Does accreditation really matter in public relations practice? How age and experience compare to accreditation

Many scholars and practitioners have suggested accreditation as one way to enhance the professionalism of public relations practice. But, others have questioned whether accreditation really makes a difference and whether experience is a sufficient substitute for accreditation. This study found that, although accredited practitioners were significantly older and had significantly more years of experience compared to their non-accredited counterparts, differences between the groups with respect to seven work categories and five professional competencies remained even when age and years of experience were controlled. The affected work categories were account/client management, strategic planning, public relations program planning, project management, stakeholder relations, issues management, and crisis management. The affected professional competencies were the four-step strategic planning process; ethics and legal issues; communication theory; business literacy; and advanced communication skills. In short, this study refutes the argument that age and professional experience are sufficient substitutes for accreditation in public relations. In fact, they are not.     

Professionalisation and public relations education: Industry accreditation of Australian university courses in the early 1990s

This paper investigates the Public Relations Institute of Australia's introduction in 1991 of a national accreditation programme for university courses. Drawing on an analysis of previously unstudied industry archives, it identifies four themes significant for industry perspectives of education: public relations knowledge; industry expectations and experience; public relations curricula; and academic legitimacy. While university education was perceived by institute members to demonstrate the professional standing of public relations, the findings reveal divergent understandings of its role and content and identify considerable resistance to the institutionalisation of public relations knowledge. At the same time, the expansion and marketisation of higher education led to the introduction of new, vocational courses such as public relations. The significance of this study is it offers new insights into the development of Australian public relations education and the role of the professional association.     

Craft and Professional Models of Public Relations and Their Relation to Job Satisfaction Among Korean Public Relations Practitioners

To determine which model Korean public relations practitioners use and their levels of job satisfaction, a survey of 167 Korean public relations practitioners in Seoul was conducted. Results showed that Korean practitioners use the craft models of press agentry and public information. However, they aspire to practice two-way, or professional public relations, models. Practitioners of high professionally oriented public relations are more satisfied with their jobs than practitioners of low professionally oriented public relations. This gap between a positive and a normative model also indicated a strong positive relation between the professional models and job satisfaction.     

Integrating management practices in international public relations courses: A proposal of contents

The teaching of international public relations has expanded across American universities in recent times. The dominant paradigm of many of these courses is that a college education should enable public relations practitioners to understand cultural, societal and professional differences across cultures in order to implement campaigns with a global reach. This paper suggests that many of the current approaches to teaching international public relations have overlooked the realities of the professional world. Thus, although maintaining an intercultural approach is still relevant, a truly effective international public relations education should also incorporate professional concerns related to the study of management and business practices.     

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.     

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.     

Development of professional roles in the practice of public relations in Chile

Using survey responses of 577 public relation practitioners, this article examines role conceptions in Chilean public relations, as well as the effects that different individual and organizational factors have on their professional worldviews. The results show that how Chilean practitioners perceive their roles can be grouped into four different types: the long-term strategic, the short-term technical, the passive-complaisant, and the active-vigilant. In general terms, Chilean public relations practitioners distance themselves from the passive-complaisant role, giving greater importance to the other three. The findings also reveal that gender, education level, job commitment, perceived autonomy, organization type, and geographical location are the factors that better predict Chilean PR professional roles, while hierarchy level and organization's reach do not directly affect their perceptions.     

Generalizing from PRSA to public relations: How to accommodate sampling bias in public relations scholarship

One of the major challenges to conducting externally valid, quantitative scholarship in public relations is accessing samples of practitioners that are willing to participate in academic research. One sampling frame would naturally be the membership of the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA), which is the world's largest professional association for public relations practitioners. Yet, even if the question of access were resolved, there still remains the question of external validity, i.e., the issue of whether and to what extent the membership of PRSA (or any other sampling frame) reflects the population of public relations practitioners in general.     

The Role of the American Nurses' Association in Maintaining Professional Accountability

Abstract

A professional association has been defined as a group of practitioners who organize to perform functions they cannot perform as separate individuals and to judge one another as professionally competent. History reveals that when a profession becomes clearly defined, the responsible practitioners form an association in order to establish standards of practice and enforce rules of conduct.

As the professional association for nurses, the American Nurses' Association is inextricably involved in the development of mechanisms that guarantee professional accountability. A standing priority of the association is to improve the quality of care provided to the public by such means as 1) setting a timetable for establishing qualifications for entry into nursing practice; 2) evolving a coherent credentialing system; 3) establishing systems to assure the profession's accountability for practice and for the delivery of services; and 4) providing for expansion, accessibility, and improvements in continuing education in nursing.

If nurses are to assume greater responsibility, the profession must be in a position to assure the public of quality nursing care. Since the public holds the profession (as a whole) accountable for the competence of its practitioners, the professional association has a responsibility to establish mechanisms by which to judge the competence of its practitioners and to evaluate the quality of care.     

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.     

Credibility of PR practitioners: The impact of professional journalism background on trustworthiness,expertness, and homophily evaluations

This study demonstrates that a professional journalism background contributes to the credibility evaluations of public relations practitioners in regards to expertness and the capability to meet journalistic values and expectations. However, having a professional journalism background does not necessarily render public relations practitioners any more trustworthy than not having such credentials.     

Towards the professionalisation of public relations in Malaysia: Perception management and strategy development

The aim of this study is to explore how the status and standards of public relations as a profession are perceived by the three main groups involved in public relations: academics, practitioners, and business leaders. It is concluded that public relations can be a ‘true’ profession if all parties involved are united and committed to developing standardised, universal forms of public relations practise.     

Perceived professional standards and roles of public relations in China: Through the lens of Chinese public relations practitioners

As the first quantitative examination of perceived public relations professional standards in China using an online survey, this study was designed based on the standards of professional standards inventory Cameron, Sallot, & Lariscy (1996) constructed and tested among practitioners in the U.S. The survey results suggest six dimensions of perceived standards of professional performance: (1) role and function in organizational strategic planning, (2) sufficiency in professional training and preparedness, (3) gender and racial equity, (4) situational constraints, (5) licensing and organizational support, and (6) participation in the organizational decision-making team. Four dimensions of public relations roles were also identified by the survey participants: (1) brand promotion facilitator, (2) public information specialist, (3) media relations counsel, and (4) conflict management expert. Primary practice area was found to affect how Chinese practitioners perceive the six clusters of professional standards and the four identified public relations roles. These findings provide insights for both practitioners and researchers on how Chinese public relations practitioners view public relations as a profession and how the profession currently holds its professional standards in China.     

National certification for child and youth workers: Does it make a difference?

This article examines the impact of professional certification on worker performance as well as the incremental validity of key facets of the national child and youth care practitioner certification (e.g., education, years of experience, certification exam, and professional portfolio) sponsored by the Association for Child and Youth Care Practice and administered by the Child and Youth Care Certification Board. Findings reveal that certified practitioners receive higher performance ratings from their supervisors than non-certified practitioners. Education, experience level, certification exam result (pass/fail), and successful completion of the application packet including a professional portfolio were all significant predictors of performance (as reported by supervisors). Each component progressively accounts for additional variance in the performance criterion. Certified practitioners are 2.7 times more likely to be high performers than non-certified practitioners after accounting for the effect of race, gender, education, experience and certification exam result.     

‘Politics is social work with power’: training social workers for elected office

Training social workers for leadership roles in electoral campaigns and political offices increases the profession’s effectiveness in promoting public policy that reflects our professional values and commitment to social justice. This research describes and evaluates an educational experience in the US that prepares social work practitioners and students to run for elected office; to work in leadership positions at the local, state, and federal levels; and serve as effective advocates for social change. Participants’ plans for future political engagement before and after the training were compared. Following the training, participants are more likely to plan to be politically active in general. Their intentions to work on campaigns, run for office, and engage with elected officials increased. These results can inform education in other social work settings.     

2010 Practice Analysis: Professional competencies and work categories in public relations today

Without question, the profession of public relations has changed greatly over the years, but the practice of that profession has remained unchanged in the last half century. The 2010 Practice Analysis conducted by the Universal Accreditation Board as a follow-up to its 2000 study examines professional competencies and work categories in current public relations practice. Results indicate that knowledge, skills, and abilities (i.e., professional competencies) for public relations practice in 2010 centered on general business skills, media relations, and theoretical knowledge. The strategic planning process of research, planning, implementation, and evaluation, as well as public relations ethics and legal issues, were connected to both general business skills and media relations. Four groupings of work categories in 2010 were public relations management, issues management, corporate communications, and media relations; each of these work category groupings reflected clear areas of extant public relations scholarship, suggesting that the theory and practice of public relations may be closer to each other than is commonly decried.     

Reviews

This article seeks to stimulate debate around the relationship between Post‐Qualifying Social Work education and social work practice. Whilst initially welcomed as a positive development for the continuous professional development of qualified social workers, the author questions if in a work climate increasingly dominated by concerns about meeting global market forces PQSW education has the potential to support discriminatory and oppressive practice and undermine social work values?Higher education in England has been given the task by the General Social Care Council to develop Post‐Qualifying Social Work (PQSW) education that delivers both academic and vocational learning as national occupational standards, workforce planning and concerns around globalisation drive professional development. Indeed, a positive selling point for the PQSW framework is its apparent ability to bring together practitioners' career choices with professional development, employers' workforce planning strategies and the government's modernisation agenda for public service provision. However, could a system of education designed to meet such a variety of agendas undermine social work practice and reduce higher education to primarily providing programmes designed to meet regulatory requirements rather than professional social work that promotes an anti‐discriminatory and anti‐oppressive approach to practice? The article concludes that whilst evidence suggests PQSW education does make a positive difference to practitioners and their organisations, debate is still required to ensure it supports agreed social work values and a commitment to anti‐oppressive and anti‐discriminatory practice.     

We have rights too: examining the existence of professional prejudice and discrimination against public relations

This study of a large sample of public relations educators (n = 342) found substantial evidence that professional prejudice and discrimination towards public relations and public relations education exists. More than half (56.6%) of the respondents said they have had a dean, director or department chair who was prejudiced against public relations, and many of these administrators evidently have made use of exaggerations and stereotypes about public relations while criticizing it. Results also suggest this prejudice is more pronounced among print journalists and journalism faculty than it is among other groups of communication educators and practitioners.     

Laying the foundation for a global body of knowledge in public relations and communications management

An internationally recognised body of knowledge is both possible and necessary for the future success and professionalisation of public relations. Through extensive content analysis of 31 credential schemes, education frameworks, and scholarly articles produced across six continents, the Global Alliance for Public Relations and Communications Management has developed a foundational list of knowledge, skills, abilities and behaviours (KSABs), which entry and mid/senior-level practitioners across the world should possess. This study and list of KSABs is laying the foundation for development of an internationally accepted framework which professional associations and academic institutions across the world will be able to use to benchmark professional credentials and curriculum outcomes.     

Capabilities of PR professionals for key activities lag: Asia-Pacific study shows theory and practice gaps

A number of studies of the knowledge, skills and abilities (KSAs), competencies and capabilities of public relations and communication professionals have been carried out in the USA, UK and other countries. However, most have not engaged to any significant extent with literature in the human resource development field which specializes in defining and developing these characteristics. Also, few studies to date have related the KSAs, competencies and capabilities of practitioners to the key activities of public relations and communication management required for the future. This article presents findings and analysis from a regional survey conducted in 22 Asia-Pacific countries in 2017/18 that compared, for the first time, the capabilities of practitioners in relation to activities identified as the most important over the next three years. This data, and comparison with equivalent regional surveys in Europe and Latin America, confirm a gap in capabilities in relation to key communication activities and suggest a gap in theory as well as practice. The findings and conclusions present a challenge for higher education and professional development for public relations and communication management and point to potential future directions in theory building.