{"title":"对话空间使对话辩论成为可能:使组织中的可持续性沟通(再次)具有政治性","authors":"Franzisca Weder, Julia Stranzl","doi":"10.1016/j.pubrev.2025.102614","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<div><h3>Purpose</h3><div>Political frameworks, regulations and stakeholder expectations guide and evaluate corporations in taking responsibility to mitigate and/or solve climate change related problems. Consequently, organizations increasingly communicate their activities related to ‘sustainable development’ and ‘transformation’ to their stakeholders – often without a deeper communicative manifestation within organizations. With our concept of ‘conversational spaces’ allowing conversational contestation of sustainability as ‘moral compass’, we argue that internal communication plays a key role in problematizing and thus ‘re-politicizing’ sustainability which is needed to cultivate sustainability as a guiding principle of action <em>in</em> organizations and not ‘just’ in their stakeholder-relations.</div></div><div><h3>Approach</h3><div>In this conceptual paper we, firstly, critically analyze the deficits in contemporary scholarly work dealing with communication of, about and for sustainability. We argue that sustainability is still communicated – and theorized accordingly – with narrow business interests and directed towards external stakeholders, neglecting the transformative power of internal communication which has led to sustainability being used as a master narrative and ‘ideological movement’, detached from internal discourses in organizations about the concrete consequences of the climate crisis or the ‘good life’. Therefore, we secondly discuss the role and potential of spaces for contestational communication within organizations about and, thus, for sustainability.</div></div><div><h3>Originality</h3><div>The paper introduces a concept to identify and set up conversational spaces where sustainability can be negotiated and <em>debated</em> internally. It also explores the key characteristics of these spaces that lead to contestational, in other words, agonistic and thus ‘political’ sustainability communication <em>in</em> organizations.</div></div><div><h3>Paper classification</h3><div>Conceptual paper</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48263,"journal":{"name":"Public Relations Review","volume":"51 4","pages":"Article 102614"},"PeriodicalIF":3.4000,"publicationDate":"2025-07-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":"{\"title\":\"Conversational spaces enabling conversational contestation: Making sustainability communication in organizations political (again)\",\"authors\":\"Franzisca Weder, Julia Stranzl\",\"doi\":\"10.1016/j.pubrev.2025.102614\",\"DOIUrl\":null,\"url\":null,\"abstract\":\"<div><h3>Purpose</h3><div>Political frameworks, regulations and stakeholder expectations guide and evaluate corporations in taking responsibility to mitigate and/or solve climate change related problems. Consequently, organizations increasingly communicate their activities related to ‘sustainable development’ and ‘transformation’ to their stakeholders – often without a deeper communicative manifestation within organizations. With our concept of ‘conversational spaces’ allowing conversational contestation of sustainability as ‘moral compass’, we argue that internal communication plays a key role in problematizing and thus ‘re-politicizing’ sustainability which is needed to cultivate sustainability as a guiding principle of action <em>in</em> organizations and not ‘just’ in their stakeholder-relations.</div></div><div><h3>Approach</h3><div>In this conceptual paper we, firstly, critically analyze the deficits in contemporary scholarly work dealing with communication of, about and for sustainability. We argue that sustainability is still communicated – and theorized accordingly – with narrow business interests and directed towards external stakeholders, neglecting the transformative power of internal communication which has led to sustainability being used as a master narrative and ‘ideological movement’, detached from internal discourses in organizations about the concrete consequences of the climate crisis or the ‘good life’. Therefore, we secondly discuss the role and potential of spaces for contestational communication within organizations about and, thus, for sustainability.</div></div><div><h3>Originality</h3><div>The paper introduces a concept to identify and set up conversational spaces where sustainability can be negotiated and <em>debated</em> internally. It also explores the key characteristics of these spaces that lead to contestational, in other words, agonistic and thus ‘political’ sustainability communication <em>in</em> organizations.</div></div><div><h3>Paper classification</h3><div>Conceptual paper</div></div>\",\"PeriodicalId\":48263,\"journal\":{\"name\":\"Public Relations Review\",\"volume\":\"51 4\",\"pages\":\"Article 102614\"},\"PeriodicalIF\":3.4000,\"publicationDate\":\"2025-07-30\",\"publicationTypes\":\"Journal Article\",\"fieldsOfStudy\":null,\"isOpenAccess\":false,\"openAccessPdf\":\"\",\"citationCount\":\"0\",\"resultStr\":null,\"platform\":\"Semanticscholar\",\"paperid\":null,\"PeriodicalName\":\"Public Relations Review\",\"FirstCategoryId\":\"91\",\"ListUrlMain\":\"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0363811125000761\",\"RegionNum\":3,\"RegionCategory\":\"管理学\",\"ArticlePicture\":[],\"TitleCN\":null,\"AbstractTextCN\":null,\"PMCID\":null,\"EPubDate\":\"\",\"PubModel\":\"\",\"JCR\":\"Q2\",\"JCRName\":\"BUSINESS\",\"Score\":null,\"Total\":0}","platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Public Relations Review","FirstCategoryId":"91","ListUrlMain":"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0363811125000761","RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q2","JCRName":"BUSINESS","Score":null,"Total":0}
Conversational spaces enabling conversational contestation: Making sustainability communication in organizations political (again)
Purpose
Political frameworks, regulations and stakeholder expectations guide and evaluate corporations in taking responsibility to mitigate and/or solve climate change related problems. Consequently, organizations increasingly communicate their activities related to ‘sustainable development’ and ‘transformation’ to their stakeholders – often without a deeper communicative manifestation within organizations. With our concept of ‘conversational spaces’ allowing conversational contestation of sustainability as ‘moral compass’, we argue that internal communication plays a key role in problematizing and thus ‘re-politicizing’ sustainability which is needed to cultivate sustainability as a guiding principle of action in organizations and not ‘just’ in their stakeholder-relations.
Approach
In this conceptual paper we, firstly, critically analyze the deficits in contemporary scholarly work dealing with communication of, about and for sustainability. We argue that sustainability is still communicated – and theorized accordingly – with narrow business interests and directed towards external stakeholders, neglecting the transformative power of internal communication which has led to sustainability being used as a master narrative and ‘ideological movement’, detached from internal discourses in organizations about the concrete consequences of the climate crisis or the ‘good life’. Therefore, we secondly discuss the role and potential of spaces for contestational communication within organizations about and, thus, for sustainability.
Originality
The paper introduces a concept to identify and set up conversational spaces where sustainability can be negotiated and debated internally. It also explores the key characteristics of these spaces that lead to contestational, in other words, agonistic and thus ‘political’ sustainability communication in organizations.
期刊介绍:
The Public Relations Review is the oldest journal devoted to articles that examine public relations in depth, and commentaries by specialists in the field. Most of the articles are based on empirical research undertaken by professionals and academics in the field. In addition to research articles and commentaries, The Review publishes invited research in brief, and book reviews in the fields of public relations, mass communications, organizational communications, public opinion formations, social science research and evaluation, marketing, management and public policy formation.