters) that have a bearing on our field. We will put these comments together and submit them to the Institute of Directors in Johannesburg on behalf of PRConversations. The final version of King III is set for release on 1 September 2009, after public input has been considered. So here is your chance to have your say!
Anybody can, of course, submit their comments directly to Lindie Engelbrecht, CEO of the IOD (by 25 April 2009) at the following email address: kingIII@iodsa.co.za or via http://african.ipapercms.dk/IOD/King3/ However, we hope that you will share your comments with us too.
Hi Does this report also applies to the Namibian companies?
Namibia’s own version of South Africa’s ‘King III Report,’ called the NamCode, was launched by the Namibia Stock Exchange (NSX) in July 2014. The reason why King III could not simply be applied in Namibia was because certain concepts were not being provided for under Namibia’s existing legislation.
Based on King III, the Corporate Governance Code for Namibia (NamCode) provides guidance to all Namibian corporate entities on various governance related aspects, including inter alia:
• Ethical leadership and corporate citizenship;
• Governing stakeholder relationships, proposing that companies institute measures to ensure that they are able to proactively manage the relationships with all their stakeholders (including shareholders), and encourage constructive stakeholder engagement;
• Integrated reporting and disclosure.
The NamCode builds on the principle of the Triple Bottom Line by emphasising sustainability. The concept of the Triple Bottom Line was introduced into King II to emphasise the need for companies to account not only for economic and financial issues, but also for social and environmental issues.
As a product of the private sector, the NamCode is not legislation and therefore voluntary in its application. However, the NamCode is not only relevant to NSX listed companies, but a very useful guide to all companies and entities in the public and private sectors.
Hey, I am a student and i want to know when a question says ‘how effective leadership in local government may be enhanced by a framework for the application of King III governance principles in local government. and ‘how effective leadership and the setting of appropriate levels of remuneration for directors and executives of state owned enterprises may be enhanced by the application of King III principles’
Does the question require one to focus on the principles in King III applicable specifically to leadership and remuneration or a discussion of all the 9 principles?
I am thinking if it was all the principles i should be discussing the question would say discuss the king three principles to enhance local government, but the specific reference to leadership and remuneration makes me think the focus is on those two aspects?
I fully agree with Benita’s comprehensive answer above. The principles in King III can be applied in any organisation and the chapters were written with that perspective in mind.
Also consider including the International Integrated Reporting Council’s (IIRC) newly released Consultation Draft in your research. You will find the document on their website. It links with Chapter 9 in King III, which covers the topic of integrated reporting. The integrated report is now considered to be one of the most important channels of communication with investors and other stakeholders.
In this new business environment the communication strategy has become the link between the corporate strategy and the integrated report. From this perspective it also forms part of the integrated reporting process. Organisations in business, government and the NGO sectors across the globe have issued integrated reports over the past few years, which illustrates that good governance principles can be applied in all of these spheres.
Hello Zvitambo,
You will see that the title of the 2009 King Report on Governance for South Africa refers to ‘Governance’ and not to ‘Corporate Governance’, as King II of 2002 did. King III is therefore meant to be applicable to all types of organisations (non profit and public) and not only to the private sector.
In King III, the emphasis is on how the principles and recommendations can be applied, as opposed to whether to comply or not. This makes it easier for small and medium enterprises, state-owned enterprises, government departments and non-profit organisations to make use of King III through customised application.
The King III Report states: “The ultimate compliance officer is the company’s stakeholders who will let the board know by their continued support of the company if they accept the departure from a recommended practice and the reasons furnished for doing so.” In the case of the public sector, Parliament — on behalf of the public at large — acts as a key stakeholder and will determine the level of compliance that each public institution should strive to achieve in addition to its statutory compliance required in terms of the various acts. National and provincial institutions have similar compliance obligations that reside with the executive authority, delegated to the accounting officer or equivalent. For more on this, I recommend that you look at the PriceWaterHouseCoopers (PWC) ‘Executive guide to King III in national, provincial and local government’ (2009) on how to apply and implement King III in government and the public sector.
Also look at PWC’s 2010 position paper on ‘Local Government and King III’. Although municipal councillors do not, by law, have the fiduciary responsibilities of members of a board, there are implied fiduciary duties by virtue of the fact that the Council (through the decisions of councillors) has the power to spend taxes, which is money belonging to the community.
As a PhD student, you might want to look at:
— an academic article on non profit organisations e.g. the dangers that King III holds to non profits in South Africa (p7) and the options that NPOs have (p10). See ‘South Africa’s King III: Highlighting the need for a separate non-profit governance code’
— King 3 rules ‘can apply to nonprofit bodies’
Finally, the following blogpost in Mail & Guardian in South Africa might be interesting to you: ‘King III should incorporate non-profits’ unique needs’
Benita
Dear Sir/Madame
I am a prospective PhD learner. Is it possible to look at the applicability of King III reports to non profit government institutions like Municipalicities?
Despite Paul Seaman’s opinion, I can tell regular readers of PR Conversations that Benita Steyn’s two posts:
– Difference between King III and King II Reports on Governance
– King III Report on Governance for South Africa available for Comment
are amongst the most Viewed pages, year round.
I’m also pleased to report that Benita (PRC alumna) agreed to return as a guest poster and provide us with an informed update. So, you can look forward to reading her “Integrated Reporting and Strategic Public Relations” post, very soon.
South Africa has too many neo-Marxist theoreticians (the product of a miss-spent Western education reading Gramsci during the apartheid diaspora of home-grown intellectuals at the likes of Essex University) writing good stuff on paper which covers up real world practices. South Africa does not need this nonsense. Instead, a bit more probity would do the trick nicely. And the first step toward that would be to stop maintaining that the solution to the country’s problems lies in forms and processes and codes of practice and the formation of countless committees (that’s what Enron claimed kept it honest…and we all know where that led).
I am so impessed with the work well done and the strength that you have to keep improving this tool. King III is a well organized tool for all types of organisations and it is clear and understandable. When I read it I imagined that if our government can implement King III fully in an ongoing process there would be a lot of improvement in managing government systems. I am an internal auditor this document brought a lot of guidance on what is expected of me. This tool is for everyone who has got a vision to put the organization on high professional and organized levels to put it on top
Thank you,
Keep going!
Sindi, I cannot agree more. Judge Mervyn King, the Chairman of the King Committee (that produces the King Reports), is a visionary man. But besides that, the King Committee consists of 104 persons from many different fields. Except for the main committee, there are also numerous subcommittees. So this is a team effort in many ways. And we can be justly proud of what they have achieved. For instance, based on the King III Report’s recommendation that listed companies produce ‘Integrated Reports,’ the JSE has mandated all listed companies to do so as of 2010. This makes South Africa the first country in the world to do so.
Although the first two King Reports were on ‘Corporate Governance’, King III is on ‘Governance’, and thus also aimed at the government and non-profit sectors. And of course governments need ‘good governance’ just as much as the private sector. If not more–South Africa is a case in point.
Sunande – thank you for commenting and interesting to see that you are undertaking an assignment on the King report. Thanks also to Toni for sharing his thoughts. However, I should point out that under our Talking Points about PR Conversations, we state:
“The participation of students in public relations and communication or other related disciplines is encouraged and welcomed; however, it is not our responsibility to do research for your project or to help complete an assignment. ”
I’m sure that you appreciate the reason for your assignment being set is for you to reflect and consider the points yourself, drawing on opinions and reading on the topic. It would be useful to hear your own thoughts here rather than simply asking us at PRC to address your questions.
I am sure you will find many thoughts and opinions throughout PRC posts that address stakeholder and governance approaches – and as such, perhaps you can then draw on those in developing your own answers to the questions you pose.
Good luck with the assignment.
Interesting question Sunande.
I don’t know about others’ opinion on this, but mine is that the ‘apply or explain’ approach fits in better with our profession in the sense that it induces the non applicant to explain (i.e. narrate or communicate if you prefer) the reasons why it has decided not to apply.
In my personal opinion this approach is more severe in fact than the ‘apply or else’ approach because it exposes the organization to its many stakeholders in explaining why not.
In the ‘apply or else’ approach the negative consequences on a non application are lenghty, legal and often tacit to the public.
The other approach instead bears immediate reputational consequences for the organization.
Other opinions?
Hi!
I am a Student at the University of Pretoria busy with an assignment on the King report.
I’m struggling to understand a few factors if you would please help me?
Would you say that the “apply or explain” approach followed in South Africa is merely the result of historic circumstances and/ or South Africa’s status as a developing/ postcolonial economy or is such an approach inherently ‘better’ than a “comply or else approach?
Can one associate the stakeholder approach and nonregulatory (“apply or explain”) approach to corporate governance; with the corresponding association between the shareholder approach and the regulatory
(“comply or else”) approach?
Which approach to corporate governance do you find most convincing and why?
I would really appreciate any help.
Thank you
Hi Jayne Hunter-Rhys
I am also doing research on the topic. Please let me know if you end up with an answer.
Kind Regards
Masiza, Melissa
I am a corporate governance student, and am doing research for a project to find out the similarities and comparisons of the KING III report versus the newly gazetted Companies Act;
are you able to provide me with any online references to get hold of this information or from yourselves?
I would appreciate it very much.
Kind regards.
Thank you all so much for your comments and contributions, i am a student and currently doing research on evolving corporate governace regulations in South Africa. I am also interested in reviewing how these new changes fit in or can be traced to the incumbent global finacial crisis. Any comments and help will be greatly appreciated.
Eddie, While King II applied to listed companies, financial institutions and public companies, King III applies to all entities, regardless of their nature, size or form of incorporation. This is a considerable extension to the code’s former – limited – application. For the first time, all businesses are openly encouraged to adopt best practice corporate governance policies.
This is “a business revolution of significant dimensions,” according to Ewald Müller, Senior Executive: Standards at the South African Institute of Chartered Accountants (SAICA) in Johannesburg. He cautioned entities previously content to brush corporate governance under the carpet to “sit up and take notice”.
Acknowledging that not every aspect of King III applied to all business entities, Müller stressed that all entities should carefully study the document to distinguish between that which applied to them and that which did not (see http://www.ITINews.co.za 24 March 2009 for more of Ewald’s views on governance).
In terms of the King Reports , and in particular King 111
Do they apply to all Companies or only to the large listed companies?
Gerhard, I have turned your question on the difference between King II and III into a new post. Please go to the PRConversations home page to see Estelle de Beer’s answer to your question.
Benita, thank you for coresponding I just started a NQF 6 in opperation manegement and the king report is new to me, my first task is to hand in a 20 page report on the comparison’s between King 2 and King 3. Your comments are going to help a lot
Thank you.
Gerhard: The focus of King III is on the importance of conducting business reporting annually in an integrated manner, i.e. putting the financial results in perspective by also reporting on:
> how a company has, both positively and negatively, impacted on the economic life of the community in which it operated during the year under review; and
> how the company intends to enhance those positive aspects and eradicate or ameliorate the negative aspects in the year ahead.
According to King III, the King Committee continues to believe that there should be a code of principles and practices on a non-legislated basis. There are various approaches to a voluntary basis for governance compliance. Internationally, the ‘comply or explain’ principle has also evolved into different approaches: At the United Nations, for instance, it was ultimately agreed that the UN code should be on an ‘adopt or explain’ basis. In the Netherlands Code, the ‘apply or explain’ approach was adopted.
King III also adopted the ‘apply or explain’ approach and its practical execution should be addressed as follows:
It is the legal duty of directors to act in the best interests of the company. In following the ‘apply or explain’ approach, the Board of Directors, in its collective decision-making, could conclude that to follow a recommendation would not, in the particular circumstances, be in the best interests of the company. The board could decide to apply the recommendation differently or apply another practice and still achieve the objective of the overarching corporate governance principles of fairness, accountability, responsibility and transparency. Explaining how the principles and recommendations were applied, or if not applied, the reasons, results in compliance.
In reality, the ultimate compliance officer is not the company’s compliance officer or a bureaucrat ensuring compliance with statutory provisions, but the stakeholders.
Around the world, some of the principles of good governance are being legislated in addition to a voluntary code of good governance practice. In an ‘apply or explain’ approach, principles override specific recommended practices. However, some principles and recommended practices have been legislated and there must be compliance with the letter of the law. This does not leave room for interpretation. Also, what was contained in the common law is being restated in statutes.
In this regard, perhaps the most important change is incorporation of the common law duties of directors in the Act. This is an international trend. As a consequence, King III points to those matters that were recommendations in King II, but are now matters of law because they are contained in the Act. Besides the Act, there are other statutory provisions which create duties on directors and King III draws some of these statutes to the attention of directors.
Gerhard, if you download the KING CODE OF GOVERNANCE FOR SOUTH AFRICA 2009 from the website mentioned by Toni in the previous comment, look on:
–p9, under Heading 8. ‘Key aspects of this Report’ (leadership, sustainability and corporate citizenship);
–p13, under Heading 10. ‘Emerging governance trends incorporated in the report’; and
–p14, under Heading 11: ‘New Issues in the Report’ (where you will find a short summary on what is new in the 2009 Report).
In my post, Estelle de Beer discussed some important aspects with regards to stakeholder management. Toni then commented that stakeholders should be ‘governed’ rather than ‘managed’ (amongst others). His suggestions were sent to the IOD’s King Committee and, based on his comments, the chapter on ‘Managing Stakeholder Relationships’ was renamed ‘Governing Stakeholder Relationships’.
These are by no means the only differences between King II and III, but provide a few points to ponder.
There are many perspectives from which to view the King III Report. What is your field of study?
I am a student and are looking for comparison’s between the King 2 and King 3 report’s espesialy the salient features. Any extra information would be most helpfull.
Thank you.
Good news. The King 3 report has just been released and constitutes a dramatic acceleration of the growth of our profession.
Can we now prove to be up to the challenge?
Visit http://www.iodsa.co.za/ and download…..
@ Trust Jeferson: We would be most interested to have your comments.
I do agree that many companies and boards pay only lip service to good governance. However, non-legislative measures/frameworks such as the Sullivan Principles (1970), the Cadbury Report (1992), the King Reports (1994, 2002), the Global Reporting Initiative (1997) and ISO 14001 Environmental Management System (to name but a few) are early reflections of societal norms, expectations, values and standards. As such, they provide guidelines to those ‘best practice’ companies who understand that what an organisation can and cannot do in terms of its strategy is not only constrained by legislation, government policies and regulatory requirements but also by what is considered ethical and in accordance with societal and stakeholder expectations. (In my opinion, it is the strategic role of PR/cc to reflect these expectations to companies so that they are aware and can adapt their strategies and behaviour to these expectations. This is why I would have liked to see more PR/cc practitioners on the King III committees).
While such ‘best practice’ companies and boards might previously have been few and far in between, there is increasing evidence that their numbers are picking up. In South Africa, for example, the Social Responsibility Investment Index of the JSE (Johannesburg Stock Exchange) provides a list of such best practice companies that set the example for others to follow (selected according to strict criteria). Such early adopters know the advantages to reputation of adapting before legally forced to do so –namely being more flexible in their response patterns, achieving greater congruity with social/societal norms, and therefore obtaining legitimacy at a lower social and institutional cost.
I am still reviewing the draft document, and will upload my comments by Friday, May 15, 2009.
generally the document is spelling a strong corporate framework based on integrity in the boardroom. What remains to be seen is whether the board occupants and companies alike will only live the letter of good governance or the very spirit of it.
Visitors interested in a call for papers to be presented at a conference organized by the University of Udine, Italy, on the theme The Firm and its Stakeholders, please email to mario.ianniello@uniud.it
a good opportunity for public relations scholars, students and professionals to have a say in this growing area of interdisciplinary organizational relationships practice.
I have just finished reading with some attention the full report.
It is indeed an extraordinary report and sets out, with surprising clarity, a conceptual framework for how organizations need to be governed in today’s society.
The least one could say is that should organization behaviours have followed such a framework over the last ten years we would certainly not be in the global rut we are in today and corporations would not have lost, as they have, the trust of the general public as well as that of many of their stakeholders.
Having said this, in the spirit of attempting to contribute to a final draft before its formal publication, I would like to indicate a few points which I believe would benefit from fine tuning and even, here and there, a conceptual shift.
The only general point I would like to make, before going into specifics, is that the repeated use of the term communication to identify the principal tool to relate with stakeholders, omits to indicate that the governance (rather than the management…) of stakeholder relationships is, for all purposes, the evolution of what for more than one hundred years have been called, in their most noble interpretation, public relations (in the sense of relationships with publics).
The risk of giving such topical relevance to stakeholder relationships and their governance, which is timely, relevant and strategic, is to spark off another new discipline and function which inevitably, with the dirty water (of which there is plenty..), throws in the wash basin a substantial global body of knowledge as well as highly sophisticated and effective professional practice going on in many parts of the world.
An acknowledgement of this would avoid that risk.
And now to specifics:
1.
When the report repeatedly uses the phrase ‘to take account of stakeholder expectancies’, even where it defines the term stakeholder, fails to clarify issues which would only help to better understand and cope with such an innovative concept.
a- organizations do not decide who their stakeholders are. Stakeholders, as the term implies, hold a stake disregarding of whether the organization recognizes it U(an important principle which is too often ignored);
b- the report indicates the obligation for the organization to identify its stakeholders. Excellent. But stakeholders often change and differ according to whether they produce or bear consequences on the overall strategy/business plan, or on each of specific objectives the organization pursues in order to achieve its overall strategy/business plan. This is another important principle which is too often ignored.
c- Once these are identified (but, as per point b, it is an ongoing process) the organization has an obligation to involve all stakeholders by supplying relevant information on its processes and activities and by stimulating, facilitating and enhancing their opportunities to express their expectancies.
Then it decides to engage (exercising its first principle of responsibility, which is to take and implement decisions) those it believes best for the pursue of its objectives. The difference between involvement (an obligation) and engagement (an organizational decision) is very relevant in the stakeholder relationship governance process.
d- Governing relationships, which besides being two way, implies a balance of power (symmetricity), requires a structured process of listening (which often becomes an alibi to delay in order to pay lip service to the buzz word). Listening implies collecting expectations (desk and field research plus direct interaction through transparent passive as well as active observation and dialogue), understanding them and, finally, interpreting them to the specific organizational decision maker (this is the reflective aspect of strategic stakeholder relationship governance). This sequence is important as it eliminates the risk of using the listening buzz word only for lip service purposes.
e- Thus when the report says ‘to take into account stakeholder expectations’ it should somewhat elaborate on what taking into account means and the difference between carefully listening to them and then deciding which to take into account in the decisional process and which not to take account of, being sure to pass these in real time on the risk prevention part of the report.
2.
I do not seem to understand why the report explicitly indicates that stakeholders should be identified by groupings and not by individuals, only to pass on the latter to risk prevention. This is anything but convincing.
3.
There are a number of points in which the report seems to be indicating to stakeholders how they should behave vis a vis the organization. This seems to me inappropriate and out of boundary. I refer to points 13, 14, 22
4.
Finally where principle 8.6 begins, it would be extremely useful for attentive readers to understand that the principal value which an effective governance of stakeholder relationships brings to the organization is in the quality of the relationships, and that these may be measured by assessing the dimensions of trust, commitment, satisfaction and power balance that a stakeholder perceives in the relationship, Caution not in the organization, but in the relationship.
The first thought that will probably come to mind amongst PR practitioners when reading the King Report III and its Principles, is that this is old hat.
–This info has been around in PR for at least a decade, especially since John Ledingham and Stephen Bruning published ‘PR as Relationship Management’ in 2000 and made the relationship paradigm for PR general knowledge amongst PR scholars and practitioners.
–Ferguson suggested this paradigm for PR to US scholars already in 1984.
–Toni pointed out on this blog that, for those who speak Italian, stakeholder relationship governance was already discussed in the early eighties.
–Relationship marketing (as the paradigm that followed customer satisfaction) came to the fore in the marketing domain in the early 90s, if not earlier.
So what is the fuss about the chapter in the latest King Report? Maybe some perspective will be gained in realising that Estelle was the ONLY PR practitioner/ scholar on the 108 member committee, to my knowledge. (And that might have been because Judge Merwyn King was her PhD supervisor). What this indicates to me is that the decision makers in organisations (the so-called ‘dominant coalition’) do not equate relationship management or even stakeholder management with PR practitioners. Even though the company secretaries, legal and governance and finance representatives, etc probably floundered around trying to get to grips with the concept of stakeholder and relationship management, the King sub-committees didn’t turn to the field of PR.
That to me says it all. Except for some best practice companies and knowledgeable CEOs, PR isn’t seen as the experts in these or the governance fields. Regardless of the fact that many in PR has the knowledge to have made valuable contributions, not only to King III but in every-day governance, they were/are not involved.
The open acknowledgement of the importance of stakeholder and relationship management in King III thus provides a window of opportunity to PR — to have it institutionalised, so to speak. YOU will have to give top management reason to believe that you can make a contribution. It still won’t come by itself. What is going to happen is that all other fields are going to jump on this bandwagon. Are YOU?
This is the situation in South Africa. As Ronel asked, is it different in your countries? Are YOUR PR/communication people setting direction with regards to corporate governance best practices?
My congratulations go to all the committees that worked towards the King 111 report on corporate governance in South Africa. The report articulates the pivotal business principle that all of the managerial functions in organisations should be working in harmony, to create an enabling and sensemaking business environment. The report has been and will now again be, one of the most substantial documents of its kind in the world. However, I am particularly proud of the chapter on stakeholder relationships and engagement, for it recognises – perhaps for the very first time – that communication with ALL stakeholders should be practiced throughout the corporate environment. This is a huge kick forward for the communication and PR profession and we now will have to get our house in order, because there is still of lot of image- and identity-building in store for us when it comes to the profession that we teach, practice and research.
Good luck to Estelle de Beer, whom Benita has mentioned as driver of this section of King 111. Estelle is nearing the end of her PhD-thesis on this topic and Judge Mervyn King and I are her proud studyleaders. There is no doubt that many publications will come from this endeavour. The chapter under discussion also offers interesting future ideas as to the role of marketing and its tools in the corporate environment.
What will be of particular interest in future, is the role of “impression” management as part of the corporate communication/PR function in creating and maintaining responsible global corporate citizenship.
As South African scholars, researchers and practitioners, we will be grateful for your comments on the King 111 Report – particularly from your country individual perspectives.