The IABC Handbook of Organizational Communication

A Guide to Internal Communication, Public Relations, Marketing, and Leadership

Tamara Gillis

• Editore: Jossey-Bass
• Anno: 2011
• ISBN:
  9781118016350
• Edizione: 2
• Argomento: Business
• Categoria: Human Resource Management

The IABC Handbook of Organizational Communication

THIS NEW EDITION of The IABC Handbook of Organizational Communication contains a comprehensive collection of practical knowledge about successful corporate communication and its effect on an organization as a whole.

Thoroughly revised and updated to meet the realities of today's organizational environment, the second edition of The IABC Handbook of Organizational Communication includes fresh case studies and original chapters. This vital resource contains information that is relevant to communicators in any organization, from global conglomerates to small businesses, public companies to private firms, and for-profits to nonprofits.

The expert contributors cover a wealth of relevant topics, including how to excel at executive communication and executive coaching, an in-depth examination of communication counsel, a review of communication and ethics as a whole, a review of corporate social responsibility and sustainability issues, and how to prepare for communication during a crisis.

The book also contains information on current issues and trends such as the effects of the recent recession and new technologies that affect strategic communication management. A review of internal and employee communication issues, the growing need for international and multicultural communication, and strategies for combining traditional and social media are explored in detail.

Whether you are a professional communicator or a corporate executive without a background in the communication discipline, you will gain new insight into traditional and emerging issues in organizational communication and learn what it takes to reach stakeholders both inside and outside the organization.

Part ONE: FOUNDATIONS OF BUSINESS COMMUNICATION

CHAPTER ONE

CHARACTERISTICS OF EXCELLENT COMMUNICATION

James E. Grunig, Larissa A. Grunig

When the International Association of Business Communicators (IABC) Research Foundation issued a request for proposals in 1984 for research on “How, Why, and to What Extent Communication Contributes to the Achievement of Organizational Objectives,” we first thought of the opportunity to move beyond evaluating individual communication programs such as media, community, or employee relations, where we had previously conducted research, to construct a theory of the overall value of the public relations function to the organization. Thus, the Excellence study offered the possibility of constructing a theory of how public relations contributes to organizational effectiveness.

At the same time, our collaborators on the project (David Dozier, William Ehling, Fred Repper, and Jon White) noted that the project would make it possible to integrate a number of middle-range concepts that explained how the communication function should be organized to increase its value to the organization. James Grunig brought his concepts of publics, organizational theory and decision making, models of public relations, evaluation of public relations, and research on employee communication to the project. David Dozier contributed his and Glen Broom’s roles theory. William Ehling contributed his knowledge of operations research and his views on the controversy over public relations and integrated marketing communication. Larissa Grunig brought her knowledge of gender, diversity, power, activism, and organizational structure and culture. Jon White contributed his ideas about public relations and strategic management. To this mix, Fred Repper, our practitioner member of the team, added his understanding of how theories worked in practice. The package became what we now know as the Excellence theory.

Based on our research, we developed a generic benchmark (Fleisher, 1995) of critical success factors and best practices in communication management. In most public relations benchmarking studies, a researcher compares a communication unit with other units in its own industry that are generally recognized as the best. The Excellence study, by contrast, identified best practices across different types of organizations—corporations, government agencies, nonprofit organizations, and associations. Generic benchmarking is more valuable than benchmarking a single case because it is unlikely that one organization will be “a world-class performer across the board” (Fleisher, 1995, p. 29). In the Excellence study, we found that a few organizations exemplified most of the best practices, many exemplified some, and others had few of these characteristics. A generic benchmark does not provide an exact formula or detailed description of practices that a communication unit can copy to be excellent. Rather, it provides a set of principles that professionals can use to generate ideas for specific practices in their own organizations.

We tested the Excellence theory through survey research of heads of public relations, chief executive officers (CEOs), and employees in 327 organizations (corporations, nonprofit organizations, government agencies, and associations) in the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom. The survey research was followed by qualitative interviews with heads of public relations, other public relations practitioners, and CEOs in twenty-five organizations with the highest and lowest scores on a scale of Excellence produced by statistical analysis of the survey data. Three books were published from the research (Grunig, 1992; Dozier, Grunig & Grunig, 1995; & Grunig, Grunig, & Dozier, 2002).

In our first book, Excellence in Public Relations and Communication Management, Repper (1992) explained how the theory of Excellence can be used to audit communication programs: “One thing communicators never have been able to do is to compare our communication programs with a program that is considered the best and most effective. However, the normative theory provided in the book gives us an opportunity to measure the effectiveness of our communication programs against that of an ideal program” (Grunig, 1992, p. 112). Any professional communicator or executive to whom the communication function reports could conduct a formal or informal audit to compare that function with the generic benchmark we have developed. Professional communicators asked to serve as peer reviewers for other organizations could use the characteristics as a qualitative benchmark to frame their evaluation.

The Value of Communication to an Organization

IABC’s emphasis on explaining the value of public relations stimulated us to put measurement and evaluation into a broader perspective than the program level. Although program evaluation remained an important component of our theory, we realized that it could not show the overall value of the public relations function to the organization. Our review of the literature on organizational effectiveness first showed that public relations has value when it helps the organization achieve its goals. However, the literature also showed that it has to develop those goals through interaction with strategic constituencies (stakeholders and publics). We theorized that communication adds value when it helps the organization identify stakeholders and segment different kinds of publics from stakeholder categories. CEOs in the qualitative portion of the study, for example, emphasized that the communication function has value because it provides a broad, diverse perspective both inside and outside the organization. Second, we showed that public relations increases its value when it uses symmetrical communication to develop and cultivate relationships with strategic publics. If it develops good relationships with strategic publics, an organization is likely to develop goals desired by both the organization and its publics and to achieve those goals because it shares the goals and collaborates with publics. Similarly, CEOs emphasized the value of public relations in helping the organization deal with crises and conflicts with activist groups.

Although we concluded that it is difficult to place a monetary value on relationships with publics and the outside perspective of public relations, our interviews with CEOs and senior public relations officers revealed numerous examples of how public relations had reduced the costs of litigation, regulation, legislation, and negative publicity caused by poor relationships, issues, and crises; reduced the risk of making decisions that affect different stakeholders; or increased revenue by providing products and services needed by stakeholders. Those examples provided powerful qualitative evidence of the value of good relationships with strategic publics.

In addition to explaining the value of communication, the Excellence study provided solid theory and empirical evidence of how the function should be organized to maximize this value. The characteristics of an excellent public relations function can be placed into four categories, each containing several characteristics that can be audited.

For public relations to contribute to organizational effectiveness, the organization must empower public relations as a critical management function. Empowerment of the public relations function includes four characteristics:

1. The senior communication executive is involved with the strategic management processes of the organization, and communication programs are developed for strategic publics identified through this process. Public relations contributes to strategic management by scanning the environment to identify the publics affected by the consequences of decisions or that might affect the outcome of decisions. An excellent public relations department communicates with these publics to bring their voices into strategic management, thus making it possible for publics to participate in organizational decisions that affect them.

2. Communication programs organized by excellent departments to communicate with strategic publics also are managed strategically. To be managed strategically means that these programs are based on formative research, that they have concrete and measurable objectives, and that they are evaluated either formally or informally. In addition, the communication staff can provide evidence to show that these programs achieved their short-term objectives and improved long-term relationships between the organization and its publics.

3. The senior public relations executive is a member of the dominant coalition of the organization or has a direct reporting relationship to senior managers who are part of the dominant coalition. The communication function seldom will have the power to affect key organizational decisions unless the chief communication officer is part of or has access to the group of senior managers with the greatest power in the organization.

4. Diversity is embodied in all public relations roles. The principle of requisite variety suggests that organizations need as much diversity inside as in their environment if they are to interact successfully with all strategic elements of their environment. Excellent public relations departments empower both men and women in all roles as well as practitioners of diverse racial, ethnic, and cultural backgrounds.

Communicator Roles

Public relations researchers have identified two major roles that communicators play in organizations: the manager and technician roles. Communication technicians are essential to carry out most of the day-to-day communication activities of public relations departments, and many practitioners play both roles. In less excellent departments, however, all of the communication practitioners—including the senior practitioner—are technicians. If the senior communicator is not a manager, it is not possible for public relations to be empowered as a management function. Three characteristics of excellence in public relations are related to the managerial role:

1. The communication unit is headed by a strategic manager rather than a technician or an administrative manager. Excellent public relations units must have at least one senior communication manager who conceptualizes and directs communication programs. Otherwise, members of the dominant coalition who have little knowledge of communication management will supply this direction. In addition, the Excellence study distinguished between a strategic manager and an administrative manager. Administrative managers typically manage day-to-day operations of the communication function, personnel, and the budget; they generally are supervisors of technicians. Strategic managers provide communication strategies that support the business goals. If the senior public relations officer is an administrative manager, the department usually will not be excellent.

2. The senior communication executive or others in the public relations unit must have the knowledge needed for a strategic role. Excellent public relations programs are staffed by practitioners who have gained the knowledge needed to carry out the strategic manager role through university education, continuing education, or self-study.

3. Both men and women must have equal opportunity to occupy the managerial role. The majority of public relations professionals are women. If women are not considered for managerial roles, the communication function is diminished because many of the most knowledgeable practitioners are excluded from that role. When that is the case, the senior position in the communication department often is filled by someone from another managerial function who has little knowledge of public relations.

Organization of the Communication Function and Its Relationship to Other Management Functions

Many organizations have a single department devoted to all communication functions. Others have separate departments for programs aimed at different publics such as journalists, employees, the local community, or the financial community. Still others place communication under another managerial function such as marketing, human resources, legal, or finance. Many organizations also contract with or consult with outside firms for all or some of their communication programs or for such communication techniques as annual reports or newsletters. Two characteristics are related to the organization of the function:

1. Public relations should be an integrated communication function. An excellent public relations function integrates communication programs into a single department or provides a mechanism for coordinating programs managed by different departments. Only in an integrated system is it possible for public relations to develop new communication programs for changing strategic publics and to move resources from programs designed for formerly strategic publics to the new programs.

2. Communication should be a management function separate from other functions. Even though the communication function is integrated, it should not be placed under a management function such as marketing or human resources. When the public relations function is sublimated to other functions, it cannot be managed strategically because it cannot move resources from one strategic public to another—as an integrated public relations function can.

Models of Public Relations

Public relations scholars have conducted extensive research on the extent to which organizations practice four models of public relations—four typical ways of conceptualizing and conducting the communication function—and to identify which of these models provides a normative framework for effective and ethical public relations. These models are the (1) two-way symmetrical model of dialogue, collaboration, and public participation; (2) press agentry (emphasizing favorable publicity); (3) public information (disclosing accurate, but mostly favorable, information and conducting no research or other form of two-way communication); or (4) two-way asymmetrical (emphasizing the interests of the organization and excluding the interests of publics). The two-way symmetrical model produces better long-term relationships with publics than do the other models. Symmetrical programs balance the interests of organizations and publics in society.

The research for the Excellence study refined our understanding of these models by identifying four dimensions that underlie them: ...