Public Relations and Communication Management

Current Trends and Emerging Topics

Krishnamurthy Sriramesh, Ansgar Zerfass, Jeong-Nam Kim

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781136159251
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Languages & Linguistics
• Subtopic: Communication Studies
• Index: Languages & Linguistics

Public Relations and Communication Management serves as a festschrift honoring the work of public relations scholars James E. Gruning and Larissa A. Grunig. Between them, the Grunigs have published 12 books and more than 330 articles, book chapters, and various academic and professional publications, and have supervised 34 doctoral dissertations and 105 master's theses. This volume recognizes the Grunig's contributions to public relations scholarship over the past four decades.

To honor the Grunig's scholarship, this volume continues to expand their body of work with essays from renowned colleagues, former students, and research associates. The chapters discuss current trends in the field as well as emerging issues that drive the field forward. Sample topics include theories and future aspects of the behavioral, strategic management approach to managing public relations, and its linkages and implications to related subfields and key field issues. Contributions stimulate academic discussion and demonstrate the relevance of applied theories for the practice of public relations and communication management with up-to-date concepts, theories, and thoughts.

1

FURNISHING THE EDIFICE

Ongoing Research on Public Relations as a Strategic Management Function

James E. Grunig

Abstract

This chapter traces the origins and continuing development of a research tradition that conceptualizes public relations as a strategic management function rather than as a messaging, publicity, and media relations function. The tradition began serendipitously with the development of the situational theory of publics in the late 1960s, followed by the application of organization theory to public relations, the symmetrical model of public relations, and evaluation of communication programs. The Excellence Study, which began in 1985, brought these middle-level theories together and produced a general theory, a theoretical edifice, focused on the role of public relations in strategic management and the value of relationships with strategic publics to an organization. Since the completion of the Excellence Study, scholars in this research tradition have continued to improve and furnish the edifice by conducting research to help public relations professionals participate in strategic decision processes. This research has been on environmental scanning and publics, scenario building, empowerment of public relations, ethics, relationships, ROI, evaluation, relationship cultivation strategies, specialized areas of public relations, and global strategy. I conclude that the greatest challenge for scholars now is to learn how to institutionalize strategic public relations as an ongoing, accepted practice in most organizations.

Key Words

edifice, Excellence Study, organizations, public relations, symmetrical

Throughout the 40 years of my academic career, I have used the literature of philosophy of science and of cognitive psychology to inform my attempts to build public relations theory. Early in my career, I rejected logical positivism—the idea that theories are “true” because they reflect an underlying order in the universe. From Kuhn (1970), I learned that theories are subjective because the theory itself defines what evidence should be used to “prove” a theory. From Suppe (1977), I learned that theories are semantic structures: ideas in the minds of researchers. This cognitive nature of theory is supported by research in cognitive psychology, which shows that thought takes place in the form of abstract cognitive representations (see, e.g., Anderson, 2000). From Carter (1972), I learned that order is not inherent in reality. Rather, scholars construct theories to make sense of reality—to supply order to it (see J. Grunig, 2003, for further explanation of Carter's views).

We can judge a theory to be good, therefore, if it makes sense of reality (in the case of a positive, or explanatory, theory) or if it helps to improve reality (in the case of a normative theory). Public relations scholars need to develop both positive and normative theories—to understand how public relations is practiced and to improve its practice—for the organization, for publics, and for society. As researchers develop theories and integrate them, a research tradition, as defined by Laudan (1977), develops around a comprehensive conceptual framework, which Kuhn (1970) originally called a “paradigm” and later called a “disciplinary matrix” in the second edition of his book.

Kuhn conceptualized a paradigm as a rigid pattern of thinking that limits the ability of scientists to think outside the paradigm. Once scientists develop a paradigm, Kuhn said, they devote most of their time to solving puzzles identified by the paradigm. If they cannot solve a puzzle in the way the paradigm predicts, the puzzle becomes an “anomaly.” If researchers repeatedly cannot solve this anomaly, a scientific revolution occurs and the paradigm is discarded and replaced by a new one. Other philosophers of science (e.g., Brown, 1977; Lakatos, 1970; Laudan, 1977; Shapere, 1977; Suppe, 1977; Toulmin, 1972), conceptualized these comprehensive cognitive structures to be more malleable and changeable than did Kuhn. In their view, scholars are similar to architects or engineers who design a structure originally for one use and then revise and add to that structure for other uses or as they see problems with the structures they designed once they are built. As Popper argued in 1970:

I do admit that at any moment we are prisoners caught in the framework of our theories; our expectations; our past experiences; our language. But we are prisoners in a Pickwickian sense: If we try, we can break out of our framework at any time. Admittedly, we shall find ourselves again in a framework, but it will be a better and roomier one; and we can at any moment break out of it again.

(pp. 56–57)

Kuhn's concept of puzzles also now seems to be too narrow. Rather than “puzzles,” for which the solutions are known but the means of reaching them are not, other philosophers substituted the terms “relevant questions” or “characteristic problems” (Suppe, 1977, p. 498). A theoretical structure suggests solutions to these questions or problems, but the solutions often vary from what is expected— therefore leading researchers to refine or enlarge the structure based on their experience in using it to solve theoretical and empirical problems.

Theoretical structures, therefore, resemble the concept of a schema in cognitive psychology: a comprehensive knowledge structure that includes many related cognitive representations and that retains its structure even as it is refined and enlarged. In this chapter, I will call the comprehensive theoretical structure that I and many students and colleagues have developed for public relations over the last 40 years an “edifice”—a structure that can be used positively to explain public relations practice and normatively to guide public relations practice. An edifice provides a framework for public relations practice, but I do not believe that a structure alone is enough. Like the structure of a building, a theoretical edifice must be furnished as it is built. Each time the plan for an edifice is used as a structure for a new building, it can be improved and furnished in different ways. The same is true for the comprehensive general theory of public relations that I have developed.

This general theory does not attempt to explain everything in public relations, as Holtzhausen and Voto (2002) have asserted. Rather, it is a comprehensive way of thinking that can be used to solve many positive and normative public relations problems. Other edifices may solve these problems in different ways. However, it is not necessary to destroy this edifice to justify the value of another edifice, as critical and postmodern scholars (e.g., Curtin & Gaither, 2005; Durham, 2005; Holtzhausen & Voto, 2002; Leitch & Neilson, 2001; L'Etang & Pieczka, 1996; McKie, 2001; Motion & Weaver, 2005) have tried to do. Rather, multiple edifices can exist side by side; and all can be useful for solving the same or different problems. (An example of how different perspectives can be useful can be found in Hatch's (1997) discussion of the concurrent value of modern, interpretive, and postmodern approaches to organizational theory.)

This chapter, therefore, will focus on the origins, continuing development, and new directions for research of the theoretical edifice I call the strategic management role of public relations. I believe this edifice has played a central role in the development of public relations theory and research during the past 40 years. As I will show, the research tradition that has produced this edifice continues to generate new ideas for theory, research, and practice in public relations. Other research traditions may join it, and critics will try to destroy it; but I believe this one will continue to guide the public relations discipline for years to come.

Serendipitous Development of the Edifice

The theoretical edifice, as it stands today, both describes and prescribes the role of public relations in strategic management. It is a general theory that explains how the public relations function should be structured and managed to provide the greatest value to organizations, publics, and society. Specifically, the edifice does the following:

• Explains how public relations contributes value to organizations, publics, and society.
• Explains how an empowered public relations function makes a unique contribution to strategic management and distinguishes its role from that of other management functions, especially marketing.
• Prescribes techniques that public relations managers can use to fulfill their role in strategic management.
• Explains the critical role of relationships in the planning and evaluation of public relations programs.
• Identifies different models of communication and explains which models are the most effective strategies for cultivating relationships with publics.
• Incorporates ethics into the strategic role of public relations.
• Explains how to apply the theory globally.

Each of these components of the general theory is logically related to the others. Together, they produce a strong structural edifice that can be applied both in research and practice. Forty years ago, however, I did not envision that my research eventually would produce this structure. Instead, I worked on pieces of the structure serendipitously without realizing until I began work on the Excellence Study how they would fit together.

Situational Theory of Publics

I begin the discussion of the edifice, therefore, by tracing the origins of some of its critical components. The first piece of the edifice was the situational theory of publics. When I entered the doctoral program at the University of Wisconsin in 1965, communication scientists were focused on the effects of the media and messages on attitudes and behavior. Cognitive dissonance theory attracted a great deal of attention because it seemed to explain why effects generally were limited to reinforcing existing attitudes. According to the theory, recipients of messages were most likely to accept messages that were consonant with their attitudes. More importantly for a theory of communication behavior, the theory explained that people were likely to selectively expose themselves to messages that supported their attitudes.

This second focus of dissonance theory on information seeking eventually led me to what I now call the situational theory of publics. In a course taught by the pioneering mass communication scholar Bruce Westley, I reviewed both rational and behavioral theories of economics to develop an understanding of why people seek information when they make economic decisions. This paper, which was published as one of the first Journalism Monographs (J. Grunig, 1966), which Westley then edited, suggested that people are more likely to seek information that is relevant to decision situations in their lives than to seek information that reinforces their attitudes. Under the mentoring of Richard Carter, a pioneering scholar of communication behavior (see J. Grunig, 2003), I developed this theory into a study of how and why Colombian farmers seek information in decision situations, which became my doctoral dissertation (J. Grunig, 1968).

At the time, I did not foresee that the theory of communication behavior developed in this study would continue to develop through many studies over 40 years and become a critical component of today's theory of public relations and strategic management (for a review, see J. Grunig, 1997). At the time, I simply wanted to know why people seek information to explain why messages have effects. Eventually, I realized that the situational theory provides a tool to segment stakeholders into publics, to isolate the strategic publics with whom it is most important for organizations to develop relationships in order to be effective, and to plan different strategies for communicating with publics whose communication behavior ranged from active to passive.

Organizational Theory

The situational theory also provided a framework when I switched my attention from the communication behavior of individuals and publics to the communication behavior of organizations (J. Grunig, 1976). When I returned to the United States from Colombia in 1969, I was convinced that most of the failures in the communication programs of agricultural agencies in Colombia resulted not from the backwardness or resistance of farmers but because of the nature of the communication programs that organizations developed to communicate with them. Organizations that I studied were more likely to give information than to seek information. They also were unlikely to listen to or engage in dialogue with their publics. Organizations, in other words, seemed to engage in the same types of communication behavior identified by the situational theory for individuals and publics. This one-way information giving typically resulted in policies and programs of agencies that did not work well for farmers in the situations they faced.

My 1976 monograph and a great deal of subsequent research (reviewed in J. Grunig & L. Grunig, 1989) extended this research to all kinds of organizations doing public relations in the United States. First, I identified independent variables from organizational theory that varied in the extent to which they would produce problem recognition, constraint recognition, and level of involvement, the independent variables of the situational theory, at the organizational level. These variables included organizational structure, environment, technology, size, age, culture, worldview, and power structures. The first dependent variables were simply one-way and two-way communication, but I further conceptualized them as synchronic and diachronic communication, following Thayer (1968). Eventually, I revised these two communication behaviors into the now well-known four models of public relations: press agentry/publicity, public information, two-way asymmetrical, and two-way symmetrical (J. Grunig, 1984).

For the most part, this program of research failed to identify organizational variables that explained why organizations practiced public relations as they did, although top management's worldview about the nature of public relations and organizational culture seemed to explain the most variance in public relations behavior. The knowledge of public relations practitioners also had a major effect. For example, even though practitioners should have been most likely to practice two-way and symmetrical public relations when the structure was organic, the environment was turbulent, management valued collaboration with publics, and the culture was participative, they did not practice public relations in that way because their knowledge of public relations was limited to one-way methods, publicity, media relations, and marketing support.

The research, therefore, suggested that the relationship among the models of public relations and these organizational variables was normative rather than positive. Logically, in other words, practitioners should have been most likely to practice two-way symmetrical public relations in certain favorable conditions. They did not do so, however, beca...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• List of Figures
• List of Tables
• About the Editors
• Notes on Contributors
• Notes on the Grunigs
• Introduction
• 1 Furnishing the Edifice: Ongoing Research on Public Relations as a Strategic Management Function
• 2 Feminist Phase Analysis in Public Relations: Where Have We Been? Where Do We Need to Be?
• 3 The Relationship Between Public Relations and Marketing in Excellent Organizations: Evidence from the IABC Study
• 4 Refurnishing the Grunig Edifice: Strategic Public Relations Management, Strategic Communication and Organizational Leadership
• 5 Symmetry, Social Media, and the Enduring Imperative of Two-Way Communication
• 6 Aligning Public Relations with the Demands of Globalization: Conceptual Foundations for a Theory of Global Public Relations
• 7 Conceptualizing Publics and Constructing Public Relations Theory: The Situational Theory of Problem Solving and Its New Research
• 8 Measuring the Edifice: Public Relations Measurement and Evaluation Practices Over the Course of 40 Years
• 9 Strategic Communication and Conflict Resolution: Contributions to Institutionalization in Public Relations
• 10 Power and Influence in Public Relations
• 11 A Philosophy of Reflective Ethical Symmetry: Comprehensive Historical and Future Moral Approaches in the Excellence Theory
• 12 Globalization, Public Relations, and Activism for Social Change: A Culture-Centered Approach
• 13 The Effects of Organization–Public Relationship Types and Quality on Crisis Attributes
• 14 Public Relations Historiography: Perspectives of a Functional-Integrative Stratification Model
• 15 Organizational Contexts and Strategic Impacts: On Power and Mediation
• 16 Institutionalization, Organizations, and Public Relations: A Dual Process
• 17 Strategic Communication: : Pillars and Perspectives of an Alternative Paradigm
• 18 The Pretoria School of Thought: From Strategy to Governance and Sustainability
• 19 The Grunig Legacy to Academic Studies and Professional Practice in Latin America
• 20 The Process of Conducting the Excellence Study: A Personal Reconstruction of Leadership
• 21 The Influence of Excellence: A Citation Analysis of the Excellence Study in PR Scholarship, 1992–2011
• Author Index
• Subject Index