Staking reputation on stakeholders: How does stakeholders’ Facebook engagement help or ruin a company’s reputation?

The majority of studies in public relations continue to examine organization-public relationships from only the organization’s perspective, with few studies focusing on the other side of the communication loop: stakeholders. The current study takes the stakeholders’ perspective to investigate the relationship between active stakeholders’ online behavior and corporate reputation. Modeling 5-year longitudinal social media data, a content analysis was conducted for Fortune 500 companies in the context of Facebook. By examining stakeholders’ Facebook engagement at the two levels of shallow engagement and profound engagement, significant associations were discovered. Active stakeholders’ Facebook-based interactions as leaving positive or negative comments with a company are significant predictors of the company’s reputation score. The findings bring new insights to existing literature and also practical implications to public relations professionals.     

Trust and Health Care

Trust is believed to be particularly salient to the provision of health care, and since the establishment of the National Health Service (NHS) in the UK, trust has played an important role in the relationships between its three key actors: the state, healthcare practitioners, and patients and the public. Service users trusted the judgement, knowledge and expertise of health professionals to provide a competent service that met their needs, and they trusted the state to ensure equity in the allocation of public goods and services. These implicit or taken-for-granted trust relationships have, it is claimed, been challenged as a result of the introduction of changes in the organisation and funding for the health service, in the regulation and performance assessment of health professionals, and in public attitudes to health care and scientific medicine. This paper considers the influences of social changes and recent policy and professional initiatives in health care on the structure of trust relations in health care in the UK. It presents a theoretical framework for examining trust relations using the NHS as a case study and concludes with an agenda for future research.     

Relationships between organizations and publics: Development of a multi-dimensional organization-public relationship scale

Public relations has long struggled to develop an identity in both scholarship and practice. An increasing number of scholars are adopting the perspective that public relations should be viewed as the management of a relationship between organizations and publics. The current investigation was an attempt to design a multiple-item, multiple-dimension organization-public relationship scale. Results of this investigation show that organizations and key publics have three types of relationships: professional, personal, and community. The organization-public relationship measure developed in this investigation should provide an instrument that can be used to measure þe influence that perceptions of the organization-public relationship have on consumer attitudes, predispositions, and behavior, as well as an opportunity to track changes in organizationpublic relationship perceptions over time. Results of the investigation, conclusions, and suggested applications for future research are presented.Dr. Bruning and Dr. Ledingham are members of the Department of Communication at Capital University, Columbus, OH.     

Moving forward the dialogic theory of public relations: Concepts,methods and applications of organization-public dialogue

Advanced information and communication technologies and social media (Web 2.0) have significantly shaped every aspect of contemporary society since Kent and Taylor’s (1998) proposal of dialogic principles, which later evolved into dialogic theory of public relations. It is now time to move the theory forward. The special section aims to advance the dialogic theory of public relations by reviewing the scholarship in organization-public dialogue to pinpoint critical issues for its development and introducing studies that take the dialogue approach to examine a range of public relations practices in China. In this introduction, we first identify critical issues to be addressed for the development of the dialogic theory of public relations and then introduce the articles included in the section. We conclude by proposing research directions for the theoretical and practical development of the dialogic approach to public relations.     

“We are people,not transactions”: Trust as a precursor to dialogue with LGBTQ publics

This research focuses on trust as a precursor to dialogic communication with diverse publics. Through a grounded theory approach, this research explicates the concept of trust in dialogue within organization-public relations to refine and advance research about enhancing dialogue and trust in diverse societies. Based on in-depth interviews with 33 LGBTQ communication professionals, findings suggest that trust is a precursor to dialogue and is impacted by cultural competency, organizational congruency, authenticity, and stakeholder empowerment.     

Imperative for an Arab model of public relations as a framework for diplomatic,corporate and nongovernmental organization relationships

This paper advocates a morally/ethically defensible “organic theory” of public relations that is in opposition to the public relations literature that predominantly suggests that only those publics that have direct consequences for the organization are publics with whom public relations practitioners should deal. A biological metaphor can be used in supporting this “organic” theory of public relations in which the organization is an organ and society is a body as a whole.This paper concludes that the process of public relations, as well as the outcomes, is critically important in maintaining a metabolic balance and harmony within society itself—a requisite for the health and well-being of nation-states, corporations and nongovernmental organizations. Much of this process involves communication as a ritual, rather than communication as transmission of information; it involves interpersonal communication, rather than mass communication. It involves relationship-building as opposed to persuasion. Much of this process has been found traditionally in Arab culture, and these rich traditions should be recognized and examined for their utility and value in developing an Arab model of public relations to help resolve the plethora of 21st Century issues that threaten global stability and ultimately the well-being of all cultures and societies.     

Lobbying and Relationship Management: The K Street Connection

Even though lobbyists spend millions of dollars in Washington DC, lobbying has been largely ignored by public relations scholars. This study is the first to investigate lobbying from a relational perspective. Health care lobbyists reported that interpersonal relationships were critical in doing their jobs, and that ethics played a key role in maintaining positive organization-public relationships on Capitol Hill. The results also indicate political science scholars have been too issue-focused in their research concerning interest groups in Washington, and that the relational perspective holds promise for future studies of lobbying in both the public relations and political science arenas.     

Exploring trust and distrust as conceptually and empirically distinct constructs: Association with symmetrical communication and public engagement across four pairings of trust and distrust

Existing relationship research has interpreted low trust as being equivalent to high distrust and high trust as the evidence of low distrust, which has failed to capture the full scope of the functions of trust and distrust in organization–public relationships. Recent research in this area suggests that trust and distrust might simultaneously exist during relational interactions and might play uniquely positive and negative functions in certain social contexts. The main purpose of this study was to offer a new insight in trust–distrust research by providing distinctions in conceptualization and operationalization between trust and distrust. This study also empirically tested the functions of four pairings of trust and distrust on two core public relations concepts (i.e., symmetrical communication and public engagement). The results from the surveys (N = 704; in 20 companies) of US consumers showed sound discriminant validity of trust and distrust. Further, the statistical results revealed that symmetrical communication and public engagement were most strongly associated with the high trust and high distrust pairing, supporting the utilities of distrust in public relations and the coexistence of trust and distrust in social interactions.     

Computer mediation vs. dialogic communication: How media affordances affect organization-public relationship building

The ontological conflict between computer mediation and dialogic communication—a normative ideal for ethical organization-public relationship building rooted in interpersonal literature—has attracted much scholarly attention, and in particular has generated the notion that mediated dialogue is a self-contradictory concept. In this study, we question this argument and provide empirical evidence by conducting a survey that links media channels’ affordances to their capability to carry organizations’ dialogic orientations. Results show that bandwidth and social presence affordances facilitate dialogic communication while anonymity slightly inhibits it, whether the communicative context is proactive or reactive. Social presence exerts the greatest impact on how publics perceive organizations’ dialogic orientations, and anonymity’s negative role was overstated by previous studies. Assessing media channels’ dialogic affordances, we found video conferencing and instant messaging to be the most dialogic channels for mediated organization-public communication.     

Applying active learning at the graduate level: merger issues at Newco

Most of the active learning literature focuses on approaches in undergraduate courses. However, active learning also can benefit students in public relations and integrated communication courses at the graduate level. This case report describes how three active learning approaches—research and field work, student accountabilities for learning, and student reflection and reflexive exercises—were used in a graduate class project to help a Fortune 50 consumer products company identify and address real-time merger communication issues.     

An exploratory study to conceptualize press engagement behavior with public relations practitioners

This study addresses how journalists respond to public relations (PR) practitioners in co-creating value for their audiences. The co-creation perspective is conceptualized by synthesizing extant literature from public relations and relationship marketing, including cultivation strategies in organization-public relationships studies, two-way symmetrical model in excellence theory, intereffication model, service-dominant (S-D) logic of co-creation in marketing, and customer engagement theories. Using long-interview technique with 18 journalists, the study investigates how journalists perceive media relations activities of PR practitioners from a value co-creation dimension. A new theoretical model titled press engagement behavior (PEB) with sub-dimensions in press participation behavior (PPB) and press citizenship behavior (PCB) is proposed. A thirty-item scale is proposed to guide future study on scale development and validation. The proposed new model can explain the context of journalist engagement, enriching the operational value of cultivation strategies in dyadic relationship settings.     

Blogging PR: An exploratory analysis of public relations weblogs

Although there are ever more weblogs on the Internet, this is an area that has been little researched in public relations, and where they have been analyzed it has been as a tool for communication rather than a primary information source in the public relations body of knowledge. This paper provides an exploratory study of the structure and content of 67 blogs on public relations to determine what issues they deal with and whether they are a tool for the theoretical development of the field. In addition to their content we have looked at the structure, usability and interactivity of the blogs.     

Values of Public Relations: Effects on Organization-Public Relationships Mediating Conflict Resolution

This article identified two important measures of public relations effects i.e., organization-public relationships and conflict resolution, and investigated how they functionally related to public relations strategies. The research hypothesis posited that the effect of public relations strategies on conflict resolution was mediated by organization-public relationships. Two survey data sets were used and incorporated to derive possible answers for the proposed research hypothesis and research question. The 1st data set (n = 301) was used as a starting point for investigating the complex relationships among variables. The 2nd data set (n = 235) was tested, and replication procedures were adopted to further cross-validate the results obtained from the 1st study. The results supported the research hypothesis positing that the effect of public relations on conflict resolution is mediated by organization-public relationships. Theoretically, this study makes evident the values of public relations in terms of relationship management and conflict resolution. On a pragmatic level, the results of this study may serve to benefit public relations practitioners interested in generating favorable relationships and resolving conflict with their publics in general, and conducting international business in Far Eastern countries in particular.     

Developing a multi-level organization-public dialogic communication framework to assess social media-mediated disaster communication and engagement outcomes

Dialogic communication has long been viewed as vital for effective organization-public relations. Yet, it is under-theorized whether and how organizations’ disaster communication messages may embody dialogic communication principles, and how various dialogic features are associated with different public engagement outcomes on social media. Extending the Organization-Public Dialogic Communication (OPDC) framework to the context of social media-mediated disaster communication, we propose a multi-level framework to assess the dialogic capacity of Facebook messages sent by disaster management organizations during a natural disaster. Three levels of dialogic communication characteristics (i.e., message structure-level, topic-level, and linguistic level) are examined using content analysis and Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count (LIWC). Results identified media richness, correcting, and confirming topics as three consistent predictors of public engagement of all types. Meanwhile, there exhibit greater variations regarding how other topical features and linguistic characteristics are related to public’s cognitive, emotional, and behavioral engagement during a disaster.     

Unpack the relational and behavioral outcomes of internal CSR: Highlighting dialogic communication and managerial facilitation

This study examines how corporate social responsibility (CSR) communication and management contributes to internal public relationship building and employees’ megaphoning behaviors. Specifically, it investigates how organization-public dialogic communication (OPDC) about CSR and organizational leaders’ facilitation behaviors for employees’ CSR engagement influence employees’ perceptions of two distinct types of organization-public relationships: communal and exchange relationships. Structural equation modeling results of 660 online survey responses suggest that OPDC has a positive association with communal relationships and negative association with exchange relationships. Facilitation behavior positively contributes to exchange relationships. Both communal and exchange relationships are positively associated with employees’ positive megaphoning. Yet, negative megaphoning is negatively linked with communal relationships and positively linked with exchange relationships. This study contributes to the growing body of literature on internal CSR communication and management. More importantly, it uncovers the nuanced effects of CSR on employee-organization communal and exchange relationship building.     

The public relations contribution to IMC: Deriving opportunities from threats and solidifying public relations’ future

Integrated Marketing Communication (IMC) has been regarded primarily as a marketing concept. However, as an ever more dominant context for communication management, IMC presents opportunities for public relations scholarship's contributions to the discipline, in spite of IMC's recognized threats. This article, which outlines the state of the fields of IMC and public relations literature, proposes the way public relations roles in relationship cultivation and organizational behavior uniquely contribute to IMC, and, at the same time, establish management roles for public relations. This article also addresses three challenges facing public relations research in integration by providing a better definition of IMC, establishing relationship cultivation as a critical point in the theoretical convergence of public relations and IMC, and providing a framework through which to conceptualize communication structures.     

How responsiveness works in mainland China: Effects on institutional trust and political participation

This study investigated whether and how institutional responsiveness, a constitutive element of dialogic communication, influences institutional trust and political participation among members of the public in mainland China. A total of 4068 respondents from mainland China completed questionnaires. Results demonstrated that institutional responsiveness indirectly reduced publics’ destructive non-institutional political participation by building institutional trust. Extending the public relations literature on dialogue, we found that this indirect relationship is conditional on online political information seeking rather than online political expression among members of the public. For people who frequently use the Internet to seek political information, institutional responsiveness is more likely to boost institutional trust, which decreases the likelihood of participation in offline political activities.     

Palestinian National Authority's public relations policies relating to Israel: Current attitudes among Palestinian officials and media experts

This study investigates attitudes about Palestinian public relations policies during the Palestinian struggle in the Israeli media war and future challenges that will face the Palestinian National Authority (PNA) in public relations planning. This study shows that Palestinian groups have mixed attitudes toward PNA's public relations plans and policies. The media experts tend to see the PNA's efforts as reactive, not pro-active. The experts think that PNA's main concern has been to follow up on daily political events, and thus its approach to public relations has been more of a reaction to Israeli practices rather than a strategic pro-active plan.     

Timeliness,responsiveness and the human voice: The effects of dialogic strategies and the mediating role of perceived communication ethicality on social media relationship building

This study investigates how social media can be better managed to cultivate positive organization-public relationships. It advances an expanded and integrated conceptual model to test how the communication features of corporate pages on social networking sites may influence publics’ perception of the organization’s communication ethicality, which further predicts organization-public relationships as a compound index of trust, commitment, and satisfaction. The results, based on structural equation modeling, showed that three important communication strategies are success factors that could shape perceptions of communication ethicality: timeliness, responsiveness, and the use of human voice in a dialogic framework. In particular, publics’ perception of the organization’s communication ethicality emerged as a key mediator driving communication effects to foster positive relationships with stakeholders in an online environment.