The value of public relations: Different impacts of communal and exchange relationships on perceptions and communicative behavior

The study, using a survey of 508 university student publics, investigates (a) the impacts and mechanisms that a relationship has on a public’s perceptions and behavior around an issue and (b) how relationship types impact a public’s perception toward a tuition increase issue differently. The situational theory of publics was used as a theoretical framework. The results generally supported the theories. More important, the findings indicated that a communal relationship and an exchange relationship had different impacts on problem recognition, constraint recognition, and involvement recognition.