Adding value to organizations: An examination of the role of senior public relations practitioners in Singapore

A key characteristic of public relations excellence in organizations is ensuring that the senior public relations practitioner – the head of the communication function – has the competencies to enact the strategic role of a manager. It is only when the top communicator possesses strategic management knowledge and engages in managerial work with support from colleagues who are technically skilled in traditional craft work can public relations work be considered to be value-generating.This paper presents the findings of the examination of the role of senior public relations practitioners in organizations in Singapore. It also explores the importance of core communication activities to the role of top in-house communicators, examines the time they allocate to managerial and technical work, and assesses if the managerial role which the practitioners play adds value to organizations. Data collected from both in-depth interviews and self-reported log of daily activities showed that although top communicators in Singapore enjoy strategic reporting and unhindered access to senior management, it also revealed, paradoxically, senior management's mixed worldviews of public relations; and that Singapore's top in-house practitioners lack the strategic knowledge to enact the managerial role as they are too focused on technical work.The paper concludes with recommendations on how the level of public relations professionalism can be raised in Singapore, starting with the practitioners themselves having to be fully equipped with the relevant academic knowledge of what makes communication excellent.     

Practitioner Roles,Public Relations Education,and Professional Socialization: An Exploratory Study

This study builds on the body of literature about public relations practitioner roles by examining the relationship of workplace socialization and formal public relations education to idealized practitioner roles. Data come from an exploratory survey of public relations students and practitioners. As in several previous studies, two main practitioner roles were identified, corresponding to the communication manager and communication technician roles. Formal public relations education was associated with the manager role type, but professional socialization in the workplace was not.     

The Role of Communication in Achieving Shared Vision Under New Organizational Leadership

In this article, we report the results of a longitudinal survey research project of an organization undergoing leadership change. The study determined the relationships between members' "shared vision" of the organization's goals and a number of communication-related activities. We found significant relationships between shared vision and communication from the leader and the public relations staff. We concluded that the leader who "flattens" the communication hierarchy is more likely to achieve shared vision. The findings should be of value to public relations practitioners in their role as consultants to new leaders and as they determine the most effective channels for communicating organizational changes.     

The role of source and the factors audiences rely on in evaluating credibility of health information

In the wake of public relations crises of credibility such as FEMA's staged press conference in response to the California wildfires, source credibility merits increased scholarly and practitioner scrutiny in order to maximize the effectiveness of the information practitioners release, particularly when the objective is to promote action vital to public health and well-being. Through a random national telephone survey (n = 400), this research analyzes how the source itself moderates credibility as well as the criteria important to audience evaluations of credibility. Results indicate practitioners are perceived as credible sources of health information and that audiences take a rather mindful route in their evaluations of source credibility.     

Influence of responsiveness,accessibility, and professionalism on journalists’ perceptions of Southwest Airlines public relations

This longitudinal study presents the results of three biennial surveys of key national journalists who routinely report on Southwest Airlines, a company widely recognized for its extraordinary public relations efforts. Synthesizing data garnered through relationship, utility, and perception scales as well as robust open-ended responses, the results support and advance media relations best practices. Ultimately, data confirm that practitioner responsiveness and accessibility to reporters are the keys to ensuring that journalists maintain positive perceptions of Southwest Airlines’ public relations. The results provide an instructive case study and recommendations to corporate public relations practitioners for cultivating favorable media relationships through a commitment to dialogic communication principles.     

Barriers to Public Relations Program Research

A mail survey (n = 300) of public relations practitioners assessed role orientations, research orientations, and perceived barriers to performing public relations research. The data showed 2 distinct but correlated groups of practitioner orientations (managers and technicians) and 2 orthogonal groups of research orientations (source orientation and receiver orientation). Budget was considered more of a constraint for management-oriented practitioners, with time and training more of a problem for technician-oriented practitioners. Supervisor interest and training were motivators to research for those with a management orientation. Client interest had no positive or negative associations with the perceived ability to perform public relations research. The results suggest that management-oriented practitioners appreciate the need for receiver-oriented data but may not communicate its value effectively when budgeting decisions are made. Technician-oriented practitioners, meanwhile, appear aware of the limitations of source-oriented practices but need further training to enable them to change operating styles.     

The evolution of public relations measurement and evaluation

The measurement and evaluation of public relations effectiveness has long been a major professional and research issue. In the first half of the 20th century, there were two research methods applied, opinion polls and basic media analysis. These were used to plan campaigns and monitor progress of media relations activities. In the second half of the century, as the practices of public relations expanded, greater emphasis was given to media analysis but the evidence of many practitioner studies was that measurement and evaluation was more discussed than undertaken. In the final 25 years of the century, the academic voice began to become more prominent in the discussion and development of methodologies and in nationally-based education programmes aimed at practitioners. The Internet and social media also began to change practices. There were mixed results from this clamour: more practitioners began to evaluate public relations activity (but many still applied discredited measures) whilst new techniques began to be introduced. Document analysis has prepared a timeline of the development of public relations measurement and evaluation. This paper explores the academic and professional themes that have characterised the development of this important public relations practice over the past 110 years.     

Integrating Power? Evaluating Public Relations Influence in an Integrated Communication Structure

The emerging integrated environment for communication functions has put public relations in a potentially compromising position. In particular, literature reviews reveal scholar concerns about an inferior technical role for public relations practitioners. The question of integrating communications may be a question of power: whether the public relations function enacts influence, authority, or capacity to affect decision-making within an integrated organization. This study explores perceptions of 20 public relations professionals in an integrated communication structure. Results show that public relations may gain the ability to enact influence through social media acumen and the interconnected structure of communications, in which practitioner expertise, information, and knowledge may lead to more influence.     

“In-awareness” approach to international public relations

The skill of cultural “in-awareness” developed within the field of intercultural communication is applied to international public relations to understand culture’s influence on the communication function of public relations. The goal of the in-awareness approach is to expose hidden cultural assumptions and expectations that plague international public relations and allow one to explore national and cultural differences between clients and practitioners in a systematic and nonthreatening manner. A three-tiered framework is presented based on a country profile, cultural profile, and communication profile. The country profile provides a broad outline of what may be feasible within a particular country, while the cultural profile speaks to what may be effective in that country. The communication profile further refines cultural generalities by delineating culturally-based communication behaviors that underlie common public relations practices. By examining the communication profiles of both the practitioner and client, one can see how cultural communication differences translate into culturally-defined expectations and assumptions about specific public relations activities.     

Public relations in Ghana: Work-related cultural values and public relations models

This study explores cultural influences on public relations practices in Ghana. This survey research brief reports data collected from Ghanaian public relations practitioners (n = 64) and describes work-related cultural values as well as the practices of public relations models in Ghana. The result reveals that Ghanaian public professionals tend to utilize international public relations and two-way communication models. The study extends knowledge of international public relations in African cultures.     

State of public relations education in the United States: 2006 report on a national survey of executives and academics

A survey of 312 public relations executives and educators examined how well practitioners and instructors perceive public relations students to be prepared for the practice, the content and value of public relations curricula and, the future of public relations education in the United States. Results are largely consistent with those from a slightly smaller 1998 survey, suggesting that the views of both groups are consistent over time and providing the first two data points in what it is hoped will develop into a longitudinal line of research addressing public relations education. Judgments regarding the desired characteristics among job applicants and essential curriculum content were extremely similar between the practitioner and educator groups with both wanting more emphasis on research, ethics and strategic planning as the field moves from a low-paid technical emphasis toward a much better paid strategic planning and research emphasis.     

Corporate social responsibility engagement and communication by Chinese companies

Premised upon the centrality of relationship management in corporate social responsibility (CSR) and public relations functions, and the growing momentum toward CSR in China, this study reports survey results of corporate communication/public relations executives in Chinese companies on aspects of CSR accountability and transparency. Responses to four key topical areas – drivers for CSR engagement, areas of practice, importance of CSR communication, and preferred channels for communication – suggest a strong concern for corporate image and culture in pursuing CSR, an overwhelming emphasis on disaster relief despite the recognition of a much broader array of societal priorities, and the Chinese companies’ current reliance on in-house and Internet media for CSR communication.     

Building communities: The postmodern CSR practitioner as a dialectical activist-agent in India

This study examined the conceptualization of the postmodern public relations practitioner as an organizational activist who contributes to democratic processes in the context of community relations and corporate social responsibility (CSR) in India. Elite, in-depth conversations with 19 senior executives at 16 companies in India well known for their CSR initiatives revealed that practitioners appeared to be both organizational activists and agents. As organizational activists, they acknowledged the existence of diverse voices in local communities, interjected these voices into management discourse, situated decision-making in local contexts, identified tensors in the relationship between the corporation and its publics, and negotiated new meanings through dissensus. Paradoxically, as organizational agents, they used these participatory, open processes of dialogic communication to shape public opinion in favour of the organization, feeding modern organizations’ proclivity for consensus. While the findings of the study support the postmodern conceptualization of the public relations practitioner as an organizational activist in the context of CSR and community relations, the agent aspect of the activist-agent dialectic problematizes and complicates this conceptualization thus enhancing understandings of the postmodern practitioner who enacts CSR within a modernist framework and navigates the intricacies of the activist-agent dialectic in their daily performance of building community relations and enabling democratic processes.     

Defining public relations roles in the U.S.A. using cluster analysis

This exploratory study attempted to discover key public relations (PR) practitioner roles through a survey design using factor-cluster analysis. The Public Relations Society of America (PRSA) partnered with the researchers by inviting PRSA members to complete a survey in which 256 members participated. Although different items were used, the results of this study were similar to the findings of a study conducted on European PR practitioners by Beurer-Zullig, Fieseler, and Meckel (2009) thus suggesting concurrent validity. Five PR roles were found incorporating personal characteristics, modes of communication, management and technical functions, perceived level of respondent strategic planning process involvement, and attitudes about communication goals and PR measurement (including perceived competency). The roles were labeled negotiator, policy advisor, brand officer, internal communicator, and press agent. The negotiator and policy advisor roles, which were management positions, viewed measurement research as important in the practice of PR.     

Blog power: Examining the effects of practitioner blog use on power in public relations

While blogs are not yet a standard public relations tool, practitioners use blogs to enhance their power within their organizations. Using an online survey of public relations practitioners, this pilot test examined the relationship between power and blog use. Three factored categorizations of blog use among practitioners emerged: routine information and research, interactive blog communication, and issues identification. Results showed differences based on power, between blog users and non-users, owner-practitioners and non-owners, among others.     

Industry perceptions of intercultural competence in Singapore and Perth

This study investigates public relations practitioner perceptions of intercultural competence i.e. the skills required in an increasingly globalized world. The findings, drawn from analysis of interviews with seventeen practitioners in two cities in Australasia, reveal intercultural competence is perceived as integral to public relations practise, regardless of whether the public relations activity occurs across national borders. Although practitioners value personal attributes such as openness and adaptability, the findings suggests that practitioners require intercultural competence, as procedural knowledge i.e. of specific cultures and as conceptual knowledge i.e. a reflexive and dynamic understanding of culture. More research is needed to understand the relationship between culture and public relations, and industry expectations regarding intercultural competence in an era of globalization.     

Does public relations scholarship need better PR? practitioners’ perspectives on academic research

Articles in academic public relations journals often provide recommendations for public relations practitioners. The purpose of this study is to gain a practitioner perspective on that work and to determine if a potential disconnect between public relations practitioners and scholars exists. Through semi-structured, in-depth interviews with 22 public relations practitioners, this study examines knowledge, readership, and applicability of public relations scholarship in industry. Participants indicated they have a general awareness of and assigned value to academic scholarship; however, they do not actively consider it or use it in their professional lives due to issues of access, time, and relevance. Many appeals have been made within the academy to make scholars’ work more “public,” and these results reflect this need. Based on these findings, recommendations are made to increase the accessibility and relevance of scholarly work for professionals.     

A Comparative Analysis of International Public Relations: Identification and Interpretation of Similarities and Differences Between Professionalization in Austria,Norway, and the United States

This research addresses the need to understand how culture affects public relations. Practitioners from three different cultures Austrian, Norwegian, and American—are compared in terms of professional orientation, fulfillment, and practitioner roles. Austrian practitioners reported a stronger professional fulfillment than their Norwegian and American counterparts. Other differences and similarities are identified and explained using culture-specific, work-related values. For example, strong professional fulfillment in Austria is viewed as a function of the value this culture places upon training and education. Those engaged in international public relations must consider such differences and similarities when choosing between standardized (globalization) and customized (localization) communication strategies.     

How European PR practitioners handle digital and social media

The European Communication Monitor (ECM) 2010 showed that digital communication and social media have grown in importance in the media mix of European organizations. Both new media types are positively correlated to the perceived impact of public relations (PR) in the organization. Specifically social networks and online videos are considered the most important social media tools. Also European practitioners expect that the content of communication will become more important as and when the use of social media further increases. The consequence that everyone within the organization is able to spread information is perceived as the most problematic aspect of social media. A potential problem is that only about one third of the European organizations have implemented social media policies with communication consultancies leading the way. Communication consultants consider social media significantly more important than practitioners working in organizations.