An assessment of public relations practitioners role in the Practices of organizational university social responsibility: Wolaita Sodo University in focus

Abstract

Universities, as educational institutions, play a vital role in the development and improvement of the society, contributing to the welfare of citizens considering the social responsibility of universities with a large number of stakeholders (students, institutions, government, employees, companies, and local community).The purpose of this study was to assess public relations practitioners’ role in the practices of organizational university social responsibility: Wolaita Sodo University in focus. The study employed explanatory research design and used mixed research methods. Purposive sampling technique was used to select the participants for the study. This study also used both primary and secondary sources of data. The data was gathered through questionnaire, interview and document analysis. The qualitative data were analyzed thematically while the quantitative data were analyzed using descriptive statistics. Findings showed that public relations practitioners holds crucial role in building and creating the two-way relationship between the university and the society. It also showed that several challenges like negative publicity from different media, releasing fake news, and damaging reputation of the organization by associating with wrong information have been affecting the practice of university social responsibility. Based on this, it is recommended that the Public relations department, communication and public relation directorate of the University need to establish a mutual relationship with their communities and try as much as possible to work closely with management to provide even more corporate social responsibility programs for the society