Business Organization as Public Partner of Community: A Social Vision of the Organization Through the Public Engagement

The importance of private organizations for social and economic development has been a motivating factor for understanding the role of public engagement as a lever of competitive advantage. In recent years the public engagement construct was defined and conceptualized differently in public sector. Instead, few papers have analysed the implications of public engagement for private sector. The difficulty to contextualize and conceptualise correctly public engagement for the private sector is liable for the lack of a thorough description of its antecedent factors and main definitions. This research uses a Systematic Literature Review as research method and analyses 21 papers published in the main journals of management. The study found that public engagement and community engagement are the main conceptual approaches used to explain the engagement of private sector with their publics. Social and dialogical dimensions of communication are factors influencing the engagement of the publics in the private sector. This research aims to study public engagement in a management perspective and advance the understanding of this construct also in private organizations.