Public Relations Research Annual

Volume 2

Larissa A. Grunig, James E. Grunig

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9781000149012
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Lingue e linguistica
• Subtopic: Studi sulla comunicazione

The purpose of this second volume is to challenge and extend the field of research in public relations. Taking a proactive approach to creating a stable, yet not stagnant annual, the editors directly solicited chapters on exciting and intriguing subjects. Assuming some prior knowledge, interests, and commitment of their readers, the editors hope that each chapter's report on original research provides enough context for understanding even if the area of inquiry is new to the readers. Public Relations Research Annual, Volume 2, continues to advance within the discipline beyond anecdotes to practical theories and research. Educators, practitioners, and researchers will find this annual's presentations and critiques useful in creating a systematic framework for their own endeavors.

PART I

RESEARCH REVIEWS

Chapter 1

The Innovation of Research in Public Relations Practice:
Review of a Program of Studies

David M. Dozier

San Diego State University

This chapter reviews a stream of research on the diffusion of program research as an innovation in the practice of public relations. Program research is the use of social scientific research techniques—both quantitative and qualitative—to plan public relations programs, monitor their implementation, and evaluate their impact.

Ten separate empirical studies are reviewed, sketching a picture of the emergence of research in the practice of public relations and communication management. Empirical linkage is made among program research, the model of public relations practice, the roles practitioners play, the degree practitioners participate in management decision making, the organizational philosophy of the dominant coalition, and the role gender plays in these processes.

This chapter provides a partial explanation for why the innovation of research has diffused through the practice of public relations. This can be understood usefully at the individual level of analysis from a diffusion of innovations perspective. To understand program research at the organizational level of analysis, diffusion theory is supplemented with concepts from open systems theory as applied to organizations.

PUBLIC RELATIONS RESEARCH AS AN INNOVATION

An innovation is an “idea, practice or object that is perceived as new” (Rogers, 1983, p. 11). Program research in public relations fits this definition. Resistance exists among contemporary practitioners, trained as writers rather than social scientists, neither predisposed nor competent to conduct or use public relations research (Pennington, 1980; Wright, 1979). Diffusion of innovation concepts help explain why research is used by some practitioners in some organizations—and not by others.

At the individual level of analysis, public relations research is usefully analyzed as clusters of research activities, each cluster having attributes that speed or impede diffusion. These attributes interact with practitioner characteristics, affecting types of research adopted and rates of adoption.

Some practitioners do not engage in any program research; others conduct extensive research. Practitioners vary in the kinds of research methods they use, from intuitive, informal “seat-of-the-pants” research to rigorous scientific studies. Although little longitudinal scholarly research is available, the best evidence is that—over time—more practitioners are doing research and are doing research more frequently (Dozier, 1984b).

The Process of Innovation Diffusion

Prior diffusion research suggests that public relations program research is evaluated by individual practitioners in five stages: (a) knowledge, (b) persuasion, (c) decision, (d) implementation, and (e) confirmation. At any point, some practitioners are at the knowledge state, becoming aware of public relations research and learning something of how it works (Rogers, 1983). Others develop opinions about program research, either positive or negative (Rogers, 1983). Still others decide either to adopt or reject the innovation (Rogers, 1983). Some put program research to use to plan, monitor, and evaluate public relations programs. Of those, some continue to use research during the confirmation stage, whereas others discontinue research practices.

Technology Cluster

Program research is usefully regarded as a set of discrete innovations. Social scientific research uses multiple methodological approaches and techniques, each of which may be perceived by potential adopters as separate innovations. Thus, program research is a technology cluster, a set of distinguishable elements of technology that are perceived as closely interrelated (Rogers, 1983).

Program Evaluation

Conceptually, one innovation subset of the technological cluster is program evaluation, research used to determine if public relations programs have achieved their goals and objectives among target publics. Program evaluation research answers the question: “What works?” Evaluation research utilization in public relations, however, indicates that evaluation may be a relatively sophisticated research application only infrequently used (Dozier, 1984b). Grunig (1983) thus described the status of evaluation research in public relations, lamenting:

I have begun to feel more and more like the fundamentalist minister railing against sin; the difference being that I have railed for evaluation [in public relations practice]. Just as everyone is against sin, so most public relations people I talk to are for evaluation. People keep on sinning, however, and PR people continue not to do evaluation research, (p. 28)

Although considerable lip service is paid to the importance of program evaluation in public relations, the rhetorical line is much more enthusiastic than actual utilization.

A problem with evaluation research is that such studies are among the most sophisticated research activities that practitioners can undertake. In program evaluation, clearly defined, quantified objectives must be set in terms of change or maintenance of knowledge, predispositions, and behavior of publics. Longitudinal designs are required to measure impact variables before and after program implementation. Practitioners must employ experimental or quasi-experimental designs, using control groups and comparison groups respectively, to isolate program effects from confounding influences of various threats to internal validity. In short, as Reeves (1983) argued, the “bad news is that evaluation is hard to do well” (p. 17).

The relative complexity of evaluation research as an innovation led academic researchers to seek less complex applications of social science research methods to public relations practices. Kettering argued that research is a state of mind, an attitude. Kettering said that the research-oriented mind holds a “friendly, welcoming attitude toward change, going out to look for change, instead of waiting for it to come” (Cutlip & Center, 1978, pp. 143–144). This attitude in public relations is perhaps best manifested in activities that make up environmental monitoring or environmental scanning.

Environmental Scanning

This innovation subset includes formal and informal activities that public relations practitioners use to learn what is going on in the organization’s environment. In systems language, environmental scanning is the detection of environmental turbulence or change likely to affect the homeostasis of the system. On a practical level, environmental scanning is fact finding, a sensitivity to “what is going on out there.”

Conceptually, program research can be divided into two separate innovation subsets: environmental scanning and program evaluation. Arguably, scientific scanning is easier to understand and easier to implement than scientific evaluations of program impact. Both scanning and evaluation can be conducted according to stringent standards of the social sciences. However, scholarly study of public relations research must also consider less formal approaches to research. Robinson (1969) described public relations research techniques as ranging on a continuum from the rigorously scientific to informal, “seat-of-the-pants” research. Not only does program research vary in focus or purpose (scanning vs. evaluation), it also varies in scientific rigor.

Rigor and Purpose

Figure 1.1 displays the dimensions of rigor and purpose in program research activities. Rigor is the level of confidence practitioners can have in research findings. Rigor ranges from subjective, informal “gut” feelings about “what is going on” and “what works” (seat-of-the-pants) to mixed activities combining both formal and informal research to rigorous scientific studies.

FIG. 1.1. The rigor and purpose of program research.

Purpose is the use to which research findings are put. Scanning research serves the purpose of answering the question: “What is going on in the organizational environment?” Program evaluation serves the purpose of determining which program activities are effective, which ones “work.” Evaluation research may be divided into formative and summative evaluation. Formative evaluation helps practitioners plan programs and design communication strategies. Summative evaluation research measures the public relations program, both to monitor its implementation (permitting “mid-course” correction) and determine its impact. Figure 1.1 shows illustrative groupings of research activities in the rigor-purpose matrix, as they might be determined by the patterns of practitioner usage.

Attributes of Innovation Subsets

If different research activities form distinct clusters according to how they are used, then each cluster may be conceptualized as an innovation subset. Each innovation subset is posited to have distinct attributes that affect the rate of adoption of that subset. Drawing from diffusion theory, the innovation attributes most relevant to public relations research are perceived complexity and compatibility.

Complexity is the “degree to which an innovation is perceived as difficult to understand and use” (Rogers, 1983, p. 15). Compatibility is the “degree to which an innovation is perceived as being consistent with existing values, past experiences, and needs of potential adopters” (Rogers, 1983, p. 15). Rogers said that relative advantage is the “degree to which an innovation is perceived as being better than the idea it supercedes” (p. 213).

Perceptions of compatibility, complexity, and relative advantage are likely affected by practitioners’ prior experiences. Particularly relevant to such perceptions are practitioners’ formal training in social science research methods. In studies reported here, innovation attributes are not measured directly. However, objective attributes of innovation clusters can be used to posit how they are likely to be perceived by practitioners trained in journalism, English, and speech communication rather than the formal social sciences, mathematics, statistics, and computers.

Prior diffusion research suggests the following propositions:

• P1: The more scientific an innovation subset, the more complex and the less compatible practitioners will perceive that innovation subset to be.
• P2: The more complex and the less compatible an innovation is perceived to be,
  the less frequently such a subset is used.
• P3: Practitioners with training in social science research methods and techniques will perceive scientific program research as less complex and more compatible than will practitioners without such training.
• P4: Practitioners with training in social science research methods and techniques will use scientific program research more frequently than practitioners without such training.

PROGRAM RESEARCH AND THEORIES OF ORGANIZATIONS

Individual practitioners do not make adoption decisions about prog...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Preface
• PART I RESEARCH REVIEWS
• PART II REPORTS OF ORIGINAL RESEARCH
• Author Index
• Subject Index