Public Engagement in Supportive Communication Behaviors toward an Organization: Effects of Relational Satisfaction and Organizational Reputation in Public Relations Management

The purpose of this article is to offer thoughts on the future research directions for public relations scholars. More specifically, 2 areas of potential research are offered: the balance zone model of public relations management and an outcome-based model of public relations. I argue that we need to move well beyond the current 2-way thinking about publics and begin to reconceptualize public relations in a multidimensional perspective, where dialogue, collaboration, and negotiation with multiple stakeholders and stakeseekers occur simultaneously. A new role of the public relations practitioner is to maintain an equilibrium that satisfies the mutual interest of all parties.     

Conceptualizing and Measuring Immigration Policies: A Comparative Perspective

In the last decade, researchers have developed many innovative ideas for the construction of indices measuring immigration policies. Methodological considerations have, however, been largely absent from the discussion. To close this gap, this paper investigates the characteristics of existing indices by critically comparing and discussing them. We start by providing a definition of immigration policy which may serve as a benchmark when assessing the indices. By means of the analytical framework developed by Munck and Verkuilen (2002), which we adapt and customize for our analysis, we then evaluate the conceptualization, measurement, and aggregation, as well as the empirical scope of thirteen immigration policy indices. We discuss methodological strengths and weaknesses of the indices, how these affect the research questions that can be answered and what the next steps in index building within the field of immigration policy should be.     

Swept Out: Measuring Rurality and Migration Intentions on the Upper Great Plains

Rural America has long been conceptualized as a place of out‐migration, a process that is the subject of many popular sociological works and remains a dominating narrative that describes rural life in the United States today. Population trends demonstrate this migration pattern for nearly the past century; however, emerging data paint a complex picture of migration behavior and intentions in rural areas. In this article, we utilize several measures of rurality to analyze the results of a 2012 mail survey (n = 2487) that describe the migration intentions of both rural and urban South Dakotans. Our findings show that urban residents are more likely to have intentions to migrate than rural residents, and that drivers of migration intentions appear similar in both urban and rural contexts. The survey also sheds light on the influence of community attachment, community satisfaction, quality of life, and other community strengths and weaknesses that rural and urban residents perceive in their communities. Supporting recent research on rural migration intentions, these results do not suggest high rates of out‐migration in rural areas. We discuss rural America's recent identity as a place of out‐migration, share our survey results, and discuss implications for future rural migration research.     

Evolutionary Theory: The Missing Link for Conceptualizing Public Relations

This article introduces the concept of using Charles Darwin's (1859/1979 Darwin , C. ( 1979 / 1859 ). The origin of species. New York : Gramercy Books . [Google Scholar]) evolutionary theory as the metatheory for conceptualizing public relations thought. It examines the state of public relations theory development and explores theories that have been proposed as metatheories for the field, including systems theory, complexity theory, and symmetrical/Excellence theory. It also explores the tenets of evolutionary theory that have relevance for public relations theory, including social intelligence, Machiavellian intelligence, cheater detection, cooperation, reciprocity, and reciprocal altruism. It then makes the case for the role that evolutionary theory could play as a metatheory in the further development of public relations theory.     

Daily Variation in Paternal Engagement and Negative Mood: Implications for Emotionally Supportive and Conflictual Interactions

This study used an ecological perspective to examine how daily variation in the time fathers spend in child‐care activities was related to emotionally supportive or conflictual father‐child interactions and whether fathers' negative mood moderated these associations. Data for the present analyses were from 2 daily diary studies. Both studies asked fathers to report about their daily experiences with their children, including how much time they spent with them and whether or not they had any supportive interactions or conflictual interactions. The first study used daily self‐report questionnaires from a sample of fathers in rural upstate New York, and the second study used daily telephone interviews from a national sample of fathers. Results from a series of hierarchical linear models showed that fathers were more likely to have supportive and conflictual interactions on days when they spent more time engaged in child‐care activities. The association between time with children and conflictual interactions was greater on days when fathers were in a negative mood. Negative mood did not moderate the association between time with children and emotionally supportive interactions. The findings from this study suggest that when fathers spend more time with their children they are more likely to engage in supportive interactions, regardless of negative mood.     

Therapeutic Engagement of Adolescents with Emotional and Behavioral Disorders

Youth engagement is increasingly recognized as a preferred approach and often necessary step in the treatment of emotional and behavioral disorders. The purpose of this study was to explore the degree and quality of youth engagement in the therapeutic process, compare engagement scores between youth accessing residential and day treatment, and explore the association between engagement and interpersonal difficulties in a sample of youth with an emotional and/or behavior disorder in residential and day treatment programs based in Southern Ontario. Cross-sectional surveys of standardized measures were administered to youth and a separate survey to their Prime Workers. Relevant constructs included client engagement (as rated by youth and Prime Workers), and youth-rated behavioral screen, interpersonal problems and family functioning. Both Prime Workers and youth rated youth as moderately high in their level of engagement in therapy. Furthermore, Prime Worker and youth ratings did not significantly differ statistically, suggesting that youth may have actually engaged at a moderate level. Interpersonal problems were shown to be negatively associated with youth engagement, and family functioning approached significance for only youth in residential treatment. Assessing youth engagement during the treatment process as an intervention technique may highlight areas where greater clinical efforts are needed. Future considerations include testing methods of sharing and discussing results of an engagement measure within the context of a one-on-one clinical encounter with youth.     

The Evolution of 'Public Understanding of Science': Public Engagement as a Tool of Science Policy in the UK

This historical review surveys the evolution of the science–society relationship in post-war Britain. It observes the transformation since the 1980s of the idea of 'public understanding of science', in which scientists and laypeople differ by virtue of the scientific knowledge they have, into the idea of 'public engagement which science', in which scientists, laypeople and policy makers negotiate policy for future science and technology. We survey recent critiques of public engagement which draw attention to the ways in which it constructs particular publics, and which question its capacity to contribute to policy-making.     

Public Relations and Engagement: Theoretical Imperatives of a Multidimensional Concept

Engagement has emerged as important concept in public relations, as stakeholders challenge the discourse of organizational primacy and organizations prioritize the need for authentic stakeholder involvement. As a multidimensional concept, engagement offers a foundation for building organizational relationships, and provides a means to facilitate community–organization interaction. This special issue on engagement and public relations presents a body of work that both explicates and expands the theoretical foundations of engagement, and contributes to scholarly understanding of its contexts, processes, and outcomes.     

Social Movement Engagement over the Long Haul: Understanding Activist Retention

This article offers a broad review of the scholarship of the ‘retention’ of social movement activists, examining it from the individual, social relational, and organizational levels of analysis. The following contribute to the likelihood that a participant sustains their engagement: accommodation of individual needs and motivations, a social network to reinforce attachment to activism, and a successful organization that promotes its members' empowerment. The conclusion considers the insights gained from the scholarship so that organizations might increase activist persistence and notes gaps that merit further study, particularly regarding the emerging effects of ‘internet communication technology’ (ICT).     

The Effects of Discriminate Message Interventions on Behavioral Intentions to Engage in Physical Activities

Objective: The authors attempt to show the usefulness of discriminate messages designed to increase college students' intentions to engage in physical activities. Participants: The authors selected a sample of undergraduate students enrolled in communication courses at a university in the southeastern United States for a baseline online survey (n = 683) and an experiment (n = 99). Methods: The authors selected discriminate beliefs with highest regression weights and sizable effect size with behavioral intention to build messages for classroom intervention. The authors used an analysis of covariance to test the intervention effect of discriminate messages on intention to do physical activities. Results: Students exposed to the discriminate messages were more likely to report positive changes in their self-efficacy and behavioral intentions related to physical activity. Conclusions: Further research on communication theories is required to help design the selected beliefs so that they will be comprehended and ultimately lead to behavioral changes.     

Politics as a Vocation: Notes Toward a Sensualist Understanding of Political Engagement

Drawing data from works of political non-fiction that help to reveal the moral and sensual underpinnings of political practice, this paper seeks to adumbrate a sensualist understanding of political engagement. After beginning with a brief discussion of Weber’s seminal essay “Politics as a Vocation,” I then construct an ideal type of political passion with which to highlight the inherent shortcomings that plague traditional explanations of political action. My argument is that these approaches are all vitiated by their reliance on Chinese-box epistemology. I go on to suggest that in order to obtain a genuinely sociological account of political engagement, one must develop methods that are true to the experiential specifics of politics while recognizing the conditions that shape the possibility of those very experiences.

Conceptualizing,Measuring, and Theorizing the Third Sector: Embedding Statistical and Methodological Developments Awaiting Broader Scholarly Take-up

VOLUNTAS: International Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit Organizations - This article reviews and calls attention to the work underlying significant improvements in the conceptualization,...     

Understanding Influence on Corporate Reputation: An Examination of Public Relations Efforts,Media Coverage,Public Opinion,and Financial Performance From an Agenda-Building and Agenda-Setting Perspective

Seeking to extend research on public relations evaluation, this study investigates the influence of public relations efforts and media coverage on corporate reputation and financial performance through the theoretical grounding of first- and second-level agenda-building and agenda-setting. A triangulation of research methods compared public relations content, news media coverage, public opinion, and corporate financial performance for 28 U.S. companies from the annual Harris Interactive (2005) Reputation Quotient. Evidence for agenda-building and agenda-setting propositions was found, which work to inform strategies of public relations practitioners. The implications of the findings are discussed.     

Walking the Talk: The Performance of Authenticity in Public Engagement Work

This article examines the performative work of consultants who facilitate public engagement (PE) processes in organizations. Using multimethod ethnography, I find that PE practitioners reconcile tensions between the logics they promote in two different ways. Viewed from one perspective, PE practitioners are agentive entrepreneurs, adeptly negotiating competing logics to reform organizations; viewed from another, they exert a great deal of energy performing rituals that integrate their challenger identities with their elite status as management consultants. Scholars have argued that such contradictions reveal institutional indeterminacy. I argue that the performance of democratic authenticity in PE is both politicizing and depoliticizing.     

Harsh Parenting,Deviant Peers,Adolescent Risky Behavior: Understanding the Meditational Effect of Attitudes and Intentions

Although research supports the influence of parents and peers on adolescent risky behavior, less is known about mechanisms proposed to explain this relation. This study examined the influence of adolescent attitudes and intentions about such behaviors. Prospective, longitudinal data came from rural youth who participated throughout adolescence (n = 451). Observed harsh parenting and relationship with deviant peers was assessed in early adolescence, attitudes and intentions were measured during middle adolescence, and risky behavior was assessed in late adolescence. Results indicated that parenting and deviant peers was related to engagement in tobacco use, alcohol use, and risky sexual behaviors. Moreover, attitudes and intentions mediated this relationship even after parent use and adolescent early involvement in these behaviors were taken into account.     

Private Prisons in Public Discourse: Measuring Moral Legitimacy

New policies require legitimacy to survive. Prison privatization represents a policy challenged by initial perceptions of illegitimacy. In the 1980s, governments began to allow private firms to run correctional facilities, shifting an inherently coercive, traditionally governmental function—incarceration—to the private sector. With data from 706 articles in four major American newspapers spanning 24 years, this research uses Freudenburg and Alario’s concept of diversionary reframing to measure and track the moral legitimacy of prison privatization across time and place. Findings suggest that initially high levels of moral legitimacy facilitated some states’ adoption of private prisons, while initially low levels of moral legitimacy stunted the growth of privatization in other states. This study presents a novel way of measuring moral legitimacy, demonstrates how the concept may be used to help explain controversial public policy changes, and documents the cultural content of private prison debates in the United States.