An Overview of the Public Relations Function [2 ed.] 9781949443660, 1949443663

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An Overview of the Public Relations Function

An Overview of the Public Relations Function Second Edition Shannon A. Bowen, PhD University of South Carolina

Brad Rawlins, PhD

Arkansas State University

Thomas Martin

College of Charleston

An Overview of the Public Relations Function, Second Edition Copyright © Business Expert Press, LLC, 2019. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means— electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or any other except for brief quotations, not to exceed 250 words, without the prior permission of the publisher. First published in 2019 by Business Expert Press, LLC 222 East 46th Street, New York, NY 10017 www.businessexpertpress.com ISBN-13: 978-1-94944-366-0 (paperback) ISBN-13: 978-1-94944-367-7 (e-book) Business Expert Press Public Relations Collection Collection ISSN: 2157-345X (print) Collection ISSN: 2157-3476 (electronic) Cover and interior design by S4Carlisle Publishing Services Private Ltd., Chennai, India First edition: 2010 Second edition: 2019 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Printed in the United States of America.

Abstract This book provides an executive review of the field of public relations with a focus on what managers need to know in order to master the function. Throughout the text, we integrate the academic with the professional by asking, “How can an executive use this knowledge to make the most of the public relations function to help the whole organization be more ­effective and successful?” Part I of the book acquaints the busy manager with the lexicon of the public relations field and provides research on the theory of public relations, its subfunctions, such as research or public affairs, and the ethical guideline CERT formula: Credibility, Ethics, Relationships, Trust. Part II examines the role of the CCO and dominant coalition, organizational culture, structure, effectiveness, managing stakeholders and publics, using research to create strategy, and the four-step process of public relations management (“RACE”). Part III discusses the advanced management concepts of issues management, specialization in the sectors of public relations (corporate, agency, government, and nonprofit), managing values, deontological ethics, conducting moral analyses, and counseling management or leadership. We review what research found regarding the most excellent ways to manage public relations, both beginning and ending with ethics. We examine current thought to help managers and students master the most important concepts of management in the field quickly, accessibly, and with an eye toward helping an organization or client achieve the most effective results through cutting-edge, research-based strategic public relations management.

Keywords strategy; public relations management; ethics; trust; issues management; corporate communication; excellence; relationship management

Contents List of Figures.........................................................................................ix List of Tables...........................................................................................xi Preface.................................................................................................xiii Acknowledgments.................................................................................xvii Part 1 Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4

Mastering the Principles.................................................. 1 Why Do Public Relations?.................................................3 What Is Public Relations?...................................................9 Models of Public Relations and Its Subfunctions..............15 The Management Function of Public Relations................27

Part 2 Organizations and Processes.......................................... 39 Chapter 5 Organizational Factors, Culture, Character, and Structure..........................................................................41 Chapter 6 How Public Relations Contributes to Organizational Effectiveness.....................................................................51 Chapter 7 Managing Stakeholders and Publics.................................61 Chapter 8 Public Relations Research.................................................73 Chapter 9 The Public Relations Process—“RACE”...........................87 Part 3 Advanced Practices in Public Relations Management......99 Chapter 10 Issues Management and Sectors of the Public Relations Industry..........................................................101 Chapter 11 Ethics, Counseling Roles, Leadership, and Moral Analyses.........................................................................119 Chapter 12 Organizational Effectiveness: Excellence in Public Relations Management...................................................137 Notes..................................................................................................153 References............................................................................................159 About the Authors................................................................................169 Index..................................................................................................171

List of Figures Figure 3.1 Dimensions of public relations (purpose by direction).....18 Figure 5.1 Vertical organizational structure versus horizontal organizational structure....................................................46 Figure 5.2 Organizational structure with a production (manufacturing) component............................................47 Figure 5.3 Decentralized MNC structure with communication coordinated by a HQ.......................................................48 Figure 5.4 Public relations agency structure......................................49 Figure 6.1 Six steps in the process of stakeholder management..........57 Figure 6.2 The components of OPR theory that can result in positive relationships with stakeholders and publics.........60 Figure 7.1 Stakeholder typology........................................................64 Figure 7.2 Grunig’s situational theory of publics...............................67 Figure 7.3 Stakeholder by communication strategy...........................69 Figure 9.1 SWOT analysis................................................................90 Figure 9.2 Sample Gantt chart (numbers within bars are days to accomplish task)...............................................................95 Figure 11.1 The organizational subsystems within systems theory.....122 Figure 11.2 Home Depot’s value wheel.............................................133 Figure 11.3 Home Depot’s inverted pyramid....................................133

List of Tables Table 8.1 Table 8.2 Table 10.1 Table 11.1

Methods of quantitative data collection............................78 Methods of qualitative data collection..............................80 The steps of issues management.....................................105 Utilitarian analysis, maximizing public interest and greater good consequences.............................................128 Table 11.2 Deontology’s three decision tests of the categorical imperative, obligating all people equally.........................130 Table 12.1 The 10 generic principles of excellence in public relations that are stable across organizations, cultures, and varying situations....................................................138

Preface Our purpose in this volume is to introduce you to the management of public relations. We use knowledge of management, strategy, public relations theory, research, and professional practice to explain the discipline of public relations. Our text is based on current research and scholarly knowledge, as well as on years of experience in professional practice. We value every moment that you spend with this book. Therefore, we have eliminated much of the academic jargon found in other books and used concise writing. We aimed to make the chapters short and manageable, but packed with information. We hope that our direct to-the-point approach will help your study move quickly and smoothly. We use a few original public relations case studies that we have researched and written about to illustrate the concepts we discuss. We hope that instructors will elucidate many of the concepts in this book and offer discussions of the cases—for brevity of reading, we leave that to users. This book is divided into three sections: • Part I: Mastering the Principles. Chapters 1 through 4 focus on the theoretical foundations of the profession, its taxonomy, the role of the chief communication officer (CCO), and the function as a part of management. • Part II: Organizations and Processes. Chapters 5 through 9 offer a look at organization, its structure, effectiveness, and how the public relations process is managed—through relationships with publics and stakeholders, conducting research, and the process of strategically managing public relations, using the “RACE” acronym. A strong focus on research methods is found throughout this section. • Part III: Advanced Practices in Public Relations Management. Chapters 10 through 12 provide an advanced discussion of public

xiv PREFACE

relations: issue management or advanced problem solving, and the sectors of public relations. We offer an analytical framework for analyzing ethical dilemmas, perhaps the most difficult situations faced in public relations. We reveal what research and practice show on how to best contribute to organizational effectiveness. Please be aware! A catch-22 exists in this book: We would have liked to put the ethical analyses guidelines (in Chapter 11) earlier in this book—preferably page 1! However, the complex understanding of the field needed to engage in robust ethical analyses requires a great deal of prior knowledge that is presented in Chapters 1 to 10. Ethics is so important that we also developed a formula incorporating these concepts early on, so that they can be discussed until gaining the knowledge and terminology needed to conduct a deontological analysis (the most common and powerful type among public relations managers, but requiring some study). The CERT formula—Credibility, Ethics, Relationships, and Trust—should guide you until the advanced and detailed ethics discussions in both Chapters 11 and 12. Although you may skip ahead for assistance, we generally recommend reading the chapters in order to build upon the logical flow of terminology, processes, and management knowledge. For Instructors: You will find both original research and solid theory throughout this book. We have designed it to fit a standard 15-week semester, leaving time for activities and exams, at a pace of one chapter per week. For reading brevity, we will count on you to elaborate, offer examples, ask questions, and ask students to identify the principles evident in our cases. Chapters 1 and 2 are shorter than most, so you may wish to assign those together, depending on other activities and the pace of your term. The price of our text is exceptionally competitive. Thank you for using our work. For Students: This text is loaded with terminology but eschews jargon. We often draw your attention to terms in bold or italics and they build upon one another throughout chapters. Our book is purposefully concise and avoids repetition, so that each chapter is loaded with new information. Research shows that this knowledge can advance your career and earnings faster than among those without such study.

PREFACE xv

Here is a brief overview of what is ahead: Chapter 1: A vivid case illustrates when public relations made a critical difference to an organization, both to customers and employees. Chapter 2: Defining public relations; terminology of the profession and the concepts prevalent in the strategic management of relationships with publics and stakeholders. Chapter 3: Introduces models and dimensions of public relations that provide a taxonomy for communications efforts; a brief history, and the subfunctions or specialties within the profession. Chapter 4: Inclusion of public relations as a management function, roles and access to the CEO; decision making; core competencies for working in business, including strategy and profit. Chapter 5: Organizational theory, culture, structure, and ethical values as applied to the communication discipline. Chapter 6: Theory from business management applied to the communication discipline; how organizations define success. Chapter 7: The stakeholder management approach to identifying issues, stakeholders and publics, and prioritizing them for strategic communication. Chapter 8: Data collection and research methods; the importance of research in strategy and strategic management. Chapter 9: The four-step process of public relations management, abbreviated as RACE: Research; Analyses and strategic action planning; Communication; Evaluation research. Chapter 10: Issues management, the most advanced problem-solving function of the discipline; four sectors of the industry—corporate, agency, government, nonprofit. Chapter 11: Moral and ethical guidelines for practicing principled public relations; managing organizational values; counseling on ethics; leadership; utilitarianism and the powerful analytical framework deontology. Chapter 12: Ethics as the beginning and end of excellent public relations; what principles lead to excellent public relations; relationship management and OPR variables; ethics as the basis of long-term trusting relationships that allow an organization to flourish.

xvi PREFACE

Each of the authors has been teaching with the first edition of this book for years, so we incorporated student and instructor feedback. We retained and updated the UPS, Entergy, and wild horse cases that were popular in the first edition. We strived to make this edition even more concise, hard-hitting, direct, and to the point: exactly what you need to know to know public relations—and to be excellent at it. Thank you for your confidence in us to guide your study of the field. We will not let you down! Sincerely, Dr. Shannon A. Bowen December 28, 2018 From coastal South Carolina, U.S.A.

Acknowledgments Thanks are due to Stephen Holmes and the Home Depot Corporation; Linda Rutherford and Southwest Airlines; United Parcel Service; ­Entergy Corporation; The Cloud Foundation and Ginger Kathrens, Lisa Friday, and Linda Hanick; our editor Don W. Stacks; Rob Zwettler, Chithra Amaravel, and Rene Caroline Balan of Business Expert Press; James and Larissa Grunig; our s­tudents, readers, and instructors; our many colleagues, families, and friends who supported us in this work; highest thanks to dearest Kauai and to Dr. Bowen’s parents who have become outstanding proofreaders.

PART 1

Mastering the Principles

CHAPTER 1

Why Do Public Relations? Southwest Airlines Case: Flight 1380

Tuesday, April 17, 2018, began like most other busy travel days for Southwest Airlines. The airline would carry 400,000+ passengers that day, on nearly 4,000 flights. In 2017, Southwest safely flew more than 120 million passengers on its fleet of 700+ airplanes. But on this Tuesday, Southwest’s sterling safety record of never having had an in-flight fatality would sadly be broken. Flight 1380, a Boeing 737-700, departed from New York’s La Guardia Airport at 10:43 a.m. on a flight to Dallas. On board were 144 passengers and a crew of 5. At 11:03 a.m., 20 minutes into the flight, the left engine experienced a catastrophic failure, sending shrapnel flying, piercing the aircraft fuselage, and shattering a passenger window. The blast severely injured a passenger, Jennifer Riordan, who was seated next to the shattered window. She was partially sucked out of the plane as fellow passengers frantically struggled to keep her inside, despite depressurization and flying objects. The cabin experienced sudden depressurization and oxygen masks were deployed, and many passengers assumed the flight was doomed. A few made desperate video recordings on their phones, thinking these were the last messages they would leave their families. Despite the significant damage, Captain Tammie Jo Shults and First Officer Darren Ellisor made an emergency landing at Philadelphia International Airport at 11:20 a.m., just 17 minutes after the engine had exploded. Emergency crews met the plane and quickly removed the unconscious Riordan and transported her to a local hospital, where she was pronounced dead. Other passengers

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who received injuries were treated and released. Understandably, everyone on the flight was badly shaken by the ordeal.

Southwest’s Immediate Response Meanwhile, in Dallas—where Southwest Airlines is based—a group of leaders were off-site for a workshop, when everyone’s cell phone began buzzing at once. Linda Rutherford,1 the chief communications officer (CCO), was part of the team that got the initial call. Quickly, the decision was made to return to headquarters, open the Headquarters Emergency Command Center, and activate the crisis plan. Rutherford and her team had less than 15 minutes to gather the facts, establish priorities, and begin communicating with key stakeholders and publics, including the family members of those on the flight, other customers, employees, and the news media. Her first action was to get on a Potential Operational Problem (POP) call to ascertain the facts; her second was to mobilize the Headquarters Emergency Command Center and begin working with the team to activate the crisis plan. The first media calls came in at 11:20 a.m. (all times are Dallas time from this point on), just minutes after the emergency was declared and as Flight 1380 was landing in Philadelphia. By noon, Southwest issued the first media advisory, simply stating the facts as they knew them: We are aware that Southwest flight #1380 from New York La  ­Guardia to Dallas Love Field has diverted to Philadelphia ­International Airport  .  .  .  We are in the process of gathering more information. Safety is always our top priority at Southwest ­Airlines, and we are working diligently to support our Customers and Crews at this time.2 Flight 1380 was the top news story of the day, with passengers and crew describing the disaster on board across media outlets. The media call center that the communications team operated took more than 100 calls that first day. More statements would follow, but Southwest was aware that the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) had to lead the way in discussing anything relating to the cause of the accident. Nevertheless,



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Southwest also had a responsibility to reassure their customers that flying on its other planes was still safe. By 3:00 p.m., the company was able to acknowledge its first in-flight fatality. Southwest posted an update that included this statement: We are deeply saddened to confirm that there is one fatality resulting from this accident. The entire Southwest Airlines Family is devastated and extends its deepest, heartfelt sympathy to the Customers, employees, family members and loved ones affected by this tragic event. We have activated our emergency response team and are deploying every resource to support those affected by this tragedy. As Rutherford, her team, and dozens of other Southwest employees began mobilizing to deal with the unprecedented situation, they had numerous stakeholders and publics to consider. First and foremost were the victim’s family members. Riordan was survived by her husband, Michael, and two children. The family had to be notified appropriately and offered resources as they coped with their staggering loss. In addition, other passengers on Flight 1380 had experienced a life-threatening emergency, sustained minor injuries, and/or witnessed the tragic death of a fellow passenger. They needed to be consoled and also offered compassionate assistance by the airline. Gary Kelly, Southwest’s chairman and chief executive officer (CEO), had a visible role from the first few hours of the crisis. He was notified within minutes of the incident and kept updated throughout the day. Kelly’s first video statement was issued at 3:30 p.m. and posted both internally and externally and on social media channels. He conducted a press conference for the media at 5:20 p.m., which was later posted on social media. Kelly also had a special message of gratitude to all first responders and Southwest employees later that evening. Southwest immediately activated its Care Team to provide support staff for the Riordan family and others on the flight. The Care Team would do everything possible to assist the family as they made plans for Jennifer Riordan’s funeral and a public memorial service. They offered travel support (on Southwest and other airlines) to family members traveling to the service, and they remained on call to fulfill other needs.

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Southwest’s Continued Response Within hours of the accident, the airline began reaching out to offer assistance to the other 143 passengers, as well as the 5 Southwest flight crew members on the flight. Southwest had used Care Teams in the past to assist passengers in extraordinary circumstances, but this event was unprecedented and required a comprehensive approach. A Care Team call center was activated the day after the accident to coordinate all the elements of support. Special toll-free numbers were established, and all the affected passengers were sent e-mails providing instructions on how they could access support. A “go plane” of Southwest employees was dispatched to Philadelphia to support local employees and to assist with the NTSB’s investigation of the accident. A special relief flight was also dispatched to Philadelphia to accommodate those passengers who still wished to continue on to Dallas later that day. The following day, as a proactive measure, Southwest sent each passenger a FedEx package with travel vouchers and a check for $5,000, no questions asked. In addition, Southwest offered to compensate them for travel expenses, lodging, and other expenses incurred as a result of the incident. The crew was hosted in Dallas the following week for a meeting with Gary Kelly; they were offered support and time to heal from the traumatic event. The crew was interviewed on ABC’s 20/20 program, and the communications team helped prepare them to answer questions. Throughout the crisis and recovery, social media played a key role and was managed carefully. Within minutes of the emergency, details of Flight 1380’s situation could be found on Twitter, Facebook, and other social media channels. Southwest routinely monitors social media channels; as activity increased concerning Flight 1380, so did monitoring efforts. Southwest posted its first items on Facebook and Twitter just an hour after the plane had landed in Philadelphia. The first YouTube video, featuring a message from Kelly, was posted before 3:00 p.m., just hours after the accident, and a second update was posted less than an hour later. The day after the accident, Facebook and Twitter were used to convey statements from both the captain and the first officer of the flight. The team handled media inquiries, taking top-tier media into account for priority handling. They used e-mail statements, phone question/answer sessions,



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and the company’s media website to manage high call volume and provide timely updates. During the first 7 days, the team handled more than 1,200 media inquiries. Rutherford and her team’s primary objective was to make sure that the needs of the passengers, crew, and family members of the victim were met in a timely and compassionate way. Yet everyone responsible for managing the crisis also had to continue to serve the millions of other customers who depended on the company for safe, reliable transportation. Now, the pressing issue was how the company would respond to the questions raised by the engine failure. Following the accident, Southwest began inspections (later mandated by the Federal Aviation Administration [FAA] for the worldwide fleet) of all 737 CFM-56-7 engines, totaling more than 700 planes. The airline did everything possible to minimize system disruptions, but, finally, a total of 500 flights had to be canceled on because of the inspections. The strength of our culture got us through it. All of Southwest’s efforts in the first few weeks following the accident were focused on comforting the families, caring for the affected passengers and crew, and reassuring customers and employees of the airline’s safety. In an effort to convey the seriousness of the situation, Southwest replaced its colorful brand identity on all of its digital sites with monochromatic imagery by 2:00 p.m. on April 17. Advertising was suspended to show respect for all who were touched by the tragedy. Now the company faced a dilemma. Southwest was known for humorous in-flight commentary from the flight crew, and the playful tone of its corporate culture. How could Southwest remain true to its culture while also showing empathy and respect for Flight 1380? In the end, the company was guided by dialogue with the greater Southwest family of stakeholders. A few months later, customers and employees began asking via social channels when it was okay to return to Southwest’s roots . . . when was it okay to laugh again? According to Rutherford, the answer rested with the frontline employees: “We provided guidance early on to be sensitive to the use of humor, but ultimately, we felt it was important to empower our flight attendants and

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pilots to make their own decisions about when to resume humor aboard flights,” she said. They were in the best position to determine the mood in the cabin and what was appropriate on any given flight. To laugh again isn’t to minimize what happened on April 17; it was devastating to everyone in the company. In many ways, it was the strength of our culture that got us through it. And an important part of that culture is our ability to use humor in appropriate ways to cope with life’s many challenges. Rutherford acknowledged, It was heartbreaking to deliver the news of our first in-flight fatality. The media were generally thoughtful and kind as they knew how much we were hurting from what had happened—that is the power of developing relationships with key stakeholders. You don’t know when you will need them as much as they need you. Tuesday, April 17, 2018, will always be remembered within Southwest as a day of loss: one that tested the company at its core. Yet the company can also remember the heroic efforts of its flight crew and many passengers aboard the flight, the compassion of dozens of Southwest employees in helping those affected, and the resilience that is based on a strong culture. This case provides an excellent example of how one organization matched a stated set of values with its actual behavior when it mattered most. Case Questions: • After learning of the accident, what were Linda Rutherford and her team’s most essential priorities? • What was the role of Southwest’s corporate culture in managing this crisis? • What can be learned for the future: prevention, response, and so on?

CHAPTER 2

What Is Public Relations? Public relations is a management pursuit. It is an identifier and a manager of problems, a facilitator of conflict resolution, a values manager and an ethical advisor, and a manager of communication, both inside and outside an organization. Public relations conducts research, defines problems, and creates meaning by communicating among many groups, stakeholders, publics, audiences, and organizations, for understanding and social betterment. Public relations is a strategic conversation. As a wide-ranging field, it is often misperceived as media relations, but it is far, far more, such as public affairs or labor relations. The public relations function is prevalent and growing, and jobs in the field are booming. The dispersion and growth of multiple message sources means that public relations is on the ascent, while traditional forms of mass communication (such as newspapers, magazines, and nightly newscasts) are on the decline. You can find public relations in virtually every industry, government, and nonprofit organization. The broad scope of the industry makes it impossible to understand without considering the taxonomy of this diverse, dynamic profession. Learning the lexicon of public relations will help master the discipline and facilitate further reading on the subject. Corporate and agency public relations differ from each other and are discussed in greater detail in a later chapter, along with nonprofit public relations and government relations or public affairs. For the purpose of this overview, we can define corporate public relations as an in-house public relations department within a for-profit organization of any size or type. On the other hand, public relations agencies are hired consultants that normally work on an hourly basis for specific campaigns or goals of the organization that hires them. It is not uncommon for a large

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corporation to have both an in-house corporate public relations department and an external public relations agency that consults on specific initiatives. Nonprofit public relations refers to not-for-profit organizations, foundations, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs, sometimes also called 501c3s) that advocate policy, and other issue- or cause-related activist groups. Government relations or public affairs, lobbying, or public information specializes in managing relationships with governmental officials, bureaus, and regulatory agencies along with their constituents.

Defining Public Relations Among the many competing definitions of public relations, J. Grunig and Hunt’s is the most widely cited: Public relations is “the management of communication between an organization and its publics.”1 One reason why this definition is so successful is its parsimony, or, the use of few words to convey much information. It also places the foundation of the profession squarely within management, as opposed to the competing approaches of journalism or the promotion-based approach of marketing or advertising that focuses primarily on consumers. The components of Grunig and Hunt’s definition are: • Management: The body of knowledge on how best to coordinate the activities of an enterprise. • Communication: The conduit through which we manage not only sending a message to a receiver (one-way) but also understanding the messages of others through listening, research, and dialogue (two-way). • Organization: Any group organized with a common purpose; in most cases, it is a business, a corporation, a governmental agency, or a nonprofit group. • Publics: A group(s) of people held together by a common interest. They differ from audiences in that they often self-organize and determine which messages are relevant to their interests. Stakeholders are tied to an organization by proximity, investment, employment, supply chain, regulation, or some such connection. Publics differ from stakeholders in that they do not necessarily have a financial



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or other stake tying them to the consequences of the organization, but they do have some common interest. As “the management of communication between an organization and its publics,” public relations has radically departed from its historical roots in publicity and journalism to become a management discipline—that is, one based on research and strategy.

The Function of Public Relations The public relations function evolved from one based on tactical communication output into a management discipline based in research and strategy. From about 1950, the public relations function moved into a strategic counseling role, offering management analyses and alternative ways of anticipating and handling issues, instead of only responding to topics via communication channels.2 As such, the public relations field has grown to encompass the building of important relationships between an organization and its key publics through its actions and its communication. These relationships must be based on trust,3 as explored in detail in the following chapters. This perspective defines the field of public relations as a management function using communication to build trust and relationships. Industry groups offer insight into the roles and responsibilities of public relations professionals. The International Association of Business Communicators (IABC), as sponsor of the excellence study, subscribes to and builds upon the Grunig definition: The purpose of public relations is to help organizations build relationships with the publics found within several categories of stakeholders. Public relations professionals help to build relationships by facilitating communication between subsystems of the organization and publics in and around the organization. The Public Relations Society of America (PRSA) adopted the following definition: “Public relations helps an organization and its publics adapt mutually to each other . . . to build mutually beneficial relationships

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between organizations and their publics.”5 In reality, we know that the relationships an organization has with all of its publics cannot always be harmonious or mutually beneficial. Further, that definition obligates us to act in the best interests of both the organization and its publics, which could be logically impossible if those interests are diametrically opposed. Examples of that contention could be class action litigation, boycotts, opposition research, political campaigns, and lobbying; despite the competitive nature of those relationships, they still require public relations management. The management function of public relations is critical to the success of any organization that engages people in its operation, whether they are shareholders, employees, or customers. Because of its visibility, many people think of publicity as the sole purpose of public relations; this book will help the reader see the publicity subfunction as one among many, and to grasp the width and breadth of the overall pursuit of public relations.

Naming the Public Relations Function A plethora of terms has come to be associated with modern public relations practice: everything from search engine optimization (SEO) to marketing to journalism turns up in an internet search, so clarification is warranted. This variety of terms can create a great deal of confusion about the responsibilities of public relations versus overlapping or competing organizational functions. The term “corporate communication” is the most common synonym for public relations in practice,6 followed by “marketing communication” and “public affairs.” We view the term corporate communication as a synonym for public relations, although some scholars argue that corporate communication applies only to for-profit organizations. However, we view corporate communication as a goal-oriented communication process that can be applied not only in the world of business but also in the world of nonprofits and nongovernmental organizations, educational foundations, activist groups, faith-based organizations, and so on. The term “public relations” often leads to confusion between the media relations function, public affairs, corporate communication, and marketing promotions, and therefore many organizations



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prefer the term “corporate communication” or “strategic communication.” According to scholars, “Strategic communication examines how organizations use communication purposefully to fulfill their mission.”7 We believe that the key component of effective public relations or corporate communication is an element of strategy. Many scholars prefer to use the phrase strategic public relations to differentiate it from the often misunderstood term “PR,” which can be associated with manipulation or “spin.” Strategic communication management, strategic public relations, and corporate communication are synonyms for the concept discussed in the preceding definitions. To scholars, public relations is seen as an umbrella term, comprising many smaller subfunctions, such as issues management, member relations, community affairs, internal communication, or investor relations. Academics tend to use the terms “public relations” or “communication management,” whereas 68 percent of professionals tend to use either “corporate communication” or “strategic communication.”8 This book adopts a strategic management perspective in its discussion of corporate public relations in most instances; other books in the series focus on agency public relations or public relations subfunctions, such as internal communication.9 Do not be distracted by the name debate and the myriad of synonyms: A strong body of academic research and theory underpin the practice of public relations as a management function.

Chapter Summary At the outset, this chapter set out the purpose of public relations. A ­ lthough the public relations function goes by many different names, it is essential to understand that it is a unique management function that contributes to an organization’s success through its focus on strategy, research, and the development and maintenance of relationships with key publics. Those publics are generally employees, financial stakeholders or shareholders, communities, media, and government. Do not confuse the overall strategic purpose of public relations—as a management function using communication to build trust and relationships—with its subfunctions, such as media relations. These subfunctions will be defined and discussed in more detail shortly.

CHAPTER 3

Models of Public Relations and Its Subfunctions Public relations activities have been documented since ancient times. Public relations was also present throughout the rise of civilization. For example, around 40 BCE the last Pharaoh, Queen Cleopatra, used multiple forms of public relations, based on research and strategy, to engage in complex political relations with both the Roman Empire and the many nations under her sovereign control. Her command of both research and strategic public relations was extremely advanced, given the historical period.1 Throughout history, when the stakes were high, public relations appears to have always played a pivotal role.

The Historical Development of Modern Public Relations In the United States, modern-day public relations began with a group of revolutionaries mounting an initiative to turn public opinion in favor of gaining independence from England. The revolutionaries effectively used words and actions to mount an activist movement leading to the Revolutionary War. Thomas Paine’s Common Sense, published in 1776, gave rise to the sentiment that England’s governance under King George III was unjust. The subsequent Declaration of Independence and outward acts of protest were largely influenced by slogans, such as “Don’t Tread on Me,” the use of printed materials, such as colonial newspapers, events, and other publicity tactics used to sway opinion in favor of revolution. The Federalist Papers were 85 essays used to argue for the U.S. Constitution; they are exemplary forms of public relations2 used to support a social movement for independence. Modern public relations in the United States can also be traced back to less illustrious beginnings.3 P. T. Barnum, of circus fame, originated many

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outrageous publicity tactics to generate attention for his shows and attractions. Barnum coined the phrase “There’s no such thing as bad publicity.”4 Barnum thought that honesty was not the domain of a press agent and infamously stated, “The public be fooled.”5 Barnum’s ethics left much to be desired. One-Way Communication Models: Press Agentry and Public Information Droves of press agents followed Barnum’s tactics, in efforts to get free space in the news for their clients. This approach was termed press agentry because of its reliance on generating publicity with little regard for the truth. Publicity and press agentry are synonyms meaning to generate attention through the use of media, in an effort to persuade people to attend to messages in a crowded environment. The next historical phase resulted in a new model of public relations termed public information. The pioneer of public information was Ivy Ledbetter Lee, who revolutionized public relations practice with the idea of telling the truth. Lee saw his role as one of educating the public about facts and supplying all possible information to the media.6 Lee became the first public relations professional to issue a code of ethics in 1906, based on his declaration that “the public be informed”—to replace railroad tycoon Vanderbilt’s infamous statement, “The public be damned.”7 Ivy Lee ushered in a more respectable form of public information that is objective, truthful, factual and intended to inform. Both models are approaches based on technical skill using writing. These concepts are based on a one-way dissemination of information—not based on social-scientific research but limited to counting placements of articles and key performance indicators (KPIs). These are not management-based models but are technical-skill-based dissemination models. Two-Way Communication Models: Research for Asymmetry and Symmetry The next two models of public relations are based on social-scientific research methods, seeking to understand public opinion. Therefore, these models are a two-way approach, seeking a give-and-take of information or dialogue.



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The asymmetrical model was pioneered by Edward Bernays around 1920 and is based on the principles of psychology.8 Research seeks to determine what publics know or believe about an organization or a certain issue. Once these beliefs are learned through research, they are incorporated into the messages distributed by the organization. This is asymmetrical because it is imbalanced in favor of the communicator, who identifies beliefs and communicates them with the purpose of persuading people. For example, a politician whose research identifies tax cuts as an important topic with voters includes this idea in the next campaign speech. The symmetrical model also uses research on public opinion but with the intent to build mutual understanding between both publics and organizations.9 Organizations are open to changing their internal policies on the basis of what they learn from publics, and vice versa. This is a collaborative approach to building understanding. Although not perfectly balanced, it has a moving equilibrium in which both sides in the communication process have an opportunity to be heard. For example, after research identifying tax cuts as an issue, a symmetrical politician would incorporate tax cuts into his or her belief system and seek ideas supporting the tax cuts from others. Dimensions: Direction and Purpose All four models of public relations are still used, yet we often see a mixing of the public relations models among multiple tactics within one or two different strategies. Activities can vary in relation to the strength of the model along a continuum or act as a scattergram. The models are theoretical constructs that, in implementation, become combined through the mixed motives of public relations both for organizations and for publics. To separate the main approach and see which model is primarily being used, the dimensions of public relations are helpful. By examining how proactive or reactive communication is, and the intended effects, we can arrive at a deeper understanding of public relations activities.10 Though often blended, activities can show a predominant direction and purpose, as illustrated in Figure 3.1.

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PURPOSE OF COMMUNICATION Understand Persuade

DIRECTION One-way

Two-way

Press Agentry

Asymmetrical

Public Information

Symmetrical

Figure 3.1  Dimensions of public relations (purpose by direction)

CERT Today, we focus on other important management concepts in public relations, in addition to the conduit of communication, that allow us to see the larger picture of our role in strategic management. Public relations seeks to build and maintain a core of values in an organization, to help it act with ethics, credibility, and character, and to build and maintain relationships with those around (or even in) an organization. Thereby, a positive and reliable reputation results, relationships can be maintained over time, and trust can be developed among stakeholders and publics. Public relations helps an organization create the maximum effectiveness and advantage for itself by focusing on what we term the CERT formula: f outcome = Credibility ± Ethics ± Relationships ± Trust The essential components, explored in detail in later chapters, of ethical and effective public relations are: Credibility Ethics Relationships Trust These concepts are roughly in the order in which they usually appear and warrant attention. Much of this book discusses the research and theory



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supporting these concepts. As history shows us, organizations that do not pay attention to credibility, ethics, relationships, and trust are often buried in the sands of time.11

The Subfunctions of Public Relations Public relations is a large “umbrella” profession encompassing many subfunctions. Corporate communication, or an “in-house” public relations department, is a routine part of a business—most businesses have one. The second type of subfunction is the public relations agency or firm;12 its purpose is to assist organizations in a specific area of expertise or with specific campaigns. Large organizations often have both corporate and agency public relations. The final broad type is governmental public relations, including trade groups, activists, communication for each branch, bureau, and level of government, and the military. Learning the subfunctions and the terminology associated with it is crucial to understanding the span of this industry. Typical Corporate Subfunctions It is important to note that the public relations subfunctions may overlap and that one department or person can assume responsibility for many of these activities. Large organizations, particularly those with multiple locations, will sometimes have regional units covering just one of these subspecialties in public relations. Oftentimes, the public relations function is so structured as to have each of the responsibilities handled by a separate department. Issues Management Issues management is the forward-looking, problem-solving, managementlevel function responsible for identifying problems, trends, industry changes, and other potential issues that could impact the organization. Issues management requires a formidable knowledge of research, environmental monitoring and scanning; the organization’s industry, competition, and business model; regulatory and policy environments; ethics and management strategy. The issues management team, normally headed by

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the chief executive officer (CEO), is in charge of resilience, flexibility, and adaptive management. He or she must be forward thinking, researchbased, inventive, futuristic, and good at problem-solving. This issues management function is arguably the most important subfunction underlying the survival of an organization. Issues managers are generally the highest ranked and most experienced public relations executives in any organization. Media Relations The media relations subfunction is the most visible portion of public relations because it deals directly with the external media. The media relations subfunction is a largely technical function; that is, it is based on the technical skill of producing public relations materials, or outputs. Outputs are often related to tactics, and examples of tactics include news releases, podcasts, websites, press kits, and social media (digital media). Numerous channels are often used to get one message to varied media publics. The online Dictionary of Public Relations Measurement and Research has a great deal of useful information for media relations.13 Community Relations Community relations is responsible for establishing and maintaining relationships with an organization’s communities—that is, both with people who have something in common and with geographic groups. For example, the boundaries of manufacturing facilities with their residential neighbors may create some shared concerns such as traffic or noise, but could also mean jobs and tax revenue for the community. Creating shared value (CSV) brings both community relations and socially responsible initiatives together to create a positive program of education, enrichment, or training opportunities. Philanthropy and Corporate Social Responsibility Oftentimes, the functions of philanthropy (donating funds or services) and a corporate social responsibility (CSR) endeavor are part of corporate



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obligations. The Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 requires corporations to hold to a code of ethics and to report on their socially responsible conduct. Social responsibility reports are often a separate document about CSR that is sent along with the mandated Securities Exchange Commission (SEC) annual report to stockholders. The CSR initiative is often combined with or managed by community relations. Financial and Investor Relations This subfunction is responsible for writing an organization’s annual report and quarterly earnings statements and for communicating with investors, financial media, and market analysts.14 This type of public relations normally requires specialized training in investor relations and is heavily regulated by the SEC. Yet financial and investor stakeholders are some of the most active players, who need information and are vital to publicly traded organizations. Marketing Communications Marketing communications is also known as integrated marketing communications or integrated communications. Publicity and product promotion target specific consumer publics. Public relations strategies and tactics are used primarily through a press agentry model meant to increase awareness and persuade consumers to try, or buy, a certain product. Government Relations, Public Affairs, and Lobbying The public affairs of an organization are the issues of interest to a citizenry or community about which an organization must communicate. Government relations handles maintaining relationships with both the regulatory agencies and appointed and elected officials, including lobbying to educate them about an organization’s perspective on public policy. Most public affairs officers have the significant responsibility of designing public policy of the organization and for communication about that policy. All branches of the military have public affairs officers, also known as public information officers, whose role we shall introduce later in this chapter.

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Internal Relations/Internal Communication Maintaining an ethical, engaged, and effective workforce is part of internal communications (IC).15 These specialists conduct numerous kinds of research and work to train, instill shared values, model ethical behavior, change organizational culture, alter workplace standards, and act as leaders and a voice for all levels of employees. An engaged workforce saves an organization money and enhances productivity. IC is responsible for organizational culture and for offering a positive experience to internal publics and increasing productivity, loyalty, retention, and commitment.

Digital Public Relations and Data Analytics The proportion of public relations activities that take place online has skyrocketed in recent years, and digital communicators specialize in keeping that information current, reaching online influencers and publics, and offering an accessible way to reach the organization. They also use analytics from artificial intelligence, big data, and social media to understand publics and segment audiences into specifically targeted small groups. Data is used to both plan and show results. Typical Agency Subfunctions In addition to the general public relations activities offered by many agencies, specializations by activity or industry also exist. Crisis Management Crisis management involves both planning for and reacting to emergency situations. Organizations need to have quick response plans and fast and accurate information to be provided to the news media. Public relations agencies specializing in crisis management quickly provide this assistance. Lobbying As an adjunct to the government relations or public affairs unit, an e­ xternal lobbying firm may also be hired. Lobbyists normally have e­xpertise in the industry for which they are hired to communicate, and maintain



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relationships with legislators, press secretaries, and other governmental officials. They often provide educational documents, policy analysis, and research to those in government on behalf of clients. Member Relations The public relations subfunction known as member relations is responsible for maintaining relationships with members or supporters of an organization. These members may be alumni, donors, members of activist networks, support groups, educational foundations, or virtually any group distinguished by a commonality and requiring membership. Development and Fund-Raising The public relations subfunction of development fund-raising often overlaps with member relations in that it seeks to build support, particularly in the form of financial donations or government grants. Polling and Research Polling and research are carried out to such an extent within public relations that specialized firms exist to conduct these activities full time, usually on a contract or retainer. It should be noted, however, that very large organizations often have their own research “departments” within one or more public relations subfunctions. Research firms may offer unique and powerful data collection methods of both quantitative (numerical) and qualitative (in-depth) types. Specialty: Fashion, Sports, Entertainment, Event, and Travel Public Relations Specialized forms of public relations exist as subfunctions for each of these large industries. Digital Marketing, Graphics, and Advertising Advertising and online marketing are professions that are distinct from public relations but are often contracted as part of a public relations campaign. Graphics include everything from infographics to a booth for a trade show.

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Typical Government Subfunctions Trade Associations and Industry Associations These membership organizations band together in the common interest of an industry and conduct research and lobbying collectively on behalf of members. Trade associations also provide the industry with research and a sense of community, conferences, and publications that help to inform and update members. There is a trade association for almost everything! Public Information and Military Government employs hundreds of thousands of communicators at all levels. From the press secretary to the public information specialist to the public affairs officer of any governmental branch, these specialists are charged with communicating in the interests of the citizenry or community, with government relations units, and with other branches of government. Most levels of the armed forces, from the local regiment to the Pentagon, have enlisted public affairs or public information personnel responsible for communication. Military and governmental public relations professionals are responsible for communicating with the citizenry in times of emergency, war, or disaster, and offering directions for public safety during hazards and emergencies. Advocacy Groups and NGOs Advocacy groups and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) exist around the government to influence, educate, lobby, and support a particular cause or issue.

Chapter Summary This chapter showed that public relations has played a role since ancient times, using research to create strategy. Approaches to public relations can



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be grouped according to direction and purpose, known as the models of public relations, summarized as follows: • Press agentry: One-way (information) dissemination focusing on publicity in order to persuade/draw attention. • Public information: One-way (information) dissemination providing information. • Two-way asymmetrical: Two-way (research); imbalanced in favor of persuading publics to support the organizations’ interests. • Two-way symmetrical: Two-way (research); more balanced in terms of creating mutual understanding or collaboration. Along with research and strategic management, modern public relations theory also examines components we call the CERT formula: f outcome = Credibility ± Ethics ± Relationships ± Trust These four factors contribute to an organization’s overall success or demise. The myriad public relations subfunctions were reviewed and grouped under the primary categories of corporate communications, agency public relations, and governmental public relations. Knowing the terminology related to the subfunctions helps to identify different forms of public relations, to understand strategy, and to use many combinations of these efforts in practice.

CHAPTER 4

The Management Function of Public Relations Public relations is a unique management function that uses communication to build trust and relationships with key publics and stakeholders. This chapter expounds on that management function, explaining why organizations need public relations in strategic management, how the management of the public relations function operates, and the management process.

Functions of Management Public relations’ unique function is to help the organization develop and maintain relationships with all its key publics and stakeholders by effectively communicating with these groups. Public relations is the only management function that offers an across-the-organization, internal and external, view to the executive team. As described earlier, public relations provides the greatest value to an organization when it is used strategically. But what does this really mean? Using it strategically means to move toward a common purpose, based on research and planning. In an effective organization, all the management functions are linked together by a common strategy. That strategy ties to a vision of the future and an underlying set of values. When all the elements are moving toward the same goal in sync, the company lowers costs and grows in a steady, profitable manner.

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Public Relations Practitioners and Professionals Public relations practitioners generally begin their careers as communication technicians using the technical skill of written tactics (news releases, newsletters, position papers, website content, social media posts, and so on).1 Practitioners in this role commonly start a career in a public relations agency or firm before moving to a corporate or government public relations unit. Technicians often have a university degree in public relations; if not, it is usually in business management, marketing, journalism, or political science. They must be—at a bare minimum—adept communicators, excellent writers, broadly educated, and critical thinkers. Although university public relations majors differ, especially internationally,2 there are six recommended core courses to create competency in public relations: 1. principles of public relations, a theory class; 2. research methods; 3. writing; 4. campaigns or case studies; 5. a supervised work experience or internship; 6. public relations ethics.3 Also recommended = a management class4 Top public relations programs almost always require a course in public relations management. This book is often used in such management classes or can augment other courses to “create” management competency, if your program does not have a distinct public relations management course. Elements of global business and diversity, such as a study abroad experience, and courses in changing communication technologies are also recommended. After gaining experience as a technician, some public relations professionals move into the role of a public relations manager. Managers are professionals who examine research to assist in creating strategy, delegate tactics to technicians, and coordinate team efforts. Two factors predict how fast someone will be promoted in public relations: (1) knowledge of research and research methods; (2) knowledge of business management.



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Managers can take on different roles,5 for example—communication liaison by negotiating conflict; expert analyst of specific problems; problem solver of the issues management variety; or cultural interpreter in a global environment. Whatever roles and responsibilities she or he fills, the management of people, information, research, communications, problems, and ethics is always present. The communication manager thinks critically, analytically, and strategically; she will be focused on the efforts of the organization that contribute to the key relationships that help achieve bottom-line goals. These efforts are not limited to communication strategies, but include problem solving, monitoring an organization’s external environment, scanning for issues that might impact the organization, helping an organization adapt to the needs of its stakeholders, creating public policy, and symmetrical conflict resolution. In order to function strategically, the public relations function must be headed by a manager rather than a technician.6 The use of statistical research and management knowledge are essential for public relations to interact as part of strategic management. These vital elements are the most important: In order for communication to function strategically, the executive in charge of the function must have a recurring seat at the executive decision-making table, use original research, use symmetrical collaboration, and bring critical advice to bear on management strategy.

Executive Management: The C-Suite Virtually all organizations are run by a leadership team that is responsible for setting strategy and carrying out the organization’s vision. Although publicly traded companies, as well as nonprofit organizations, may be governed ultimately by a board of directors, this board looks to the CEO and her executive management team to operate the enterprise on a dayto-day basis. Each department or function in an organization generally has a leader who is on the executive management team, though inclusion in that group can vary with the situation.

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Key functions in an organization typically include: • The production or manufacturing function, headed by a chief operations officer (COO); • Finance, headed by a chief financial officer (CFO); • Legal, headed by the General Counsel; • Research and development (R&D); • Human resources, led by a chief personnel or human resources officer (HR); • Information services and technology, reporting to the chief information officer (CIO); • Marketing and sales, led by a chief marketing officer (CMO); • Public relations or communication, led by the chief communications officer (CCO)7; • Executive level (heads of each organizational function) led by the CEO. The CEO is operationally the head of the organization and is, in essence, responsible for every action and decision undertaken throughout the entire company. This group of executive leaders, headed by the CEO, is often referred to as the dominant coalition. The dominant coalition is comprised of the most important decision-makers and influencers in an organization. Although organizational structures may vary, these basic functional areas are usually present in the dominant coalition or executive team. In the best situation, the CCO works hand in hand with the CEO.8 In some cases, the communication function is subordinated to another area, such as marketing, legal, or human resources. When this is the case, the communication leader is constrained; it becomes more difficult to play a meaningful role in the strategic decision-making process of the organization. Therefore, it is useful to understand what inclusion in the dominant coalition involves. Dominant Coalition Inclusion and Membership As the key decision-makers in an organization, the dominant coalition creates strategy. It is imperative for the communication function to be included in the dominant coalition, reporting directly to the CEO. In that



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manner, public relations can contribute to the overall organizational effectiveness and strategy. The CEO should seek and respect the information and input offered by the public relations counsel. Being an active participant in creating organizational strategy and engaging in problem solving is a more complicated task than simply having access to the CEO. Likewise, being an influential advisor is a far different role than simply being present at meetings.8 A majority of modern CCOs report to the CEO; a smaller fraction report a significant level of influence over strategy; some report sporadic influence or access; and, a concerning 35 percent reported little or no access to the CEO.9 All functional areas of an organization want to be included in executive management and be noted for their contribution by the CEO; yet, public relations offers far more compelling arguments for inclusion than most. The communication function brings a different perspective to the dominant coalition (also known as the C-suite) than that of any other areas or departments in the organization. The legal function is focused primarily on compliance with the law; marketing is focused primarily on the company’s competitive position with the customer, and so on. Public relations is the only function with eyes on all the publics inside and outside of the organization, and it truly must be included in strategic decision making. Communication sees the organization as an entire system and maintains relationships with stakeholders and publics both inside and outside the system. By maintaining relationships with various groups, friends, foes, competitors, regulators, or activist groups, the communication function acts as an early detection system for problems, such as lawsuits, union strikes, or boycotts. Information provided from all parts of the system and environment by the communication function can avert issues, problems, and crises, quite literally saving the organization itself or saving it millions of dollars. Being able to discuss policy-level concerns with the CEO on a regular basis is an invaluable way in which the communication function helps the organization and adapts to a changing environment, new demands, and differing expectations arising from the dispersed groups in the system. This is a systems theory rationale for communication reporting to the CEO; this holistic view allows CCOs to offer unique value and perspective gained from multiple sources in counseling executive management.

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How to Gain Dominant Coalition Access/Membership Research that examined the problem of how chief public relations officers had gained access to, and sometimes membership in, their dominant coalitions examined the process from numerous data collection approaches.10 After examining much data, five routes to the dominant coalition were identified, roughly in the order of the frequency in which they occurred: 1. Crisis; 2. Ethical Dilemma; 3. Credibility Demonstrated by Correct Analyses over Time; 4. Issue High on Media Agenda; 5. Leadership.11 Many CCOs are members of the dominant coalition, and work with the CEO on a routine basis, advising on organizational policy in addition to directing communications. Yet, some public relations professionals are not routinely included in strategic management; others earn their place over time. It is vital to remember that dominant coalition access is not synonymous with inclusion and membership. Inclusion it may be temporary, situational, or episodic, such as in the event of a crisis. Once the crisis is resolved, a CCO may no longer a part of executive team meetings. So, CCOs have to work on earning and retaining a spot in the dominant coalition every day, through astute knowledge of strategic management in addition to having excellent command of public relations.12 Role of Strategic Counsel and Communication Good decisions. Executive officers of any organization must have the ability to make good decisions: those which positively contribute to the goals of the organization. To make good decisions, managers need accurate information to help reduce uncertainty. This information is provided as data regarding various functions, such as product testing, market research, legal precedents, and financial statements. Since public relations’ role is to help the organization develop and maintain good relationships, it must provide data or information about how the organization can achieve this goal.



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Good advice. The communication function looks at all the stakeholders in (internal) and around the organization (external) and uses a variety of means to enhance relationships with these publics. The communication function uses research to keep a finger on the pulse of internal and external perceptions of the organization. Both internal and external research can be formal—based on social-scientific methods such as polling—or informal, based on conversations and comments. And most importantly, that research provides the basis for strategic counsel to the organization’s leaders to help them make better decisions. Advising the CEO and other executive leaders is a key part of public relations. Managing Values. Scholars identified a role of the communication inside the organization as a “values manager”—helping create, refine, instill, and enliven core values throughout the culture of an organization.13 Enacting Ethics. Many scholars endorse the idea that the communication function should serve as the corporate conscience. Public relations knows and understands its internal and external stakeholder publics, as well as their views and priorities on any number of issues. Communication leaders have a uniquely objective perspective that allows them to weigh the conflicting needs of different publics and to help the organization make more balanced decisions. As the conscience of the organization, the highest moral obligation they hold is to do the right thing, and to help determine where that responsibility lies. Although the corporate conscience may be centered in communication, that duty is shared by all, including the CEO, the board, the executive management team, and employees. Stakeholder Views. As the top communication professional, the CCO has an important responsibility to ensure that all key stakeholders are given due consideration when critical decisions are made. In that regard, the CCO acts as the voice for many who are not in the room when choices are made. He must keep in mind the minority shareholders, overlooked employee segments, nongovernmental organizations, special interest groups, elected officials, community leaders, and others who may be affected by the decision and who have influential roles in their respective areas. Future Proofing. By providing a research based, multiple-­perspective counseling function the CCO does far more than deliver tactical

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communication products. She is actively guarding the future of the organization, protecting its relationships, as well as safeguarding its reputation and profitability. This strategic counsel is what CEOs and other leaders are increasingly seeking in all members of the executive team. By delivering strategic counsel, the CCO enhances the value of the function and ensures ongoing participation in charting the future course for the company. Strategy and Profit Motivation Too often those in the public relations profession are portrayed in the media and in popular culture as a group of empty-headed party planners or deceptive flacks willing to say anything to get publicity for their clients. Films and popular TV shows often focus on press agentry and rarely if ever depict strategic public relations based on research and data-driven analyses. Some students even enter the field of study without understanding that research and ethics are key components.14 The stereotype of the flack is simply not supported by the facts. Public relations is an integral part of overall strategy, using research, statistics, problem solving, ethics, listening, and relationship strategies. Communication programs are developed based on extensive research to address specific business objectives with stated outcomes, target publics/stakeholders/audiences, and key messages. The results of these efforts can be measured, both qualitatively and quantitatively. When an organization develops a strategic plan, it usually does so with a relatively small number of key executives. These leaders look at data and assess the company’s strengths, organization, challenging issues, and the potential problems that could arise. They consider the organization’s financial position, its growth prospects, its position and strategic advantages, and the changing competitive and regulatory landscape in which it operates. They map out a strategy that will build on the company’s current strengths, minimize its relative areas of weakness, seize opportunities, and prepare for potential threats. They may decide, for example, to be the low-cost provider in their industry segment. Or they may decide to take advantage of their expertise in new product development, or to exploit their superior distribution network, or a highly engaged labor force.



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Then the strategy must be executed by a much larger, geographically dispersed network of employees. This is where the communication about the strategy is crucial to its successful implementation. An important role of the communication function team is to help balance the needs of varied publics—employees, investors, customers, regulators, and communities—as the organization makes key decisions. Balancing the needs of publics is just one facet of the impact public ­relations can have on achieving organizational goals. Effective communication programs help drive strategy from conception to delivery. Successful internal communication programs can improve the ability of supervisors to engage and motivate employees, heightening retention and building pride in the organization.15 Creative external communication programs can improve customer relationships, build brand recognition, encourage investor interest in a publicly traded company, and increase the effectiveness of traditional advertising and marketing efforts. Community outreach programs can help local residents appreciate the impact of a company on the surrounding area in which it operates. The impact of well-conceived strategic communication programs can be profound. The CCO of today and tomorrow must assert leadership in the following areas: • Defining and instilling company values; • Building and managing multi-stakeholder relationships; • Building and managing trust.16 The public relations function can and should take the lead role in ensuring that these responsibilities are fulfilled by the organization. Finally, in the day-to-day environment, much of the time and attention of the CCO is focused on managing the public relations staff. ­Recruiting and developing the best talent, as in all corporate functions, is fundamental to building credibility within the organization and being positioned to offer the most useful counsel. CCOs are constantly seeking employees who can think critically, write articulately, present well, and develop excellent relationships with internal and external publics. They can help their colleagues become better leaders by enhancing their skills in listening empathetically to employees and increasing their focus on workgroup communication.

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The overriding mission of the CCO is to enhance the relationships that an organization has with its publics by helping the organization make better, more informed decisions that take into account the impact and likely reaction to those decisions. The CCO uses all the tools available to accomplish this goal. CCOs who understand this mission within a business context can deliver results and are highly valued by the organizations they serve. Business Acumen If you were planning an extended trip to Italy, you may want to learn a few Italian phrases, such as “please” and “thank you.” You could probably get by without speaking any Italian, but you would give yourself an advantage if you made an attempt to speak a phrase or two of the local language. It is no different at the management table. There the participants are speaking the language of business. Business or finance degrees are common. Managers discuss strategy, supply chain logistics, earnings or profit and loss statements (P&L), growth projections, operations, market share, dividends, industry regulation, and competitive position. If you are not conversant with this terminology and the thinking behind it, you are at a distinct disadvantage as a team member. You also need detailed knowledge of the industry in which you are working. In order to advise management on strategy, the CCO must intimately know the business, industry, and the organization’s strategic objectives. She must also understand the context in which the organization is pursuing the objectives—both the business context and the external forces at play. Communication professionals who have a thorough understanding of their industry, strategic goals of the organization, government regulation, public policy, and community issues, as well as the desires of their CEO, are valuable contributors to the overall mission of the company. One CEO, for example, explained, I’ve had communications people who don’t seem to even understand our business model. If you don’t know how this company makes money, if you can’t explain to me where our profit comes from, you don’t need to be in this room.17



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CCOs are responsible for all communication subfunctions or departments in the organization, including issues management, government and public affairs, internal relations, community relations, investor relations, media relations, labor relations, and so on. He must maintain ties across the entire organization and be an expert in its business. One can learn a great deal by listening, attending trade conferences, monitoring business and financial media, reading annual reports, and following the competition within an industry. Conversations with colleagues can provide incredible educational opportunities. The ability to listen, to ask insightful questions and to learn from others enables the communication professional to gain ample knowledge of the workings of business in general and a single company or organization more specifically.18 This knowledge, combined with an understanding of the industry and the ability to utilize communication expertise, provides a valuable combination of specialized abilities that can be used to benefit the entire organization. Public relations understands the views, desires, and priorities of unique and even adversarial publics. No other organizational function has as holistic or uniquely insightful a view as does the public relations management function. The Management Process Business management is a process that is typically organized into four steps. These four steps or phases of the management process generally hold across any industry or type of pursuit: 1. Research and planning; 2. Organizing; 3. Leading; and 4. Controlling. Although there may be some overlap in these steps, they generally offer a sequence of steps or phases that can help direct management activities. Research and planning means collecting data of various types, analyzing it, creating strategic options, prioritizing options, and planning their implementation. Organizing means to direct a flow of responsibilities,

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roles, and activities throughout the organization. Leading means to direct or spearhead teams and initiatives with the specified goal or end state in mind. And finally, controlling indicates routine control procedures, assessments, performance evaluations, and evaluations of the efficacy of initiatives based on research and data collection. This four-phased approach to management can be applied across all functions and facets of business, as well as applied to the communication function itself. Mission, vision, and values. Mission, vision, and values are also key drivers of management strategy and of organizational culture. Mission is what an organization exists to accomplish, its core purpose and unique abilities. Vision is where the organization would like to be in a number of years—an aspirational goal. Whereas mission is something an organization exists to accomplish every day, vision is a future aspiration. Values or core values are the ethical beliefs that give an organization its character, sense of duty or responsibility, and moral purpose.19

Chapter Summary Research on best practices of public relations sponsored by the International Association of Business Communicators suggests that excellent public relations occurs when the senior communication officer reports directly to the CEO. Membership in the dominant coalition must be earned, and the opportunity usually arises through a crisis, an ethical dilemma, and issue high on media agenda; credibility evidenced through correct analyses over time; and leadership or influence in the organization. Public relations professionals should work to enhance their business acumen to contribute as a part of the strategic management team. When public relations acts as a strategic advisor, these core benefits and outcomes can be seen: good decisions, good advice, managing values, enacting ethics, incorporating stakeholder views, and future proofing. The public relations function maintains relationships with numerous internal and external stakeholders and publics, making it uniquely situated to advise strategic management. The process of business management can be summarized in four steps: research and planning; organizing; leading; and controlling. Mission, vision, and core values are key determinant of organizational culture and management strategy.

PART 2

Organizations and Processes

CHAPTER 5

Organizational Factors, Culture, Character, and Structure A demand for research-based, strategic management communication influences the actual form that management takes in an organization. Communication professionals who demonstrate greater management knowledge, skills, and abilities (“KSAs”) are likely to participate in the dominant coalition and strategic management of an organization; the routes that they use to achieve inclusion require a great deal of management knowledge. Additionally, points 2 and 3 are organizational factors that predict how excellent a public relations function can be: 1. Communicator knowledge; 2. Shared expectations with the CEO about communication; and 3. The ethical character of organizations.1 There must be shared expectations between the communications function and the CEO or the dominant coalition. If the CEO expects the public relations function to be strategic and contribute to the organization’s bottom-line goals, she then supports strategic issues management and the research it requires—rather than simply reduce it to communication tactics and media relations. Issues management includes problem solving, research, conflict resolution, and policy creation. This demand requires critical thinking and creative problem solving. The ethical character of an organization originates from a complex interplay of organizational culture, mission, vision, values, people, and leaders. Ethics within an organization can be defined as doing the right

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action, in accordance with the character and values of the organization, and to act with integrity and respect for all stakeholders and publics. The integrity of the leaders of an organization must be evident and demonstrated, and ethics must be inculcated throughout the organization and its reward and incentive systems, routine decisions, management strategy, and evaluation of effectiveness. The best organizations use rigorous analytical frameworks to analyze and discuss ethics on a routine basis. Ethics is of primary importance in the concerns of strategic management, and therefore is of central importance in public relations. Internal relations—as the public relations function that manages communication within the organization, as well as organizational culture and values—is the steward of organizational ethics. As a values manager, internal communicators are tasked with training, institutionalizing, and enlivening ethics within an enterprise. CCOs are also tasked with advising the CEO and dominant coalition on ethics. Ethics will be discussed throughout this book, as seen in the CERT formula of Credibility, Ethics, Relationships, and Trust (Chapter 3). ­Issues about ethics arise often due to the central and vital role that it plays in strategic management. In public relations, trust can be built over time and stakeholders and publics can begin to know organizations, recognizing that they meet expectations, and build a relationship.

Strategic Management and Public Relations Management is focused on the four-step process of research and planning, organizing, leading, and controlling. It relies on decision making to help an organization sustain its unique place in a market—its competitive advantage. For communicators, research allows them to be strategic. For those in general management, performance measures (“KPIs”) allow them to be strategic, as seen in this definition: “Strategic management is the process by which managers formulate and implement strategies to generate high performance and to create sustained competitive advantage.”2 Strategic management and public relations speak the same language, although the parameters they use to demonstrate successful performance may differ. Yet, their goals do not differ: creating organizational effectiveness is the goal of strategy across industries and types of enterprise.

Organizational Factors, Culture, Character, and Structure 43

Uncertainty and Strategic Management To gain a strategic management role in the organization, public relations must demonstrate its value. In the dynamic environment of business, uncertainty is often the basis for demonstrating value, and reducing that uncertainty offers a rationale for much of management.3 This goal can be achieved only with research, yet data are only useful inasmuch as they reduce uncertainty. When public relations provides information and feedback about stakeholder needs and expectations, it performs a critical task for the organization that is unique to it alone. Reducing uncertainty is performing a critical task and contributes to the influence of any function.4 Communication’s unique ability is critical when an organization needs information about key stakeholders.

Organizational Culture Organizational culture is the “personality” inside of an organization; or, what context, values, and priorities are most evident. Organizational cultures arise from a complex confluence of factors: mission, vision, values, ethics, structure, formalization, regulation, hierarchy, innovativeness, history, founders, incentive systems, geographic dispersion, leadership, management, administration, labor, societal norms, and the socioeconomic system of which it is a part. The source of organizational culture is complex, but research found that the culture of the company is far more pervasive and important than individuals within it or their influence on decision making.5 Culture is key.6 For organizational culture, there are two primary types that describe opposite poles, with a spectrum of possibilities in between: 1. Authoritarian: Relies on command and control systems of authority, routinization, bureaucracy, approval, and has a steep hierarchy. Authoritarian cultures are resistant to change, do not seek input or innovation from all levels, and generally have strictly defined roles and responsibilities for each employee. A high-power distance between supervisor and employee is often observed, meaning that power resides with those in authority. Collaboration is not sought;

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those in authority make decisions without seeking input from employees. In general, authoritarian cultures do not see people as a source of competitive advantage, but as a replaceable component. 2. Participative: Relies on dynamic input, collaboration, teamwork, an absence of standardization, and many broadly equal roles rather than a steep hierarchy. Participative cultures are innovative, flexible, good at adapting to change, and often have flexible roles and responsibilities for each employee. Participative cultures still have leaders but with low-power distance. In general, participative cultures place value on people as a source of competitive advantage. Authoritarian organizational cultures have the benefit of being able to organize large-scale enterprises with efficiency and a low level of ambiguity or mistakes. Participative organizational cultures are advantageous in industries that require and value innovation, teamwork, or collaboration, such as public relations, consultancies, high-tech companies, and pharmaceuticals. Excellent public relations functions generally have organizational cultures that are participative rather than authoritarian.7 Authoritarian organizational cultures are generally found in industries that need routinization or standardization with a low demand for innovation (or one R&D department). Authoritarian organizational cultures are advantageous in industries such as health care, the military, or automobile manufacturing. Organizations with authoritative cultures often correlate with centralized decision making and include such variables as rigid control by management, competition between departments, influence (­informal power), decisions based on authority alone, and fear of managers. Ethical Dimension of Culture Research tells us that ethics must be a part of organizational culture that is applied, referred to frequently, incorporated into various activities, rewarded, and have leaders who demonstrate ethical behavior.8 Leaders say the organization must embody strong ethical character and that

Organizational Factors, Culture, Character, and Structure 45

they must display integrity.9 Values that encourage participative cultures are necessary for the communication function to excel. Professionals describe working among those values as: feeling part of the team, working ­together; feeling that management cares about employees; wherein everyone is treated as equal; involves participation in decisions; management routinely shares power and responsibility, and includes the promotion of teamwork.10 Another important predictor of ethical cultures in an organization is the equal treatment of women and diverse employees. Requisite variety is recommended, which refers to inclusiveness in the management team that strives to reflect the composition of outside publics.11 Without variety, an organization can become isolated from stakeholders, both internal and external to the organization. Diversity is demonstrated by respect and equality for all individuals, concepts based on moral philosophy and ethics.

Communication Climate Communication climate is how warm or cold a communicative environment is present in small units, departments, and workgroups. Numerous communication climates exist within any organization and vary based upon the people in them. Some units are warm and collaborative, with frequent communication and teamwork, as one would expect with the public relations function. Other units are cool and reserved, with less communication and collaboration, as one may expect with an accounting unit. Although communication climates may be little, they can have localized influence on organizational culture. The best communication climates are supportive and reinforce the ethical values of integrity and inclusion.

Organizational Structure Structure and Reporting Relationships Organizational structure can have an impact on communication because of reporting relationships and flow of information. Organizational charts are

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used as simplifications of structure, usually having a triangular shape varying from taller to flatter triangles (as in Figure 5.1). Charts typically describe reporting chains of functions, supervisor–subordinate direct reports (solid lines) and occasional or situational reporting relationships (dotted lines) (as in Figure 5.4). Examining an organizational chart can tell you much about how responsibilities are divided and how communication flows.

Executive

Management

Executive Management

Technical / Labor

Technical / Labor

Figure 5.1  Vertical organizational structure (left) versus horizontal organizational structure (right)

An organization’s formal structure can often predict how much participation occurs in making decisions. Organizations that have hierarchy, protocol, bureaucracy, and formal structures keep decision making in the hands of a few executives, with a structure similar to a vertical triangle (see Figure 5.1). Such hierarchical structures often have difficulty in dealing with dynamic environments, because they are slow to respond to changes and depend on protocol and there are fewer voices for making decisions. Organizations with less formalized hierarchy often respond quicker to challenges and changes than their more static counterparts. Horizontal types of structures have more equivalent ranks, more inclusive decision making, flexibility, and offer less protocol, meaning that the structure would be similar to a low, flatter triangle (also in Figure 5.1). Centralization and Decentralization Centralization works along with organizational structure to describe how controlled or dispersed the organizations’ operations are, geographically or in terms of authority. Where are decisions made? How dispersed is

Organizational Factors, Culture, Character, and Structure 47

authority? Centralization can be a detrimental factor impeding organizational effectiveness and slowing management.12 To encourage participative cultures, organizations need to be somewhat decentralized or horizontal in shape because the organizational structure can actively shape both management style and employees’ day-to-day behaviors.13 Decentralization has advantages of offering collaboration in decisions and responding rapidly to changes, helping to deal with dynamic environments.14 However, too much decentralization can result in lack of role clarity, duplication of effort, or in mixed messages. Internal communication seeks to avert confusion and maximize both role clarity and efficiency among employees. General Types of Structure Corporate A typical organizational structure can be seen in Figure 5.2, with direct reporting relationships represented as solid lines. A service or information arm could replace the manufacturing component to reflect those

CEO

COO (Operations)

Prod Mgr

Supervisor

CFO

CMO

Legal

Accounting

Analyst & Logistics

Litigator

Budget Adm

Sales

Social Media

CCO

Media Reltns

Technician

Figure 5.2  Organizational structure with a production (manufacturing) component

Issues Mgt

Env. Scanner

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industries, but the CCO remains alongside the other members of the dominant coalition, and all report to a CEO. Most organizations of this type would have a wide base of labor (hourly production workers) under the COO, as well as staff of various kinds. Multinational Corporations Multinational corporations (MNCs) can be decentralized by region, ­division, or operations. These large, decentralized corporations often exercise independence on a day-to-day basis and their headquarters offers the coordination of activities. Each division normally will have its own public relations function, coordinated at the headquarters level for issues management or organization-wide initiatives. (This type of organization is still one company seen as an enterprise, as opposed to subsidiaries that ­engage in business entirely independently of their parent or holding/investor company.) Many organizations diversify across regions, supply chains, and into various businesses to protect themselves from market fluctuations. Figure 5.3 offers an example of MNC structure with communication in each region, and yet coordinated by a headquarters.

Eurasia

Americas*

Africa

Figure 5.3  Decentralized MNC structure with communication coordinated by a HQ*

Organizational Factors, Culture, Character, and Structure 49

Agencies and Firms Public relations agency or firm structure is based on a consulting relationship to the client. A direct reporting relationship with an account executive is normally established, and perhaps a dotted-line, or as-needed, reporting relationship to the client’s CEO (see Figure 5.4.)

PRESIDENT &/or CEO

VP Creative

VP Media

Creative Dir.

Media Rels.

Creative

Press Liaison

Client

VP MarCom

Promotions

VP Acct Exec

Researcher

Technician

Technician

Account Exec

Jr. Acct Exec

Figure 5.4  Public relations agency structure

Chapter Summary In this chapter, findings were introduced from numerous sources about participation in strategic management. There are organizational factors that influence the role that public relations plays in an enterprise (business, governmental/NGO, or agency) in addition to the extensive knowledge required of communicators. The view the CEO holds of the communication function, the central and vital role of ethics throughout an organization, and the important impact of organizational culture and structure are all components impacting effectiveness. Public relations

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is more effective for organizations when it is valued by the CEO and included in the dominant coalition, in which organizational culture is participative, communication climates are warm or supportive, the organizational structure is relatively decentralized allowing decision-making autonomy, and there is a direct reporting line between the CCO and the CEO. Further, the best organizations esteem ethics, a character of integrity, and participation as core values.

CHAPTER 6

How Public Relations Contributes to Organizational Effectiveness Contemporary public relations exists within the management of the ­organization, so the public relations professional has to become educated on how organizations are managed. This chapter introduces several different management theories that help define organizational success and the management role of public relations. Management theory defines organizational effectiveness in a number of ways. Early theories of management stressed meeting goals as a measure of effectiveness. This approach proved to be rather simplistic and did not recognize the interconnectedness of organizations with their environments. A systems model approach was developed as a reaction to the limitations of the goal-attainment perspective. However, the systems approach tends to be too abstract to measure effectiveness. A third approach, recognizing the dependency of the organization on its environment, places the focus on key constituents and is thus more measurable. This approach, stakeholder management, recognizes the value of strategic constituents to the success of any organization, and recognizes that the interests of the stakeholders are often in conflict. As a result, public relations scholars have developed relationship management theory to help explain, measure, and understand the best approaches to organization-public/stakeholder relationships.

Goal-Attainment Approach Traditionally, an organization’s effectiveness has been defined in terms of attaining goals.1 In early theories of organizational behavior, organizations

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were viewed as rational institutions whose primary purpose is to accomplish objectives. The more efficiently and effectively an organization can achieve its goals, the more successful it is; the goals of organizations are usually focused on profitability, making success easy to measure. Financial Goals One way to look at the success of organizations is to assess its size in relation to its competitors. This type of measurement is usually done by looking first at annual revenues, the sum total of all products or services sold. But this may not be the most meaningful measure; financial analysts usually look at other ratios to determine financial health. They look at profitability in a number of ways to assess the return that the company generated for shareholders for each dollar of investment in the business, a concept known as return on investment (ROI). In doing so, they consider the gross margins that the company achieves, which are the revenues generated from the sale of its products minus the cost of those goods. They also consider the organization’s net earnings, which are the profits remaining after all interest, taxes, and other costs are factored in, such as depreciation. These net earnings are then divided by all the shares of stock outstanding to determine earnings per share (EPS). This number provides a good ratio for making comparisons to other companies regardless of their size. Financial analysts eagerly await the earnings numbers when publicly traded companies release these results each quarter. Analysts estimate what they expect a company to earn, sometimes a year or more in advance of the actual results. When companies exceed these estimates, their stock prices generally increase—sometimes dramatically—after the release of the figures for net earnings. When they underachieve on projected earnings, share prices can plummet. Another measure of size is market capitalization. That measure is the aggregate price of a firm’s stock determined by multiplying the current price of a single share of a company’s stock by all the shares owned. If the market cap is higher than annual revenues, most believe that the company has a growth potential in excess of the current sales. Companies with market caps higher than revenues are more highly valued than those



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whose market caps are similar to or lower than their annual revenues. Companies work to achieve higher valuation by delivering consistent performance, meeting or exceeding earnings estimates, and providing a credible growth supported by facts. For nonprofit public relations, the most important measures may ­relate to the donor community, member statistics, or to the volunteer network on which an organization relies. For governmental public relations it may require an increase in the knowledge of policies, legislative initiatives, sources of tax revenues, or judicial rulings that will have an impact on the departments’ operations. Limitations of Goal-Attainment Approach One limitation of the goal-attainment approach to organizational effectiveness is that it does not take human nature into consideration. This deficit can make employee engagement problematic for internal relations. Short-term focus can also pose problems for issues management as it seeks to engage in analyses of trends, remain interconnected with the ever-changing environment, and maintain positive relations with publics over time. A goal-attainment approach does not consider the political or power-control nature of organizations and how they choose goals.2 Most organizations are composed of coalitions whom they try to influence to achieve goal that benefit themselves—aims which benefit themselves or their function. For example, a typical manager tries to increase the size and scope of his domain regardless of the effect on the organization as a whole. The most powerful of these coalitions are successful in defining the organization’s goals; meeting these goals increases the power and influence of that coalition. There is evidence that the goals of each coalition may not directly reflect the needs and purposes of the organization.

Systems Theory Approach The view of organizations as open systems that interact with their environments to survive is known as the systems theory approach. Organizations depend on their environments for essential resources: researchers

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who innovate product development; customers who purchase the product or service; suppliers who provide materials; employees who provide labor or management; shareholders who invest; and governments that regulate. Public relations’ highest worth in society is to help publics, organizations, and governments communicate and interact in order to understand and resolve problems. For issues managers, an essential role is to help organizations predict and adapt to changing trends in an organization’s environment (social, political, economic, and financial). Establishing moving equilibrium is the goal, and takes constant work in relating, assessing, planning, and adjusting. The open-systems approach examines organizational behavior by mapping the repeated cycles of input, throughput, output, and feedback between a firm and its external environment.3 Systems receive input from the environment as information, meaning either formal or informal research. The systems then process the input internally, which is called throughput (for our purposes, strategy), and release outputs into the environment (communication messages and activities) in an attempt to restore equilibrium to the environment. The system then seeks feedback (evaluation research) to determine if the output was effective in restoring equilibrium. The systems approach focuses on the means used to maintain organizational survival and emphasize long-term goals rather than the short-term goals of the goal-attainment approach. Theoretically, systems can be considered either open or closed. Open organizations exchange information, energy, or resources with their environments, whereas closed systems do not. In reality, because no social systems can be completely closed or open, they are usually identified as relatively closed or relatively open. The distinction between closed and open systems is determined by the level of sensitivity to the external environment. Closed systems are insensitive to environmental deviations, whereas open systems are responsive to changes in the environment. Closed systems are rare but real-world examples would be a commune, the national news media in China, or a prison. Effective organizations, according to systems theory, adapt to their environments. Pfeffer and Salancik described the environment as the events occurring in the world that have any effect on the activities and outcomes of an organization.4 Environments range from “static” on one extreme



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to “dynamic” on the other. Static environments are relatively stable or predictable and do not have a great variation. Dynamic environments are in a constant state of flux or turbulence. Because environments cannot be completely static or constantly changing, organizations have varying levels of dynamic or static environments. Organizations that exist in dynamic environments must be open systems in order to maintain moving equilibrium. Because dynamic environments are constantly changing, they create a lot of uncertainty about what an organization must do in order to survive and grow. The key to dealing with uncertainty is information. The most important information is negative input, according to systems theorists, because this information alerts the organization to problems that need to be corrected. Negative input tells the organization that it is doing something wrong and that it must make adjustments to correct the problem; positive input tells the organization that it is doing something right and that it should continue or increase that activity. Organizations then organize and process this information to formulate solutions or responses to these changes, or to environmental turbulence. Adjustments are “intended to reduce, maintain, or increase the deviations.”5 For example, an organization can alter its structure by downsizing to remain competitive. Other organizations may change their processes in order to adhere to new environmental laws. Processing positive and negative input to adjust to environmental change is throughput—strategy to fit with the organization’s goals, values, and within the relationship context it holds with stakeholders and publics. If an organization is not able to adapt to environmental variation, then it will eventually cease to exist. The public relations professional can use the concept of systems theory to implement protocols for regular feedback, thereby aligning with stakeholders and publics in the environment. This theory can also be useful in understanding the role of research and feedback in creating thoroughly analyzed strategy. Throughput helps to justify making decisions that strategically align organization communications with the information needed by publics. The practical implementation of this approach keeps public relations from being used as a simple media relations function and places it squarely within the strategic planning process.

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This perspective is broader and more comprehensive than the goal-attainment approach because it is not only limited to meeting goals determined by powerful internal coalitions—who may be self-serving. Systems theory, however, is not without some shortcomings. One criticism of this approach is that its focus is on the process “rather than on organizational effectiveness itself.”6 Measuring the processes of an organization can be very difficult when compared to measuring specific end goals of the goal-attainment approach, such as growth figures.

Stakeholder Management Approach The stakeholder management approach adds focus on interdependence to the systems approach by building “strategic constituencies” with groups in the environment who can threaten the organization’s survival.7 This approach recognizes that an organization must deal with external and internal publics who can either constrain or enhance its behavior. Although most organizations would prefer to have complete autonomy, they are often confronted with constraints and controls. Constraints are often considered undesirable because they are slow and inflexible, “cost money—to comply with regulations or to make changes to accommodate pressure groups,”8 and they “restrict creativity and adaptation.”9 However, it is inevitable that an organization meets with constraints, especially in heavily regulated industries. Examples include labor strikes, new regulations, and protests by activist groups. To be effective, an organization should have relationships with publics and stakeholders in the environment such as customers, suppliers, competitors, governmental regulators, elected officials, and communities. They must also be aware of their internal publics—for example, employees and labor unions—who can affect or be affected by the organization. The relationship between an organization and its stakeholders is called interdependence.10 Although these interdependent relationships limit autonomy, good relationships with stakeholders limit it less than do bad relationships. When organizations collaborate with key stakeholders the end result is often an increase of autonomy. Good relationships are developed when an organization voluntarily interacts with its stakeholders to find solutions or understanding on shared problems. Poor relationships can result in forced



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compliance with restrictions, lawsuits, and new regulations. When organizations voluntarily establish relationships with stakeholders, they have more autonomy because they are not forced into taking action. In the stakeholder management approach, decisional autonomy, coupled with good working relationships, is the definition of organizational effectiveness.

The Stakeholder Management Process Stakeholder management centers on a six-step process as summarized in Figure 6.1 and elaborated as follows: 1. Identify stakeholders. 2. Describe the stakes. 3. Consider the significance of stakes/claims. 4. Evaluate opportunities. 5. Consider responsibilities to stakeholders. 6. Consider relationship-enhancing strategies and actions. Figure 6.1 Six steps in the process of stakeholder management

Step 1: Identify the Stakeholders The stakeholder management process begins by identifying stakeholders.11 Often a stakeholder map is constructed. Establishing relationships is often advantageous for both organization and publics, as the relationships can be genuinely developed before they are urgently needed. Step 2: Describe the Stakes The next step is describing the stakes or claims that these groups have in the organization. A stake is an interest or a share in the performance or success of an organization. Employees, shareholders, and other groups may have such a stake. A stakeholder group could also assert a claim on the organization if it believes that the organization owes them something. For example, environmental groups believe that corporations have a responsibility to care for the environment. Stakes or claims can also be in conflict with one another. For example, the pressure to report profits may lead an organization to lay off employees, which would conflict

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with the benefits of having greater employee morale. The difficult part of stakeholder management is being able to ethically manage the potential conflicts of interests among the stakeholders. Step 3: Consider the Significance of Stakes/Claims The third step is to consider the significance of the stakeholders’ stake or claim. Scholars developed a comprehensive model that included the stakeholder attributes of legitimacy, power, and urgency as a way to evaluate the priority of stakeholders.12 Legitimacy is whether the stakeholder has a legal, moral, or presumed claim; power is when they can influence other parties to make decisions; urgency exists when the issue is immediately pressing (time sensitive) or when it is critical to the stakeholder. The combination of the three attributes is used to develop a prioritization strategy. Accordingly, latent stakeholders possess only one of the attributes; expectant stakeholders possess two attributes; and definitive stakeholders possess all three attributes. The more attributes stakeholders possess, the more critical the claim. Step 4: Evaluate the Opportunities The fourth step is evaluating opportunities and challenges stakeholders present to the organization. Opportunities and challenges might be viewed as the potential for cooperation versus the potential for threat. Stakeholders can either help or hinder the efforts of an organization; each group should be analyzed according to what it brings into each situation. Step 5: Consider the Responsibilities to Stakeholders The fifth step is to consider the responsibilities that an organization has to its stakeholders, meaning the ethical obligations that are held with regard to decision making, disclosure, and maintaining long-term relationships that engender trust. What legal, moral, citizenship, community, and philanthropic responsibilities should be followed for the organization to be considered a valuable member of society?



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Responsibilities may include the financial, environmental, and social impact the organization holds. Using a philosophical framework (presented in the Chapter 11) to rigorously analyze responsibilities is helpful in practicing effective public relations. Step 6: Consider Relationship-Enhancing Strategies and Actions The final step is to consider the strategies and actions an organization should take to enhance its relationships with key stakeholders. Employing stakeholder management techniques means that the public relations professional holds the responsibility for the relationships that are the very lifeblood of an organization. Using stakeholder management allows the professional to accurately assess the situation, prioritize resources, and make decisions that are the most strategic, helping to build long-term relationships with the most important publics and stakeholders by using relationship management theory.

Relationship Management Theory Public relations scholars study relationship management, or as mentioned above, the ways to enhance relationships with stakeholders and publics. They ask, “What are the components of relationships?” “Which factors must be present to form and maintain them?” Organization-public relationship (OPR) theory, can tell professional communicators how to optimize their relations with strategic publics or groups.13 It uses interdependence, as well as moral autonomy, to help build an organization’s competitive advantage through strategic relationships entered into with intentionality.14 Relationship management theory orders the components of relationships in a way that is similar to building blocks to indicate how best to build relationships that have positive outcomes (see Figure 6.2). In general, relationships in the OPR approach are comprised of these factors. Ethics must exist as the first component, a precursor even before a relationship is contemplated, because it is foundational to the existence of any future trust or relationship.15 Trust is the next factor.16 Trust is vital to ongoing relationships and is composed of components that demonstrate dependability and competence. Mutual control by each party of what happens in the relationship, as well as satisfaction with the relationship

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Ethics Duty

Trust Relationship Factors

Respect

Credibility

Intention

Expectations met

Mutual control

Consistency

Stability

Satisfaction Commitment

Figure 6.2  The components of OPR theory that can result in positive relationships with stakeholders and publics

are components that should be considered. Commitment to the relationship is another important factor because it indicates the long-term viability of the relationship.17 By strategically considering all of these factors, the public relations function can contribute to organizational effectiveness by ensuring that the relationships an organization needs are in place routinely, and before they need to be relied upon in a challenge. Such relationships smooth the operations of the firm in numerous ways, and touch upon every facet of organizational effectiveness.

Chapter Summary It is important to understand how organizations define their effectiveness because they place most value on the functions that contribute to that success. This chapter identifies three ways in which organizations evaluate their effectiveness: goal-attainment, systems theory, and a stakeholder management approach. A stakeholder management approach helps an organization understand how critical key constituents are to meet the purpose of the organization. Using the six steps of the stakeholder management process, public relations professionals can better understand challenges facing the organization and can help to integrate those interests into strategic management. Doing so using OPR theory is a primary means of how public relations contributes to overall organizational effectiveness. The theory of effectively managing relationships was explained, including ethics, trust, mutual control, satisfaction, and commitment as components of continuing, long-term relationships that contribute to organizational effectiveness.

CHAPTER 7

Managing Stakeholders and Publics One of the most important steps in strategic public relations is to accurately identify the publics with whom you want to build relationships. A popular axiom for public relations is that there is no such thing as a “general public.” In essence, an organization has a variety of key groups each of whom bring different expectations to their relationship. These differences help an organization segment its publics into groups with similar values and expectations. There are several approaches to identifying and prioritizing stakeholders and publics for communication. An understanding of these main approaches to stakeholder management offers a theoretical foundation and a practical guide to practicing strategic public relations.

Stakeholder Management and Prioritizing Publics Experts in stakeholder management offer different ways of identifying key stakeholders or publics. At the heart of these efforts is the question: “How much attention does each stakeholder group need, deserve, or require?” Because it is impossible that all stakeholders will have the same interests in and demands on the organization, stakeholder management should be about managing stakeholders’ potentially conflicting interests.1 Once organizations have identified their stakeholders, there is a struggle for attention: whom to pay attention to, whom to prioritize for more attention, and whom to ignore. Choosing to sacrifice the needs of one stakeholder for the needs of another is a dilemma with which many organizations struggle. When these conflicts arise, it is important for the success of the organization that it has prioritized each stakeholder according to the situation.

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Defining Stakeholders and Publics A stakeholder is a group or individual who is affected by or can affect the success of an organization.2 The definition has been expanded to include groups who have interests in the organization, regardless of the level of its interest in them. Employees, customers, shareholders, communities, and suppliers are the most common stakeholders for a typical organization. Grunig and Repper differentiated the terms “stakeholder” and “public” in the following way: Organizations choose stakeholders by their marketing strategies, recruiting, and investment plans; but, “publics arise on their own and choose the organization for attention.”3 This classification relied on John Dewey’s definition: A public is a group of people who face a similar problem, recognize the problem, and organize themselves to do something about it.4 Therefore, publics organize from the ranks of stakeholders when they recognize an issue and take action. Identifying Stakeholders by Linkage to Organization Organizations should attempt to identify all of their stakeholders. Some of these will be continuous stakeholders while others may be temporary, according the situation. Devising a stakeholder map will show linkages and help to anticipate communication strategies. Using a linkage model can help an organization identify stakeholders before narrowing classification by their attributes.5 The model breaks stakeholders into four groups: enabling, functional, diffused, and normative. We use these categories to identify as many stakeholders as possible, while recognizing that the categories are not necessarily mutually exclusive. • Enabling stakeholders have some control and authority over the organization, such as stockholders, board of directors, elected officials, or legislators and regulators. When enabling relationships falter, the oversight can be increased, and the autonomy of the organization limited, restricted, or regulated by government. • Functional stakeholders are essential to operations; they are divided between input—providing labor and resources to create products or services (e.g., employees and suppliers)—and output— receiving the products or services (e.g., consumers and retailers).



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• Normative stakeholders are associations or groups with which the organization has a common interest. These stakeholders share similar values, goals, or problems—often including competitors that belong to industrial or professional associations. • Diffused stakeholders include publics who have infrequent interaction with the organization, and become involved based on the actions of the organization. These are the publics that often arise in times of a crisis; linkages include the media, the community, activists, and other special interest groups. The linkage model should help the organization identify all of its continuous stakeholders. The challenge in any situation is in identifying the stakeholders that arise according to the issue, so it is useful to identify potential issues before identifying stakeholders, as we discuss in detail in Chapter 10. With the increased use of social media, issues may arise and gain salience through stakeholder initiative. These actions by concerned stakeholders may result in recruiting additional stakeholders unforeseen by the organization. Examining “issue arenas”—the social arena where people are connected by an issue—helps the organization identify the stakeholders likely to be involved and prioritize accordingly.6 Stakeholder networks make each group more influential. For example, a diffused stakeholder group gains more influence when it is networked with enabling stakeholders. When you consider the “issue arena” and how the stakeholders may be connected, you are less likely to overlook the influence of one of the groups. Identifying key issues and areas of interest for each group, as well as their sphere of influence and reach, would help an organization keep abreast of potential issues before they become problematic.7 Prioritizing Stakeholders According to Attributes Much of the literature in stakeholder management prioritizes stakeholders on the basis of their attributes, but some researchers went further to develop a comprehensive model that includes the attributes of power, legitimacy, and urgency: the stakeholder typology.8 Here stakeholders are defined as risk bearers. The concept of risk is used to narrow classification to identify stakeholders with a legitimate claim. Stakeholders

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and organizations have an interdependent relationship regarding the invested risk. Stakeholders have power when they can influence other parties to make decisions that the party would not have otherwise made. Legitimacy is determined by whether the stakeholder has a legal, moral, or presumed credible claim that can influence the organization’s behavior, direction, process, or outcome. Urgency exists under two conditions: “(1) when a relationship or claim is of a time-sensitive nature, and (2) when that relationship or claim is important or critical to the stakeholder.”9 Urgency, then, requires organizations to respond to stakeholder claims in a rapid fashion. Urgency alone may not predict the priority of a stakeholder, especially if the other two attributes are missing. However, urgency adds a dimension that is particularly salient to the practice of public relations, because it is the urgent public that often attracts the attention of the media and other stakeholders (see Figure 7.1).

Figure 7.1  Stakeholder typology Source: Mitchell, R., B.R. Agle, and D.J. Wood. 1997. “Toward a Theory of Stakeholder Identification and Salience: Defining the Principle of Who and What Really Counts.” Academy of Management Review 22, p. 784, used with permission.



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We use the combination of the three attributes to develop a prioritization strategy. Accordingly, latent stakeholders possess only one of the attributes; expectant stakeholders possess two attributes, and definitive stakeholders possess all three attributes. If individuals or groups do not possess any of the attributes, they are not considered stakeholders. • Latent stakeholders have lower salience to an organization because they only have one attribute. They are identified as dormant, discretionary, and demanding. ?? The dormant stakeholder has power but no legitimacy or urgency in its claim. Therefore, its power remains unused. ?? The discretionary stakeholder possesses legitimacy, but has no power to influence and no urgency in the claim, and therefore is reliant on the good will of the organization rather than exerting any pressure. ?? The demanding stakeholder has urgency, but no legitimacy or power. These groups can be bothersome, but not dangerous. • Expectant stakeholders possess two attributes and are organized into dominant, dependent, and dangerous stakeholders. ?? Dominant stakeholders have power and legitimacy and, because they can act on their claims, they receive much of management’s attention. ?? Dependent stakeholders have legitimacy and urgency. Organizations should be ethically responsible to stakeholders that have a legitimate and urgent claim, and who depend on the organization to address and resolve the claim. ?? Dangerous stakeholders have urgency and power, but lack legitimacy. Most of the time these stakeholders use formal channels to affect change, but they may become violent or coercive to achieve their claims. Advocacy groups sometimes engage in forms of protests, boycotts, and (in extreme cases) damage to property and lives. • The stakeholders who have all three attributes are definitive stakeholders and have the highest priority. An important tenet of the stakeholder typology is that it is flexible; any group can acquire (or lose) power, legitimacy, or urgency depending

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on circumstances. Therefore, an expectant stakeholder group can become a definitive stakeholder if it acquires the third attribute. A dangerous stakeholder group can acquire legitimacy, as has been the case with many nongovernmental organizations (NGOs). A dependent stakeholder group, such as a community affected by irresponsible corporate behavior, can acquire power by appealing to governmental agencies or the judicial system. The possession of multiple attributes contributes more significantly to the prioritization of stakeholders, while perceived power and legitimacy are the most influential attributes assigned by corporations.9 The higher the priority of a stakeholder, the greater the corporate resources aimed at communicating with these competing publics. One dimension of stakeholder attributes missing from the stakeholder typology is whether the stakeholder group is supportive or not. As previously noted, each of these groups could be supportive or threatening, and stakeholder strategies would be contingent on the level of ­support. A comprehensive model of stakeholder prioritization should also identify whether dominant, dependent, dangerous, or definitive stakeholders are supportive or threatening.

The Situational Theory of Publics Predicts Active or Passive Behavior Grunig developed the situational theory of publics to explain and predict why some publics are active while others are passive. This theory is useful because it is predictive: situational theory can identify which publics will “communicate actively, passively, or not at all about organizational decisions that affect them.”10 Those publics who do not face a problem are nonpublics; those who face the problem but do not recognize it as a problem are latent publics; those who recognize the problem are aware publics; and those who do something about the problem are active publics. He identified three variables that explain why certain people become active in certain situations: level of involvement, problem recognition, and constraint recognition (see Figure 7.2). Level of involvement is measured by the extent to which people connect themselves personally with a specific situation. However, people do not seek or process information unless they recognize the connection



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Figure 7.2  Grunig’s situational theory of publics Source: Rawlins, B.L. 2006. “Prioritizing Stakeholders for Public Relations,” Institute for Public Relations. https://instituteforpr.org/prioritizing-stakeholders/, (accessed November 4, 2018), adapted and used with permission from Grunig.

between them and a problem, which is the level of problem recognition. Whether people move beyond information processing to the information seeking behavior of active publics often depends on whether they think they can do something about the problem. Constraint recognition is the level of personal efficacy a person believes that he or she holds, and the extent to which he or she having an impact on the issue is possible. Those who think that nothing can be done have high constraint recognition and are less compelled to become active in the resolution of the problem. Those with low constraint recognition believe that they can accomplish something by communicating. Another important consideration is a variable called the referent criteria: the guideline that people apply to new situations based on previous experiences with the issue or the organization. A variant, the situational theory of problem solving (“STOPS”), looks at how people’s referent criteria help them face or explain problems.11 Active publics are likely to have high levels of involvement and problem recognition, and lower levels of constraint recognition. Because they recognize how the problem affects them, and they think they can do something about it, this public will actively seek information and act on it. Aware publics will process information and might act, but are limited by lower levels of involvement and problem recognition, or higher levels

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of constraint recognition. Latent publics are not cognizant of how an issue involves them or do not see the issue as a problem. Latent publics could become active or aware as information changes cognitions about the issue. The least involved public is a nonpublic: they are not connected to the organization or issue. Grunig tested the theory using problems that would create active and passive publics to see how specific problems grouped publics. He found four kinds of general public emerge around organizational problems: 1. All-issue publics, which are active on all issues. 2. Apathetic publics, which are inattentive to all issues. 3. Single-issue publics, which are active on a small subset of the issue that only concerns them. 4. Hot-issue publics, which are active on a single issue that involves nearly everyone and which has received a lot of media attention. To summarize this step, active publics will have more priority over aware and inactive publics because their urgency is greater. Whether stakeholders will become active publics can be predicted by: whether the problem involves them; whether they recognize the problem; and whether they think that they can do anything about it. One dimension missing from this model is whether the public is supportive or not. Each of these groups could be supportive or threatening, and stakeholder strategies would be contingent on the level of support. Examining linkages, stakeholder typology, and the situational theory all move us toward designing an optimal communication strategy for our stakeholders. Communication Strategy with Stakeholders Stakeholders who are also active publics are the top priority. Although it would be convenient if active publics were always definitive stakeholders, human nature precludes this from happening in a constant, predictable way. Therefore, an organization must develop strategies to help mediate issues with priority publics. These strategies will depend on whether the stakeholders are supportive or nonsupportive and active or inactive.



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Communicators develop stakeholder strategies based on four groups: advocate stakeholders (active and supportive), dormant stakeholders (inactive and supportive), adversarial stakeholders (active and nonsupportive), and apathetic stakeholders (inactive and nonsupportive), as shown in Figure 7.3.

Figure 7.3  Stakeholder by communication strategy Source: Reprinted or used with permission of the Institute for Public Relations.

1. Advocate stakeholders: This is the group that you want involved in supportive actions such as third-party endorsements, social media campaigns, donations, investments, and attendance at functions. Communication should be action and behavior oriented. 2. Dormant stakeholders: This is a group that is not ready to be involved. If inactivity is due to lack of knowledge, messages should focus on creating awareness and understanding of the issues that affect them. If the publics are aroused, but not active, then communication should address potential causes of apathy by reducing perceptions of constraints or using affective cues to increase emotional attachment. 3. Adversarial stakeholders: The initial response to this group is to be defensive. However, defensive communication will not work; it will

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only entrench these stakeholders in their position. Instead, organizations should use ethics, symmetrical communication, and conflict resolution strategies that involve adversarial stakeholders to seek win-win solutions (as discussed further in Chapter 10). 4. Apathetic stakeholders: The reaction to apathetic stakeholders is often to ignore them. But, if this group faces an issue but is not aware of it, or does not yet appreciate its resonance, it may still move to become an aroused, then aware, and then active public. A better strategy is to increase awareness of the issue, with an invitation to collaborate with the organization on the issue, before it becomes a problem or crisis. Since it can be difficult to get this group involved, most of the communication effort should be focused on increasing the salience of the issue and invitations for involvement. Once strategies have been developed that address the stakeholders, there is one last prioritization step. There are three types of publics involved in communication strategies: key publics, intervening publics, and influentials.12 Key publics are those whose participation and cooperation are required to accomplish organizational goals. They are the stakeholders who have the highest priority according to their power/dependency/influence attributes, the urgency of the issue, and their level of active involvement in the issue. In Grunig’s model, the key publics are called priority publics. To communicate effectively with these stakeholders, an organization must understand them as much as possible. Priority publics can be profiled by their demographics, lifestyles, values, media preferences, cooperative networks, and self-interests. Effective strategies appeal to the self-interests of the priority publics and reach them through the most appropriate channels13 (as discussed further in Chapter 9). The intervening publics pass information on to the priority publics and act as opinion leaders. Sometimes these publics, such as the media, are erroneously identified as priority publics, but intervening publics are somewhat like ambassadors. If the expectation is that the message will be disseminated to others, it is an intervening public. In most cases the media are intervening publics. Others can also be important intervening publics, such as teachers who pass information on to students. The success of many campaigns is determined by the strength of relationships with intervening publics.



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Influentials can be intervening publics, but they also affect the success of public relations efforts in other ways. Influentials can either support an organization’s efforts or work against them. Members of some publics will turn to opinion leaders to verify or refute messages coming from organizations (i.e., third-party endorsers). The opinion of these personal sources is much more influential than the public relations messages alone. Influentials are independent opinion leaders who often lend third-party credibility to public relations efforts. Therefore, successful campaigns must also consider how messages will be interpreted by influentials that act as intervening publics, adversaries, or advocates. In summary, communication strategies should place priority on stakeholders that become active publics and can influence the success of an organization or can appeal to the other stakeholders with influence. Publics that are critical to getting the information to the priority publics, such as the media, need to be recognized as intervening publics and critical to the success of the communication strategy. Influential groups or individuals may not be stakeholders in the organization, but may be important in framing the way the message is interpreted by the priority public, and therefore must be a part of the communication strategy.

Case Study Consider the stakeholders and key publics in this case. Can you identify and prioritize the stakeholders according to their relationship to the company and the situation?

“NIMBY” or Not in My Backyard: Building a Corporate Headquarters in a Prestigious Neighborhood A major publicly owned corporation in a large city desires to build its new headquarters in a prestigious neighborhood. The corporation, whose brands include many luxury hotels, had its headquarters in the city for more than a quarter of a century. The planned site is a park-like property that the corporation owns. On the extensive property is a large mansion that the corporation uses as an overflow office. The mansion is on the historical register. The corporation wants to add an additional building that

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would house the entire headquarters. However, this is going to be difficult because the city’s most prominent citizens own most of the homes in the area and recently the neighborhood successfully fought against converting an old school building into an office. Although the corporation already owns the property, it decides to collaborate with the neighborhood to find mutually satisfactory solutions rather than face a possible court injunction and negative news coverage. The CCO meets with the homeowners’ association to understand the concerns and anxieties about building a corporate headquarters in the neighborhood. The major concerns were the following: • • • •

The loss of a historical mansion; The construction noise and disturbance while building the office; The appearance of the office building; The possibility of diminished property values, most of which were valued at over a million dollars; and • Other possible community changes, such as increased traffic, loss of privacy, and the eyesore of an office building in their daily lives Stakeholder management offers numerous ways to help understand and resolve this problem successfully for both the hotel corporation and the community.

Chapter Summary Developing positive relationships with stakeholders is a necessity for organizations. The first step is to anticipate issues the organization will encounter, identify stakeholders and then prioritize them accordingly. A common tendency is to respond to the loudest “squeaky-wheel” stakeholder; however, that is not strategic. The organization can anticipate issues, examine linkages, use the stakeholder typology to identify definitive and priority stakeholders in a specific situation, and use situational theory to predict who is likely to be active or passive. By using the approaches outlined here, organizations can take a more systematic and comprehensive approach to prioritizing stakeholders and publics, contributing to the strategy of public relations.

CHAPTER 8

Public Relations Research The Key to Strategy

Although public relations is an exciting and dynamic field demanding people with strong communication skills and adept at social media, the key to strategic public relations and communication management is ­research.1 We can argue that as much as three-quarters of the public ­relations process (detailed in Chapter 9) is based on research knowledge: research, strategic action planning, and evaluation. There are four reasons that research offers the key to strategy for communication: 1. Research contributes to ethics because it makes communication a two-way process by collecting input from publics (rather than using a simple dissemination of information). 2. Research makes public relations activities strategic by ensuring that communication is specifically targeted to publics who want, need, or care about the information. 3. Research allows us to show results, to numerically measure impact, and to refocus our efforts based on those numbers. 4. Research offers a basis to advise the dominant coalition in CEO on strategy. Research forms the basis for strategic public relations. Although it may be conducted in-house or contracted to a research firm, each public relations manager must know a great deal about research.

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Formative and Evaluative Research in Public Relations Management Data collection is conducted at least twice during a public relations initiative: to formulate strategy, and to evaluate the effectiveness of the strategy. Formative research is the process of gathering data and information to help develop effective public relations strategies. Evaluative research measures the effectiveness of public relations activities over the campaign.2 Formative research provides insights into factors contributing to a situation and evaluates awareness, opinions, attitudes, and behaviors of stakeholders that help the organization form strategies and set benchmarks for evaluating the effectiveness of communication efforts. To understand the value of formative research, consider the following case. A community hospital in a midsized city located in the Mountain West is part of a larger health-care system and offers almost all hospital services except major surgeries. It is known as one of the best hospitals in the state for pregnancies and childbirth. However, the patient intake is declining and the administrators want to develop a strategy to increase its use. Prior to conducting research, the hospital speculates that one of the primary causes is its location. It is situated off the main traffic routes, therefore has very little visibility. Administrators believe that not enough publicity has been generated to create awareness of its excellent services. An awareness and opinion survey is conducted among random residents of the city. The results indicate that the majority are aware of the hospital, its services, and its excellent reputation. This quantitative research (typically consisting of numeric data) suggests that lack of awareness is not the likely source of the decline in patients. Interviews are conducted with administrators of health clinics in the community. From this qualitative research (typically consisting of nonnumerical data and more in-depth in nature), the health-care system learns that several of these clinics offer many of the same services as the hospital and are taking away business because of the convenience of those clinics. They also learn that the clinics are not aware of the additional services the hospital provides and its reputation for its childbirth facilities. The clinics are referring patients to a competing hospital that has made more efforts in building a positive relationship with the clinics.



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From this formative research, the health-care system avoided wasting significant money on publicity and promotion, which would not have resulted in increased patients. Strategically, it focused efforts on improving long-term relationships with the clinics and physicians who make referrals to a hospital. Evaluative research is used to assess the effectiveness of public relations efforts. After formative research establishes benchmarks in awareness, understanding, opinions, attitudes, and behaviors, evaluative research can test whether public relations efforts have made improvement in these areas. Evaluative research is usually conducted in three areas: Outputs, outtakes, and outcomes. These are defined in the Dictionary of Public Relations Measurement and Research in the following ways:3 Output: What is generated as a result of a PR program or campaign that may be received and processed by members of a target audience. This measures the content generated by the organization that appears before an audience. Reach (the size of the audience) and frequency (how often the message appears) are the most frequently used variables to measure output; tone (positive, neutral or negative) can also be measured. In earned media, such as news releases, the organization loses control over the tone. When measuring output, the organization is really measuring Opportunities to See (OTS) of a message—not the actual impact of the message. Outtake: Measurement of what audiences have understood and/or heeded and/or responded to a communication product’s call to seek further information from PR messages prior to measuring an outcome. Outtakes measure message consumption. Did the audiences see, understand, and remember the messages? This information is much more useful than simplistic output measures alone. Outcomes: Quantifiable changes in awareness, knowledge, attitude, opinion, and behavior levels that occur as a result of a public relations program or campaign. Ultimately, what organizations want to measure is the impact of the communication messages on their audiences—their behavioral changes due to the campaign. The results can be short-term or long-term changes.

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Forms and Types of Research Research takes many forms: formal or informal, primary or secondary, and quantitative or qualitative. The key to conducting good research is to determine the best method of answering your questions. Informal and Formal Research Informal research is usually collected on an ongoing basis by managers, from sources both inside and outside their organizations. It is the gathering of information from key stakeholders by asking questions, talking to members of publics or employees, scanning social media, reading e-mails or questions from customers, and scanning the news and trade press. Informal research comes from the boundary spanning role of public relations, meaning that contact is maintained with publics (external and internal). A great deal of time is spent in communicating informally with these contacts, in an open exchange of ideas and concerns. This is one way in which public relations managers can keep abreast of changes in an industry, trends affecting the competitive marketplace, issues of discontent, the values and activities of activist groups, the innovations of competitors, and so on. Informal research methods are usually nonnumerical and are not generalizable to a larger population, but they yield a great deal of insight. The data yielded from informal research can be used to examine or revise organizational policy, to craft messages in the phraseology of publics, to respond to trends, to include the values of publics in new initiatives, and numerous other derivations. Issues management (Chapter 10) relies heavily on informal research methods. Formal research is planned research of a quantitative or qualitative nature, asking specific questions about topics of concern. In formal research, the method must follow standards that increase the validity and reliability of the data collected. For the data to be statistically significant and meaningful, the researcher must use formal research. Formal research can be used for both formative and evaluative purposes. Most of this chapter is dedicated to formal research methods.



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Primary and Secondary Research Research in public relations management requires the use of specialized terminology. The term primary research is used to designate unique data collection of proprietary information, firsthand, and specifically relevant to a certain client or campaign.4 Primary research, because it is unique to the organization and research questions, is often the most expensive type of data to collect. Secondary research refers to research that is normally a part of the public domain but is applicable to a client, organization, or industry, and can be used to round off and support the conclusions drawn from primary research.5 Secondary research is normally accessed through the internet or is available at libraries or from industry and trade associations. Managers often use secondary research as an exploratory base from which to decide what type of primary research needs to be conducted. With the easy availability of information on the internet, researchers have to be careful about the validity and reliability of this information.

Quantitative and Qualitative Research All primary research will fall under the categories of quantitative or qualitative research. Quantitative research seeks a large quantity of responses so that data are a numerical value using statistics. Qualitative research seeks a deep quality of detail responses so that in-depth understanding or explanation can be achieved. Most public relations research plans collect both quantitative and qualitative data, termed “mixed method,” to achieve a robust understanding of the situation. Social media metrics offer a good example of mixed method data using both numerical measurement and qualitative analysis to understand what drove the numbers. Quantitative Research Quantitative research is based on statistical generalization. Surveys are synonymous with public opinion polls and are one example of quantitative research (see Table 8.1 which lists quantitative research methods commonly employed in public relations). It allows us to make numerical

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Table 8.1  Methods of quantitative data collection Surveys (Internet-based, telephone, mail, face-to-face) Panel and cohort studies Content analysis (often of media or social media) Big Data analysis Product feedback Social media tracking, including location data Surveys (Internet-based, telephone, mail, face-to-face)

observations such as “85% of Infiniti owners say that they would purchase an Infiniti again.” Statistical observations allow us to know exactly where we need to improve relationships with certain publics, and we can then measure how much those relationships have ultimately improved (or degraded) at the end of a public relations initiative. For example, a report from automobile manufacturer Infiniti may include a statement reading: “11% of new car buyers were familiar with the all-wheel-drive option 3 months ago; after our campaign 25% of new car buyers were familiar with this option; we created a 14% increase in awareness.” Quantitative research allows a before and after snapshot to compare the numbers in each group, therefore we know how much change was evidenced as a result of public relations’ efforts. The entire public whom you wish to understand or make statements about is called the population. The population may be women over 40, registered voters, purchasers of a competitor’s product, or any other group that you would like to study. From that population, you would select a sample to actually contact with questions. Probability samples can be randomly drawn from a list of the population, which gives you the strongest statistical measures of generalizability. A random sample means that participants are drawn randomly and have an equal chance of being selected, so that the sample data is generalizable to the population. You know some variants in your population exists, but a random sample should account for all opinions in that population. The larger the sample size (number of people responding, who are termed respondents), the smaller the margin of error and the more confident (sometimes referred to as a confidence interval) the researcher can be



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that the sample is an accurate reflection of the entire population. Being an accurate representation includes both reliability (confidence in accuracy) and validity (that the measurement reflects the phenomenon under study). There are other sampling methods, known as nonprobability samples, which do not allow for the generalization of a whole population, but meet the requirements of the problem or project. A convenience sample, for instance, is drawn from those who are convenient to study, such as having visitors to a shopping mall fill out a survey. A snowball sample asks someone completing a survey to recommend the next potential respondent to complete the survey (often used in social media surveys). A purposive sample is when you seek out a certain group of people. These methods are often less expensive than random sample methods and still may generate the type of data that answers your research question. Many forms of online data are available for purchase that may be used in this manner with varying levels of statistical trustworthiness. Quantitative research has the major strength of allowing you to understand who your publics are, where they get their information, how many believe in certain viewpoints, and which communications create the strongest resonance with their beliefs. In other words, it provides us with normative outcomes that can later be broken down to better understand subgroup norms. Demographic and psychographic variables are often used to segment publics. Demographics are usually gender, education, race, profession, geographic location, annual household income, political affiliation, religious affiliation, and size of family or household. Psychographics classify audiences by their attitudes, values and lifestyles. Netgraphics classify audiences by their social media use. Often the demographics are cross-tabulated with opinion and attitude variables to identify specific publics who can be targeted with future messages in the channels and the language that they prefer. For example, in conducting public relations research for The National Park Service, cross-tabulating data with survey demographics might yield a public who are males, are highly educated and professional, exercise outdoors three times per week, have an annual household income above $125,000, usually vote conservatively, have religious beliefs, have an average household size of 3.8 p ­ eople, and 42 percent strongly agree with the following message: “National Parts

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offer great recreation opportunities.” In that example, you would have identified a voting public who support national parks. Segmenting publics in this manner is an everyday occurrence in public relations. Through segmentation, managers have an idea of who will support the organization, who will oppose it, and what values and messages resonate with each public. After using research to identify these groups, we can then build relationships with them in order to conduct informal research, better understand their positions, and help to represent the values and desires of those publics in organizational decision making and policy formation. Qualitative Research Qualitative research generates in-depth, “quality” data to understand public opinion, but it is not statistically generalizable (see Table 8.2 which lists qualitative research methods commonly employed in public relations). Qualitative research is enormously valuable because it allows us to truly learn the experience, values, priorities, and viewpoints of our publics. Table 8.2  Methods of qualitative data collection In-depth interviews Focus groups Case studies Participant observation Document analyses Monitoring toll-free (800 or 866 #) call transcripts Categorizing the tone of social media posts, hashtags, and responses Monitoring complaints by social media, texts, e-mail, letters, app ratings Delphi study of experts in a certain field

Qualitative research is particularly adept at answering questions from public relations practitioners that began “How?” or “Why?”6 This form of research allows the researcher to ask the participants to explain their rationale for decision making, belief systems, values, thought processes, and so on. The main benefit is that it allows researchers to explore complicated topics to understand the meaning behind them and the meanings that



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participants ascribe to certain concepts. For example, a researcher might ask a participant, “What does the concept of liberty mean to you?” and get a detailed explanation. However, we would expect that explanation to vary among participants, and different concepts might be associated with liberty when asking an American versus an Iraqi. Such complex understandings are extremely helpful in integrating the values and ideas of publics into organizational strategy, as well as in crafting messages that resonate with specific publics. Managers often use qualitative research to inform, explain, and support quantitative findings, a process called “triangulation.” Qualitative research can be designed to understand the views of specific publics and to have them elaborate on beliefs or values that stood out in quantitative analyses. For example, if quantitative research showed a strong agreement with a particular statement, that statement could be shared with focus group participants to add rationale and thought processes behind their choice. In this manner, qualitative researchers can understand complex reasoning and dilemmas in much greater detail than only through results yielded by a survey.7 A benefit of qualitative research is that it is exploratory, so it can be used to discover data that researchers did not suspect or know they needed. For instance, a focus group may take an unexpected turn and yield statements that the researcher had not thought to include on a survey questionnaire. Sometimes unknown information or unfamiliar perspectives arise through qualitative studies that are extremely valuable to public relations’ understanding of the issues impacting publics. Another strength of qualitative research is that it allows participants to speak for themselves rather than to use the terminology provided by researchers. This benefit can often yield a greater understanding that results in far more effective messages than when public relations practitioners attempt to construct views of publics based on quantitative research alone. Using the representative language of members of a certain public often allows us to build a more respectful relationship with that public. For instance, animal rights activists often use the term “companion” instead of “pet”—that information could be extremely important to organizations such as People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA).

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Mixed Methods or Triangulation Quantitative and qualitative research have complementary and unique strengths. These two research methods should be used in conjunction whenever possible so that both publics and issues can be fully understood. Using both of these research methods together is called mixed method ­research, and scholars generally agree that mixing methods yields the most reliable research results.8 It is best to combine as many methods as is feasible to understand important issues. Combining multiple focus groups from various cities with interviews of important leaders and a quantitative survey of publics is an example of mixed method research because it includes both quantitative and qualitative methods. Using two or more methods of study is sometimes called triangulation, meaning using multiple research methods to triangulate upon the underlying truth of how publics view an issue.9

Special Considerations Social Media Measurement With the increased use of social media, many organizations have taken steps to measure its impact among publics. Rapid changes mean a lot of variance in the practice of social media, and research on it. Standards have been set for ethical use of social media,10 and research ethics as related to social media measurement.11 Industry, research, and academic leaders met to set standards for the measurement of social media to improve consistency across industries and organizations. Through these standards, the data can be compared consistently and with greater reliability and validity.12 The six standards are: • Content and Source: This metric provides transparency in social media measurement to show how content is defined and its source, allowing measurement to be consistent across companies and platforms. • Reach and Impressions: This output metric measures how messages reach intended audiences, with these components: ?? An item of content is a post, micro-post, article, or other instance appearing for the first time in a digital media.



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A mention refers to a brand, organization, campaign, or entity that is being measured. Mentions are typically defined in social media using Boolean search queries. ?? Impressions represent the number of times an item has an opportunity to be seen. It typically counts the same individuals multiple times and will include those who had the opportunity to see the item, but did not in fact see it at all. ?? Reach is the total number of individuals who had the opportunity to see an item, eliminating the duplication of individuals who have had the opportunity to see the item through multiple channels/devices. • Engagement and Conversation: This outtake measurement uses content analysis to evaluate what audiences are doing with the messages. ?? Engagement is defined as an action beyond exposure, and implies an interaction between two or more parties. Engagement counts such actions as: likes, comments, shares, votes, retweets, views, content embeds, and so on. ?? Conversation is defined as online or off-line discussion by publics, stakeholders, influencers, or third parties; Conversation counts blog posts, comments, tweets, Facebook posts/comments, video posts, replies, and so on. • Opinion and Advocacy: Output measures using content analysis to evaluate attitudes and opinions expressed in social media. ?? Sentiment as feeling is a component of opinion and advocacy, often measured through context surrounding characterization of object. ?? Opinion is a view or judgment formed about something, not necessarily based on fact or knowledge. ?? Advocacy is a public statement of support for, or recommendation of, a particular cause or policy. Advocacy requires a level of expressed persuasion. The key distinction between “advocacy” and “opinion” is that advocacy must have a component of recommendation or a call to action embedded in it. • Influence: The definitions of what constitutes influence and influencers reflects the standards set by the Word of Mouth Marketing ??

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Association (WOMMA). Influencer Marketing is: The act of a marketer or communicator engaging with key influencers to act upon influencees in pursuit of a business objective. Where each term is defined as: ?? Influence is the ability to cause or contribute to change in opinion or behavior. ?? Where the initial actor is a key influencer who is: A person (or group) who possess greater than average potential to influence due to attributes such as frequency of communication, persuasiveness, or size/centrality of a social network. ?? Influencees are persons or groups who change their opinion or behavior as the result of exposure to information presented by influencers. • Impact and Value: These represent the ultimate outcome of a social media effort. The impact and value of a campaign is defined by and dependent on the goals of the program and the organization. It can include financial goals, such as sales, and other desirable outcomes such as increased reputation, trust, and improved relations with key stakeholders. Social media data are usually corroborated with other data such as sales, opinion ­surveys, and so on. Even with these standards, there is still a lot of room for interpretation and variation. Thus, researchers must provide transparency about the way these terms were defined and analyzed when reporting results. Big Data The ever-increasing capacity to gather enormous amounts of data regarding opinions, attitudes and behaviors has forever changed the landscape of strategic planning for businesses. Through internet monitoring, social media tracking, personal device data gathering, organizations can gather or purchase data on millions of people that give more insight into human behavior than was previously available. While enormous amounts of data are available, the challenge is in managing and analyzing the data in ways



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that meaningfully enhance strategic planning. Analysts can create a variety of algorithms and statistical analyses to give meaning to the data, but these are only as good as the questions they seek to answer. Scholars note this pitfall and call it big data human generated (BDHG).13 Researchers advised: The importance of big data is not the vast quantity of information made available, but instead, it is the value that can be created to improve performance, and better understand competitors, consumers, employees, media, and other publics. ­Organizations must learn and recognize that data alone do not answer “why” or explain inferred insights. Uncovering insights of big data require a human element and critical thinking to create meaning.14 Artificial Intelligence Advances in programming have made it possible for computers to self-improve in data collection and analyses, under the guidance of programming algorithms, or artificial intelligence (AI). AI is self-teaching, computer-generated recognition that finds patterns in vast amount of seemingly unrelated information that are imperceptible to standard methods. Using AI to collect, analyze, and respond to massive amounts of data offers the potential for public relations research to target individuals or groups in way that would otherwise be impossible. Once programmed, an AI algorithm is autonomous meaning that it can reveal unseen factors and make independent decisions based on incoming data. Uses of AI such as autonomous-vehicles are well known, but also includes the domains of medical diagnostics, civil services, and communication. For example, AI can use real-time location data from a mobile phone to target specific messages to publics, such as a person at a shopping mall getting a store map delivered to their mobile device. The use of AI in public relations research is still developing but holds great promise.15Ethical questions also emerge. It is possible to identify phones leaving a Weight Watchers location for the delivery of ice cream specials at a nearby location, but is that a good use of AI data?

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Chapter Summary Research comprises about three-quarters of the public relations process, from formation through its use in analysis to evaluation. The roles of formal and informal research were discussed, as well as the major approaches to research: quantitative (numerically based) and qualitative (in-depth based), as well as using both: mixed methods. Standards for measuring social media effectiveness were detailed, and advances in big data and AI were offered. To conclude, we covered the basics of public relations research but there is far more depth: entire careers can be spent in the research industry. Study of research methods (known as methodology) is recommended for public relations managers, because managers must know, commission, and understand valid and reliable research. More information on research methods is offered in specific texts devoted to detailed research methodology in public relations.16

CHAPTER 9

The Public Relations Process—“RACE” Strategic public relations is focused on achieving goals and objectives that contribute to the overall purpose and mission of an organization. To be strategic, public relations professionals need accurate information about the situation they face, the stakeholders, publics, and audiences they communicate with, the effectiveness of their communication efforts, and the overall impact the program has on building and maintaining relationships and building a good reputation. Public relations professionals may be tempted to start with tactics—such as press releases—but strategy as determined through research should always drive tactics.

Constructing the Strategic Plan for a Public Relations Campaign This process is primarily composed of four steps: using research to define the problem or situation, analyses for developing strategies that address the situation, implementing the strategies with goals and objectives leading to tactics, and measuring the results of the public relations efforts. The acronym RACE (Research, Analyses/Action planning, Communication, Evaluation) is used to describe the process.1 The process always starts with research and ends with evaluation research. Attention to ethics and the CERT formula (Credibility, Ethics, Relationships, Trust) is embedded throughout all steps of the process. The four steps of the well-known acronym RACE can be summarized as follows: 1. R: Use research to analyze the situation facing the organization and to accurately define the problem or opportunity in such a way that

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the public relations efforts can successfully address the cause of the issue and not just its symptoms. Formative research forms the understanding of the situation. Formal and informal, primary and secondary, and qualitative and quantitative research are used. 2. A: Conduct extensive analyses of the research and evaluate priorities. Develop a strategic action plan based on your analyses that addresses the issue that was analyzed in the first step. This action plan includes having an overall goal, measurable objectives, clearly identified publics, targeted strategies, and effective tactics. This book updates this step to Analyses from the classic formula Action to reflect an emphasis on strategy. 3. C: Execute the plan with communication tactics that contribute to reaching the overall goal with specifically planned strategies and numerous objectives. 4. E: Measure whether you were successful in meeting the goals using evaluation tools. Evaluation research can take the same forms as formative research to compare the amount of change attributable to your strategy. Step 1: Formative Research to Analyze the Situation The first step in the process is analyzing the problem or opportunity. This involves research, either formal (social-scientific research such as surveys) or informal (convenience, anecdotal, conversational), to gather information that best describes the issue. Research used to understand the situation and help formulate strategies is called formative research. For example, Marathon Petroleum Corporation may be considering the route for a new natural gas pipeline. It must conduct research to understand what possible obstacles it could face. Are there any environmentally protected regions in the area? What is the area’s level of public support for natural gas and pipelines? Are there acceptable alternative routes for the planned pipeline? What groups should Marathon plan to speak with about these issues? All of these questions should be thoroughly and strategically considered before any communication is planned. Formal research, such as surveys and focus groups, may be commissioned from a research firm. Much secondary information may already



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exist and may be accessible from an industry association or other agencies, and it is termed secondary research because it is not original data. For example, the Interstate Natural Gas Association of America conducts useful surveys on public opinion and communication practices of pipeline companies. Research is also available through a review of academic, trade press, and professional literature. Secondary sources are the least expensive and often the fastest way to gain contextual knowledge. Primary research is needed to generate original data. Marathon may need to conduct interviews or have focus groups with neighborhood associations, legislators, or environmental groups. They may consider surveys of homeowners and business located near the pipeline. Analysis of previous news stories about pipelines in this region would offer a good idea about the way in which this story might be framed by media. Analyses of social media analytics related to the issue, blogs, forums, and activist feeds about pipelines also would be a good idea. The purpose for gathering numerous forms of information is to help with understanding the complete situation, often by Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats (SWOT) analysis. Using a SWOT Analysis This tool is popular for analyzing situations from multiple angles. A SWOT analysis breaks down a situation by looking at the internal and external factors that could contribute to a situation before developing strategy. The internal factors are the Strengths and Weaknesses of the organization. The external factors are the Opportunities and Threats existing in the organization’s environment. Look internally at the strengths and weakness of the organization, then examine the external possibilities and constraints. Internal factors include everything about the organization’s approach, management style, logistics, operations, employees, and labor issues. The external factors, as pressures from the system’s environment, are usually the reasons why an organization finds itself in the situation. For example, Marathon may find that it has strong relationships with investors, has good employee morale, is financially growing, and has a culture that values innovation. It may also find that it has good relations with landowners near current

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pipelines, weak relationships with environmental groups and members of the media, poor relationships with certain members of Congress and the Senate, and has critics on the U.S. Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources. This information helps make it possible to construct a SWOT analysis of the situation to review the possible strategies that it needs to take regarding pipeline construction. Many communication professionals simply form a list under each area of the SWOT analysis, or draw a four-box matrix displaying the factors (see Figure 9.1).

Figure 9.1  SWOT analysis

A SWOT analysis offers a basic but good overview of a situation. After conducting the SWOT analysis, you can couple the internal factors with the external factors to suggest possible strategies. SWOT strategies are: • SO strategies focus on using organizational strengths to capitalize on the external opportunities. • ST strategies also use organizational strengths to counter external threats. • WO strategies address and improve organizational weaknesses to be better prepared to take advantage of external opportunities. • WT strategies attempt to correct organizational weaknesses to defend against external threats. Combinations using each type of strategy form the most thorough response. Although a SWOT analysis is quite basic, it is helpful in forming a situation analysis.



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Constructing a Situation Analysis Strategic plans normally begin with a situation analysis. Once enough data and information has been collected so that you understand the core contributing factors—not just make assumptions or surface conditions—then write a two-paragraph statement that summarizes the situation. The first paragraph should redefine the situation using the data collected by your research. Highlight the insights gained through formal and informal research. The second paragraph should identify the problems, difficulties, and potential barriers to resolving the issue. These also should have been identified in the research and SWOT (if one was conducted; they are optional). Thorough analyses of the research should help recommend strategies that are solutions to these barriers. After the description paragraphs, a succinct one-sentence problem/ opportunity statement is written that cuts to the core of the situation and identifies the consequences of not dealing with the issue. For example, Environmental groups and politicians have been influential in stopping pipeline projects in the past in similar regions; we have the opportunity to improve relationships with key members of the community and government so that we can complete a pipeline that delivers natural gas to customers. These concise statements usually form the beginning of a strategic plan document, but should be backed up by copious amounts of research. Step 2: Analyses and Strategic Action Planning The strategic plan should be focused on resolving or capitalizing on the situation identified in the problem/opportunity statement and crystallized through analyses. Strategic action planning then turns the problem/opportunity statement into a goal. In the case of Marathon, the goal might be the following: To build better relationships with the community through employee ambassadors and effectively engage in the public policy process to negotiate benefits that politicians and citizens want (i.e., job creation, taxes, low fuel costs, energy independence) to reduce obstacles and earn support for the new pipeline.

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Notice that there is room for an interactive change in the organization with the pipeline plans in this goal statement. Care should be taken not to write goals that suggest that publics will do something that you want them to do. Instead, focus on what is within your ability to achieve. The goal provides direction for the strategic plan. Strategies provide the means of moving toward the goal. Objectives provide the specific and measurable outcomes necessary to meet the goal. A good objective is specific and meets the following criteria: an outcome that contributes to a larger goal should be used; it should be measurable; it should have a time frame; and it should identify the public or stakeholder targeted for the outcome. • Specify an outcome: An objective should be an outcome that contributes to the goal. There are three possible outcomes for these objectives: cognitive (awareness, understanding, remembering), attitudinal (create attitudes, reinforce positive attitudes, change negative attitudes), and behavioral (create behaviors, reinforce positive behaviors, change negative behaviors).2 • Measurable: Objectives need formative research to offer a “before” number so that the initiative can take place and evaluation research can find an “after” number to document the change. An objective cannot be set to increase awareness by 20 percent if the current level of awareness is unknown. For example, a good objective that is measurable is: To increase awareness of pipeline plans among multi-acre land owners in Montana from 10% to 30% (up by 20%) within the next 6 months. • Time frame: When will the objective be met? A time frame must be specified so that evaluation research can be planned. • Identify the public or stakeholder: Numerous objectives are part of a strategic plan, each reaching different publics for stakeholders with information designed specifically for that group. Different publics will be at different levels of awareness, attitudes, and behaviors. Generally, there is a hierarchy to the different levels of objectives. There are three levels of objectives: outputs, outtakes, and outcomes. Output objectives are simply focused on the effectiveness of getting the



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message conveyed to publics and stakeholders. This is a means to potentially increase awareness, but simply looking at the output does not measure the impact of the message. Outtake objectives are focused on increasing awareness, understanding, and retention of the key message points. Was the sent message attended to, remembered, and understood? Outcome objectives are perhaps the most important, but also the most difficult to achieve, because they measure if publics acted on a behavior.3 Tie Strategy to Objective Too often public relations programs have been primarily tactical and have skipped the strategic step of using analyses to create objectives. What makes public relations strategic is having the action tied to the real needs of the organization and its publics. If you come up with a clever tactic but it does not help meet any of the objectives, it should be reconsidered. Often many resources are wasted on creative tactics and fall short of addressing the needs of the issue. A thorough evaluation of the research data in terms of the organization’s mission, vision, values, and goals to resolve this specific problem is needed. Are all potential strategic publics, stakeholders, and partners considered in the strategy? How should each public be communicated with and what are their information needs? What are the ethical responsibilities involved in the issue? Will each communication strategy make a change in the issue? Strategy should help the organization ultimately move toward its mission. Segment Publics and Stakeholders All groups within the publics and stakeholders should be differentiated based on common characteristics such as demographics, geographics, netgraphics, or psychographics. Demographics include variables such as physical descriptors. Geographics describe your public by their location. People living within a quarter-mile of a pipeline may have different attitudes toward energy companies than those who live a mile or more away from those lines. Netgraphics segment your audience by social media use. Psychographics segment your audience based on their values and lifestyles. It is important to segment your key publics, because it will help you identify the information they need from the organization.

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Create Communication Based on Self-Interests People pay more attention to communications that are tied to their values, needs, and goals. You should ask what your publics value and care about (based on research). Knowing the demographic, geographic, netgraphic, and/or psychographic differences of key publics, you can create a message that connects them to your program. Once self-interests have been identified, a primary message can be created that will give direction to the communication efforts. For example, the “Click it or Ticket” campaign uses the threat of police enforcement to encourage seat belt compliance. Yet, for adventurous drivers it may be more effective to have a message from race car drivers to explain how they rely on seatbelts. Plan Communication Channels Identifying the channel or medium through which you can reach target publics is essential to avoid efforts wasted on tactics that will not come into contact with the right people. The channels can be mass media, such as newspapers or television or radio programming. They can be transmitted by other mediated channels such as e-mail, blogs, or Twitter. They can also be town hall meetings, mediated slide shows, and face-to-face (interpersonal) communication. Sometimes the channel is a group of people, usually opinion leaders, such as professors, scientists, or other third-party influencers or experts. Usually the target public is reached through multiple points of contact to reinforce the message with different tactics. Step 3: Communication Implementation A strategic plan is created by public relations professionals and implemented by specialists in the technician role who create tactics. Tactics are the specific communication tools and tasks that are used to execute the strategy. They could be news releases, speeches, websites, social media posts, talk show appearances, contacting YouTube influencers, and so on. The challenge is to create tactics that cut through the clutter of all the messages competing for a public’s attention. A cardinal rule is to always evaluate tactics within the established strategies and objectives. The best public relations programs include both communication and action. Sometimes an organization needs to act, or react, before it can



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communicate. For example, if employees are not attending training seminars, it might not be enough to try more creative and persuasive messages. The seminars might need to be more relevant and interesting for the employees, before their behavior will change. Two additional components to the public relations process usually are developed during the communication stage: the planning calendar and the budget. Once the tactics have been determined, it is best to plan the development and execution of the tactics using a calendaring tool such as a Gantt chart (see Figure 9.2). A Gantt chart is a horizontal flow chart that provides a graphic illustration of when tactics should begin and end in comparison to all other tasks.

Figure 9.2  Sample Gantt chart (numbers within bars are days to accomplish task)

The costs for developing, distributing, and executing the tactics should also be determined in a budget. Some tactics may be eliminated when you project their costs against their potential of meeting objectives. Focus on tactics that will provide the greatest return on investment. Step 4: Evaluation Evaluation is often conducted several times during an initiative. Four steps should be addressed when evaluating the effectiveness of an initiative: • Define your benchmark. • Select a measurement tool.

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• Analyze data, draw actionable conclusions, and make recommendations. • Make changes and measure again.4 If you have followed the steps in the strategic planning process, you have already identified your strategic publics and stakeholders and established objectives for each. When objectives are measurable you already have the criteria by which to evaluate the success of your program—a “before” or a benchmark. The benchmark compares your current situation to your past to measure the amount of change, or the “after.” A research firm can be hired to do multiple measurements in multiple phases along the course of an initiative, so that objectives can indicate where strategy can be adjusted retooled or when objectives are met. Multiple points of evaluation research can ultimately save the organization money by eliminating communications that are not working or focusing on those that are. Generally, the same research tools that helped establish the benchmark data are used (e.g., surveys, focus groups). Intentions that shape behavior and preferences for purchasing can also be measured through surveys, providing statistics on people’s inclinations. Behaviors can also be measured against benchmarks. Increases in employee retention, increased donations, and improved sales and investments could all be used to measure behaviors. Many research firms tailor a data display “dashboard” to examine the measures that each client seeks. They can also analyze media coverage to evaluate the percentage of articles that contain program key messages, the prominence of the message (for a press release, where it appeared); in a broadcast, how much time was allocated to the story and where it appears in the program), the tone of the message (positive, neutral, negative), and how the media efforts compare with key competitors (share of voice).5 Much secondary data is also for sale, in which you can specifically target publics and stakeholders based on their social media use, purchasing habits, and so on. However, to know if these communications actually affected people’s awareness, understanding, attitudes, or behaviors, primary research such as surveys always needs to be conducted. Getting the communication into various channels is only the means to the goal of affecting attitudes,



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opinions, and behaviors. The outcomes need to be measured in order to tie back to goals and strategy.

Chapter Summary This chapter reviewed the process by which strategic public relations ­efforts are accomplished. The process is structured and summarized by the acronym RACE. R: Research is conducted for formative (and evaluative) purposes including a situation analysis. A: Analyses and action planning of strategy based on research findings. This phase requires connecting communication efforts with goals, objectives, and strategies. C: Communication implementation of the actual tactics or tools to convey messages. E: Evaluation research compares the amount of change attributable to communication activities. Campaigns are usually organized along these phases. Research and analyses comprise roughly 75 percent of the strategic public relations process. This process should be ingrained, if the public relations professional is to become a truly strategic communication manager and a contributor to achieving organizational mission through strategic operations.

PART 3

Advanced Practices in Public Relations Management

CHAPTER 10

Issues Management and Sectors of the Public Relations Industry This chapter discusses the issues management function, with its connection to four sectors of the public relations industry: corporate, agency/ firm, government, and nonprofit. Whether the location of the public relations function is in a corporation, an agency or firm, a government, or an NGO, it will always have issues management at its highest level. The issues management process is tasked with strategic forecasting, scenario building, trend monitoring, and problem solving for an organization in an effort to be proactive and to avert crises. To conduct issues management is to engage in the public policy process, or how the organization interacts with governments, regulatory bodies, and various types of stakeholders and publics. Public policies are those which an organization needs to interact with its external environment, as well as internal policies that are visible to (and often critiqued by) publics. Mission, vision, values, and integrative communication are used to create and enact an organization’s specific public policies. All sectors of public relations are also tasked with not only managing issues, but managing interest groups or conducting activism.

The Executive Function of Issues Management Issues management is the strategic process by which an organization identifies potential problems and trends and works to address issues that could impact it in the future by managing its policy. The issues management process is a long-term, problem-solving function placed at the highest level of the

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organization to adapt organizational policy and engage in the public affairs process. Issues management allows the top communicator to interact with government and publics, advising the CEO about the values of key publics and priority publics, and how they enhance or detract from the organization’s reputation with those publics. Those who enhance can facilitate or become strategic partners. Those who detract can constrain an organization’s management and, eventually, its autonomy. Anything can be an issue. As Heath explained, “An issue is a contestable question of fact, value, or policy that affects how stakeholders grant or withhold support and seek changes through public policy.”1 Involved stakeholders and publics include key executives of the organization, legislators, government regulators, interest groups, community publics, elected officials, and so on. Issues can arise from positive things, but they normally have the potential to damage an organization by harming its profitability. Because of its linkage to government regulation, the issues management function is often within the same department as public affairs. In most corporations, issues management and public affairs are inextricably linked. Organizations must manage public policy issues that arise as a consequence of doing business, from governmental regulation, from stakeholders who demand accountability, or from activists who petition the government. Organizational policy must continually be revised and updated to reflect the current regulatory environment as well as the demands placed on it by publics. Relevant axioms are: • Manage your issues or your issues will manage you. • An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. Why is issues management so important? If an organization is unresponsive to the appeals of publics or stakeholders, they will lobby the government to regulate the organization or seek other public policy changes to be forced onto the organization in the public policy arena.2 An organization loses its autonomy, meaning that key decisions are legislated and regulated rather than made strategically by management. Regulation often costs the organization a great deal of money (to show compliance) and resources (such as time or training). Ideally, the organization’s management



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would know how to strategically allocate its own resources and would manage issues in a more efficient and effective way than by having ­compliance legislated and standardized across an industry. Maintaining autonomy is a primary goal of issues management.3 Issues management also saves money for the organization by preventing expenditures on crises, fines, or lawsuits. It can create efficiencies by handling problems before they become large-scale issues or crises. Preventing problems is always more effective management than solving large-scale problems or managing crises. Good issues management allows an organization to be proactive in defining problems rather than simply responding to problems defined by others. It scans the environment to monitor for emerging issues that can affect the organization so that there is time to do research and create alternatives for managing the issue (rather than simply reacting to a problem later). As a proactive function, issues management also seeks to enhance ethics so that it can build long-term, trusting relationships with publics of all kinds from in government to grass roots. Heath notes, “the more that an organization meets key publics’ need for information, the more likely they are to be praised rather than criticized.”4 Ethical management that does not seek to exploit publics or other groups allows the issues management function to truly contribute to organizational effectiveness: “Issues communication is best when it fosters mutual understanding that can build trust. This communication must be two-way and collaborative.”5 Issues management should be analytical, based on research that enhances an understanding of the view of publics by bringing input into managerial decision making from outside the organization. This research can be used to provide vital information in the strategic planning process. However, issues management cannot resolve all the problems with communication or make all decisions mutually beneficial.6 Although some issues are intractable, management can incorporate the values of publics into strategic decisions when possible so that less resistance from those publics is evidenced. Issues management is conducted on a continual, ongoing basis. ­Issues managers monitor, research, listen, advise, and communicate about a number of concurrent issues at any given time. How many issues are managed will depend on the size of the organization and the turbulence

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of the industry in which it operates, but 12 ongoing issues, organized into a priority order, would be normal. The process of issues management is similar to the RACE process, but it goes into more detail on actions and steps that must be taken. A number of scholars in management and other disciplines have studied the most effective steps for issues management.7 A vital phase of issues management is the issues scanning, monitoring, and analysis phase. If an issues manager fails to identify an emerging issue, the hope of creating a proactive plan to manage the issue diminishes. Once an issue emerges into the public policy arena, control over defining the issue is lost and time becomes critical. Monitoring for emerging issues and predicting the future importance of issues is called issues forecasting. Issues forecasting is dynamic because issue elements and interactions with publics are unpredictable. Sometimes issues are brought to light by competitors, industry associations, NGOs, or the news media. An argument could be made that the research and analysis of an issue is the most important phase for determining priorities and how to best handle the new issue. An element of strategy exists within data collection, its analysis, and its interpretation into strategy and policy. Remember, “Data are only as good as the insights of people who analyze them.”8 When evaluating the potential impact of issues, organizations may engage in scenario building, by asking “what if ” questions to prioritize and plan strategic responses. Although the issues management process is often necessarily fluid, the general steps are presented below in Table 10.1, based on the work of management and public policy scholars and updated for use in public relations here. Organizational responses within an issues management framework generally take one of four forms: 1. Proactive: actively defines the issue and strategic responses to it. 2. Interactive: seek mutually acceptable outcomes among stakeholders. 3. Inactive: apathetic, ignores the change or simply adapts. 4. Reactive: usually negative, fights, obstructs, may be forced to accommodate. Clearly, the first two of these strategies are strategic responses by management, proactive and interactive; the next two are not strategic and not



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Table 10.1  The steps of issues management The Issues Management Process 1. Identify public issues and trends in public expectations. • Scan the environment for trends and issues; • Track trends in issues that are developing; • Develop forecasts of trends and issues; and • Identify trends and issues of interest to the corporation. 2. Evaluate their impact and set priorities. • Assess the impacts and probability of recurrence; • Assess the corporate resources and ability to respond; and • Prepare the issue priorities for further analysis. 3. Conduct research and analysis. • Categorize issues along relevant dimensions; • Ensure that priority issues receive staff coverage; • Involve functional areas where appropriate; • Use outside sources of information; • Develop and analyze position options; and • Consider mission and values to conduct ethical analyses.a 4. Develop strategy. • Analyze position and strategy options; • Decide on position and strategy; and • Integrate with overall business strategy. 5. Implement strategy. • Disseminate agreed-upon position and strategy; • Develop tactics consistent with overall strategy; • Develop alliances with external organizations; and • Link with internal and external communication networks. 6. Evaluate strategy. • Assess results (staff and management); • Modify implementation plans; and • Conduct additional research. Source: Adapted from Buchholz, R.A., W.D. Evans, and R.A. Wagley. 1994. Management Responses to Public Issues: Concepts and Cases in Strategy Formulation. 3rd ed. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, p. 41. a

Bowen, S. A. 2002. “Elite Executives in Issues Management: The Role of Ethical Paradigms in Decision Making.” Journal of Public Affairs, 2, 270–283.

optimal because they each decrease the autonomy of management. Regulatory impact, or “constraints imposed by outside groups or interests,”9 is costly in terms of both compliance and reputation. The less strategic responses are normally argued against by organizations that seek to maintain their autonomy in order to create more effective management. Good issues management can prevent or solve a large number of problems;

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however, accidents, natural disasters, and other emergencies still offer numerous concerns to be managed. Astute issues management is vital to the life of an organization.

Sectors of the Public Relations Industry Public relations is a large discipline that can be subdivided into many types of pursuits. There are four different sectors into which we can categorize the public relations profession, each containing many different specializations: 1. Corporate public relations/corporate communication; 2. Agency public relations; 3. Government/public affairs/lobbying; and 4. Nonprofit/NGO/activist public relations. An overview of how these areas operate is offered, and conceptually each is linked to both issues management and (perhaps more episodically) activism.

Corporate Communication Sector Corporate communication is a business-oriented public relations function with an incentive for building relationships on behalf of that enterprise. It also recognizes that governments and nonprofits/NGOs and agencies often play a role in the communication. Communication is a constant with government regulatory agencies, or in public affairs with public policy initiatives and lobbying efforts. Likewise, nonprofits play a large part of corporate communications efforts in building strategic partnerships, relating to the community, corporate social responsibility and philanthropy initiatives, and relationships with activist groups. Of course, a profit motive is a primary and worthy reason to engage in corporate communication. Most of the efforts undertaken in a corporate environment seek to further organizational effectiveness, increasing competitiveness and enhancing profit. Organizations can vary widely in the resources and number of employees devoted to communication. Reporting relationships and functional



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responsibilities also differ depending on the nature of the company, such as whether it is consumer oriented, business-to-business, small, global, public, and so on. In many organizations, the senior leader of the communication team reports directly to the CEO, whereas in others, that individual may report to the head of legal, marketing, or human resources. Regardless of the specific reporting relationship, in virtually all companies, the function is responsible for communicating with the media and usually has the lead role in developing employee communication (i.e., internal relations). Values management or training, instilling, and refining core values inside the organization is often part of the job. Advising the CEO on ethical dilemmas, or acting as the ethical conscience, is normally part of the job for the chief communications officer (CCO).10 Public relations activities, such as the management of corporate events, press conferences, product launches, large employee gatherings, organizational culture initiatives, and leadership meetings also are managed by the CCO and his or her team. Media relations is often its own department and supported by outsourcing to an agency/firm. Most corporations have at least one ­social media manager to monitor and update digital information. The communication function is also charged with managing investor relations—that is often a smaller department within public relations focused on shareholders and financial analysts. In publicly traded companies, those activities involve the release of quarterly and annual reports on financial results and providing timely information to financial media and analysts. Most CCOs say that there is no such thing as a typical day in the corporate world. Some of the most important qualities of successful CCOs are flexibility, integrity, patience, analytical ability, team leadership, and the ability to remain calm under pressure. All organizations face potentially damaging issues every day. The CCO must monitor and manage rapidly developing issues on an ongoing basis. Many organizations also operate internationally, meaning that both strategy and messages must be tailored for global diversity. CCO’s also spend a great deal of time managing their teams, analyzing research, and forming relationships throughout the other areas of the organization.

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Public Relations Agency/Firm Sector In addition to in-house corporate departments, most organizations also have a contract with public relations agencies and firms to develop and implement communication programs. They range from full service to specialists who fill a particular client need. Some are units of larger, umbrella organizations, and some are individually owned. Full Service The largest agencies and firms offer a full spectrum of services, from traditional media relations and event planning to highly specialized research, training, crisis management, and social media expertise. Large agencies usually have a global reach and offices in numerous cities throughout the world. Public Affairs, Government Relations, and Lobbying These agencies and firms focus on developing public affairs positions for or against legislative initiatives. They organize grassroots campaigns, engage in educational efforts especially in connecting with leaders and think tanks, lobbying members of government, train clients to lobby, and often lead coalitions that link like-minded members/organizations. Strategic Counsel Services Some focus specifically on what often is referred to as “strategic communication,” including mergers and acquisitions, investor relations, and defending against hostile takeovers. These agencies/firms are brought in as experts when a company decides to make a major move. It is common for both parties in hostile takeover attempts to retain competing strategic agencies or firms. Digital Public Relations These agencies and firms are devoted entirely to the digital realm of online public relations and the ever-changing arena of social media. As big data and artificial intelligence (AI) become more common, the importance of



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analyses in this area grows; it also involves social media monitoring and routine output of messages. Corporate Identity Services These utilize extensive research to develop brand platforms for their clients that build on the existing perceptions of companies or their brands. Their expertise includes graphic design, naming, brand engagement programs, and complete identity systems. Corporate Social Responsibility Agencies/firms work with clients to determine areas in which they can match their areas of expertise with global human needs, such as hunger, health, the environment, and poverty. They design programs that help address these needs by utilizing the employees, technical expertise, and financial resources of their clients. Trends in Agencies and Firms Many organizations find that they can better manage the ebbs and flows of communication activity by hiring an outside company for certain communication activities in lieu of using internal staff. When the demand for communication is high, organizations can increase the amount of agency support they receive; if there is less demand, they can cut back on the support of outside firms. Most agencies and firms are expected to provide strategic counsel, not just tactical output, so that their teams must employ research that identifies pending issues and opportunities for the client. These aspects normally include competitive threats, labor relationships, legislative and regulatory constraints, and global trends. Their recommendations often challenge the organization to consider the implications of policy changes or major operational decisions. Careers: Agency/Firm Life versus Corporate Life The résumés of strategic communicators often include experience in both agencies/firms and corporate positions. The former typically offer

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entry-level technician roles; corporations normally require some experience with their industry. The agency/firm world offers the opportunity for varied assignments with multiple clients in a wide range of industries, and numerous opportunities for travel or foreign assignment. However, entry-level positions are highly focused on technician activities: events, publicity, and media pitching. Agencies also may expect long hours for lower pay. In corporate communication, most employees are focused on a single industry or topic. The communicator may be responsible for numerous public relations subfunctions across the department. Corporate communication positions can provide a more strategic focus and possibilities for advancement into management. Benefits offered in corporations are usually quite good and salaries are higher than in other sectors of public relations. Government Relations and Public Affairs Sector Government relations and public affairs are the types of public relations that deal with how an organization interacts with government, with governmental regulators, the legislative, executive, and regulatory arms of government, as well as the taxpayers to whom is owed a special stewardship.11 The government relations and public affairs functions are discussed together in this section; the two functions are often referred to as synonyms, but there are very minor differences. Government relations is the branch of public relations that helps an organization communicate with the government—through its representatives at all levels. This role is an “organizational-to-government” responsibility (normally corporate) or government to constituent role. Public affairs is the type of public relations that helps an organization interact with the government, legislators, interest groups, and the media. It seeks to participate in policy creation and includes numerous and varied groups of people. These two functions often overlap when questions of public policy are at stake: “public policy issues are those with the potential of maturing into governmental legislation or regulation (international, federal, state, or local).”12



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Public affairs is the external side of the function that deals more broadly with public policy issues of concern among constituents, activists, or groups who lobby the government on behalf of a certain perspective. They are often issues of public concern that involve grassroots initiatives, meaning that everyday citizens organize and create a movement in favor of a certain issue or perspective. Public affairs specialists seek to resolve conflict or negotiate with these groups to create an ethical solution to problems. An organization must also use public affairs to communicate about policy and procedures with investors, regulators, employees, communities, suppliers, distributors, and customers.13 Public affairs specialists act as lobbyists on behalf of their organizations, and they interact with publics who are interested in lobbying the government for legislation regarding particular issues. Public affairs specialists might focus on a particular area of public policy, such as international trade agreements or exchange rates, security and terrorism, equitable wages and working conditions, the regulatory process, safely disposing of production by-products, and so on. Issues management and public affairs are normally housed within the same department, team, or CCO. Issues management and public affairs seek to facilitate interaction between organizations and governments. However, issues management is the larger function because it deals with governmental and regulatory publics, plus many other types of publics.14 Governmental relations is more narrowly focused on legislative, regulatory, and lobbying issues. Lobbying constitutes a large part of government relations and public affairs. Communicators undertake an educational role in the lobbying process: research, analyses, and policy formulation; they communicate to legislative publics or interest groups. Lobbyists educate elected ­officials on an organization’s point of view, contribution to society, regulatory environment, and business practices. The legislative process is one in which organizations can be proactive and integrative in their participation, and help to inform legislation with real-world data and implications. L ­ obbyists are hired to advance a perspective for or against legislation—and there are also lobbyists on the other side of that issue. Many issues in the public policy arena are hotly contested, as discussed in the case concluding this chapter.

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Nonprofit, NGO, and Activist Public Relations Sector Nonprofit or not-for-profit groups (a “501(c)3” in the U.S. tax code) are those that exist in order to educate, fund research, advocate, or lobby on behalf of a public cause or initiative. Nonprofit groups are those with an educational mission existing on behalf of a public interest, to promote an idea or cause, or to raise funds for research on an issue. Nonprofit public relations often relies on member relations: it seeks to maintain and develop relationships with supportive stakeholders who can distribute the organization’s message, and often pay a membership fee to assist in providing an operational budget. Fund-raising or development is a vital part of nonprofits, tasked with raising funds from large donors, writing grants for governmental support, and conducting fund-raising with smaller, private donors. Most industry associations or trade groups also fall into this sector of public relations. Almost every industry imaginable has an association representing their collective interest. Nongovernmental organizations, or NGOs, are “soft-power” groups who do not hold the political appointees of governmental agencies but often contain former politicians as well as political staffers, social activists, and active netizens. They exist in order to carry out initiatives, such as humanitarian tasks, that governments are not willing to handle. NGOs often form around social issues or causes to act in concert with government but they are not controlled by it (although their sovereignty is questioned in some nations). The top executives of NGOs are often noteworthy former government officials. NGOs often move at the ground level to establish goodwill as a part of establishing credibility.15 An example is Human Rights Watch. Activist groups are special interest groups that arise around an organization in order to establish some type of change around their particular issue of concern. Activist groups normally arise from a “grassroots movement,” meaning that it comes from everyday citizens rather than those who work in government. That fact makes it different from an NGO; activist groups can be less official or formal in structure, compared to nonprofits or NGOs. Examples would be The Cloud Foundation, as contrasted with People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA).



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Activist groups can differ in their purposes and reasons for existing, and in the amount of action-taking behavior that they undertake. For example, some activist groups are termed “obstructionist” because they obstruct a resolution to the problem in order to gain media notoriety for their issue and new membership. An example is Greenpeace.16 Groups who advocate at any cost, sometimes including violence, are sometimes called advocacy groups, but in layman’s terms there is often no distinction between an activist and an advocate. Other activist groups may use more integrative strategies to resolve problems by having changes integrated into organizational policy. Responding to Activism Activist groups exert power on organizations in many forms of pressure, using public relations strategies and tactics, such as lobbying, boycotts, or phone calls to legislators. Activist groups are usually filled with younger, educated, and motivated ideologues with a strong devotion to their cause. These groups are often quite effective in their efforts to integrate their values into organizational policy. Organizations might attempt to “ignore” activist pressure, but that approach simply is not effective because it prolongs or exacerbates the activist group’s efforts. Then activist groups may ask for congressional hearings, Senate committee investigations, the organization to be broken up, fined, or regulated. Activists can both influence legislators and change public opinion. The most effective way to approach activist groups is to engage them in symmetrical dialogue to discover their issues of concern, values, wants, and priorities. Collaborative efforts to resolve conflict normally lessen the damage; refusing to deal with activist groups often results in the filing of lawsuits and injunctions. The efficacy of activist groups, even small ones, is well documented. The Excellence Study contends that “regardless of the length of the dispute, the intensity of the conflict or the media coverage involved... all activist groups studied had disrupted the target” organization.17 Activists may experience less success against the behemoth of government because of its intractable structure, diffused accountability, and bureaucratic nature of the institutions involved. In such instances, activist

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groups may band together to form an activist coalition to collectively petition the government for redress. Integrative Strategy: Holding face-to-face meetings with activists, brainstorming sessions, or joint “summits” tends to work well in building understanding. The activist group needs to understand the organization’s business model and regulatory constraints. This strategy can result in novel adaptations of ideas that provide a win-win solution to issues. Valuing the concerns of activists sometimes offers enough respect for them to then target less-collaborative organizations. Using ethics, conflict resolution, negotiation, and symmetrical dialogue creates an integrative environment. An integrative approach allows relationships to be built and lessens the damage that activists can cause to the reputation of organization.

Case Study Wild Horse Public Policy: A Modern-Day Shootout at the O.K. Corral Public affairs issues often center on a conflict of ethical values or rights between organizations and publics, and sometimes organizations, publics, and one or more branches of government. Government public ­affairs specialists and activist group public relations specialists often clash in these instances, and history is usually the judge of which side acted with ethical rectitude. An example would be the grassroots movement in the United States to protect wild horses from “permanent removal” by the government. Wild horse “roundups,” run by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) in the U. S. Department of the Interior, are morally objectionable to numerous activist groups for horses, burros, and animals. BLM’s helicopter roundups often result in wild horses being sent to slaughter, or the captured horses languishing, dying of exposure and other problems brought on by confinement, or being killed due to injuries sustained in the miles of chase over rocky terrain by helicopters. Taxpayers may also object to the costs: the 48,000 wild horses in pens cost each person $5 per day to maintain in terms of personnel and facilities; round-up contractors net $850 per horse (dead or alive) and, in many instances, contractors have earned millions of dollars annually paid by the government.18 Accountability and



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stewardship at BLM have been lacking. Investigations of the BLM holding facilities have revealed the most cruel and inhumane of conditions in which the equines are kept. Animal protection and animal rights organizations have protested or filed lawsuits on behalf of the horses. An annual ban on horse slaughter for meat, backed by the 200-member, bipartisan Animal Protection Caucus, was signed into law by President Trump in 2018. However, the BLM made an “end-run” around that legislation by allowing selling the horses 24-at-a-time to wholesalers, who then sell the horses for slaughter. A horrific death awaits countless of these noble creatures who are considered a national treasure by many, as well as a symbol of liberty and the rugged individualism that inspired westward expansion. Defenders of horse slaughter for human consumption, including the meatpacking industry and its lobbyists, as well as the U.S. Department of the Interior and BLM, argue that it provides an inexpensive way to dispose of unwanted animals. The ranking member of the U.S. House Committee on Agriculture, Collin Peterson (D-MN) said, “These unwanted horses are often sick, unfit, or problem animals.” Yet, the BLM’s own data show that the horses are healthy enough to offer for paid adoption, or sale, for BLM revenue generation. Cattle ranchers use public lands so that their private cattle can graze at practically no cost; they argue that the wild horses cause overgrazing. However, the BLM’s own research has found that not to be the case: There are about 2 million cattle grazing on public lands compared to an estimated 82,000 wild horses.19 Research also found that wild horses are healthy; natural predation, water scarcity, and extreme weather all act to limit herd size. For the wild horses who are adopted, enthusiasts train them to be loyal sport and pleasure mounts. Further complicating matters is the fact that miners and the BLM earn a large profit from the uranium mines on these lands, as well as gold and other mining interests. It is unclear how the wild horses limit mining, yet the BLM argues for their permanent removal near mining operations, and near uranium mines in particular. If mines are in a Herd Management Area (where horses were found when the 1971 Wild Horse and Burro Act was passed by Congress) mining companies want the horses removed to use the water on the land for mining opportunities.

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The Cloud Foundation was founded by Emmy-award winning documentarian Ginger Kathrens with the mission: “We protect and preserve America’s wild horses and burros.”20 She started the group because she wanted to fight for a policy that: Allows wild horses to be managed on the range—not in dirt corrals where they are vulnerable. They live in family units that are critical to the survival of the wild horses. Their family is a unique and complex social arrangement but shattered when roundups occur. The Cloud Foundation, made up of 13 volunteer board members and 2 staff members, uses social media to inform a half-million-followers of an active public about the plight of the wild herds. Kathrens is the one of two Humane Advocates approved by Congress to participate in the Wild Horse and Burro Advisory Board (of nine members) in the U.S. Department of the Interior. The Cloud Foundation also has an educational mission, participates in numerous public events, protests, and investigations, as well as documents the lives of horses and burros in the wild and in round ups. It is supported by donations, including those for its legal fund. They have numerous lawsuits and injunctions against the BLM. The government’s power often means roundups and sales to slaughterhouses go forward despite the best efforts of animal welfare groups. Because of that power differential, activist groups often form coalitions. In this case, 150 animal-related groups united into a coalition for the horses against what they see as government exploitation and profiteering by ranchers, regulators, miners, and politicians. The activist coalition petitions the government for responsible stewardship in its designated Herd Management Areas, humane treatment, and an end to the sale of horses for slaughter. At the core of this debate is an ethical divergence over the value of equine life and the role of horses in American society, iconography, and history. Issues management plays a tremendous role in a debate such as this one, in which priorities, values, and relevant facts are still being defined. For example, are horses indigenous? Many scientists say so, but the BLM resists this classification because then the animals could be classified as a protected species. If they are imported, even with bloodlines ranging



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back to the Conquistadors, they are defined as expendable. Definitions and facts of an issue matter (refer to Table 10.1, step 3). At risk is the future of not only the horses who live free in American herds, but also the survival of the American wild horse: activists argue the need for genetic diversity of a large enough gene pool for survival of the horses. Yet, billions of dollars are at stake in the ranching, meatpacking, transport, and mining industries, as well as for the BLM, the U.S. Department of the Interior, the campaigns of elected officials at all levels, and the resources invested in education, lawsuits, injunctions, and legislation by animal rights activists. As history shows with the civil rights movement and others, defining social issues of justice, values, and rights can be a slow and tumultuous, even violent, process. In a modern-day shootout at the O.K. Corral, activists and government public affairs specialists will launch competing issues management and public policy initiatives. They each vie to define the issue in the minds of voting publics and legislators. Only time will tell who is still standing when the dust settles, and how the issue of the American wild horse is ultimately defined and resolved.

Chapter Summary Issues management was defined and discussed as the highest level executive problem solving and prevention function of public relations. The six steps of effective issues management, heavily based on research and analysis, including an ethical analysis, were explained. Issues management is inextricably linked to the public affairs process because of its role in policy creation across sectors of the public relations industry. Primary sectors of the public relations industry are corporate communication; agencies; government relations; and nonprofit, NGO’s, and activist groups. All sectors use issues management and public policy, and issues managers are normal professionals with the most experience and responsibility in their respective areas. Activists public relations hold the ability to impact the public policy of corporations but have less influence when petitioning the government. Activist coalitions are often formed when that is the case. Research shows that an organization should best respond to pressure from activist groups with symmetrical dialogue, ethics, respect, and integrative strategy.

CHAPTER 11

Ethics, Counseling Roles, Leadership, and Moral Analyses Scandals show the failure of many organizations to conduct their business affairs ethically. Public relations professionals have argued for years that ethical business practice is the foundation of maintaining relationships with stakeholders and key publics, yet public trust in business remains low. Dishonesty within the once-trusted news industry, fragmentation of news sources, and polarized social media lend to all-time low levels of trust on a global level. Trust in government is also at an all-time low—it is more mistrusted than any institution across various nations.1 Ethical considerations in the practice of public relations have been on the forefront of public relations education for years but have acquired new importance in the age of fake news. Ethical analyses are in critical demand. This chapter introduces and examines ethics and its role in organizational leadership, public relations’ roles in ethics and moral decision making, and what constitutes an ethical analysis.

Ethics From the ancient philosophy of Plato, Socrates, and Aristotle to the ­Enlightenment of Hume, Kant, or Mill, to modern-day philosophy, we explore the questions of right versus wrong, good versus evil, light versus darkness. “Ethics is about how we ought to live”2 and public relations ­ethics is ultimately about how we ought to manage relationships with ethical awareness, credibility, and a desirable long-term reputation in mind.

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Consider the CERT formula presented earlier in this book: f outcome = Credibility ± Ethics ± Relationships ± Trust Gain credibility to demonstrate ethics and build relationships that create a positive reputation and engender trust. Trusting relationships can be built over time using this formula, and those connections can form a resource for the organization. Ethics and Trust Communication is not the goal of public relations. Our goal is building enduring relationships through the use of ethical communication, listening, and strategic alliances, while integrating the values and ideas of others into organizational policy. We try to build an understanding to create dialogue with our publics. If the purpose of public relations is to build relationships with publics, trust is an essential part of any ongoing relationship. Whether those publics are inside the organization—such as employees, management, administrative workers—or outside the o­rganization— such as suppliers, distributors, retailers, consumers, communities, and ­governments—ethics is the linchpin that holds the relationships together. Issues managers must resolve ethical dilemmas, identify potential problems, and conduct research, and both the problems as well as the potential solutions must be analyzed and organized into communication. To visualize the importance of ethics, imagine the following scenario. You purchased a product advertised as the highest quality; yet output from the media reveals that the organization sold the product knowing that it was manufactured with defective components. Chances are, you would feel exploited and not continue a long-term, trusting relationship with that organization (you would not be a repeat purchaser). The ethics of an organization have a nebulous yet certain impact upon relationships with publics. Ethical Culture Ethics is the responsibility of public relations as the “corporate conscience,” but it is also involved at all levels of an organization. From the

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assembly line to executive management, ethics must play a role in routine decision making across an organization for it to be the most effective it can possibly be. Much responsibility for ethics rests at the top of the organization. Without a vision, mission, and values instilled by leaders, ethical behavior tends to languish. Ethics must be in daily discussion, reward and incentive programs, training programs, issues management, and communications. Public relations should act as the ethical conscience of the organization by including the views of publics in strategic management, but everyone in the organization must value ethics. This multipronged ethics function is what ethicists call “institutionalizing” a corporate conscience throughout the organizational culture.3 The following section will discuss how to institutionalize ethics and, subsequently, to perform the ethical conscience role by analyzing and resolving ethical dilemmas. Systems Theory Rationale for Ethics Many people new to public relations wonder how it intersects with philosophy and ethical decision making. Systems theory explains why a working knowledge of moral philosophy is an absolute must in public relations. Systems theory, similar to biological systems, was applied to society by the philosopher Luhmann to explain society as being made up of interdependent but somewhat autonomous social systems comprising the larger whole.4 An organization is a system comprised of smaller subsystems or organizational functions (see Figure 11.1). At the core of management are the areas of issues management and public relations, along with the executive management functions; that core is surrounded by other functional parts of the system, such as production, sales, and research. Public relations communicates both among the subsystems of an organization and with the external environment, comprised of consumers and other publics. Other subfunctions in a typical organization are occupied with their own areas of expertise, yet public relations, as a boundary spanner, must interact with them in collecting data, identifying potential issues or

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Disposal

Maintenance

Production

Adaptation

Management

Management: Coordinates and directs all other activities; issues management/public relations are here Adaptation: Research and development, growth areas Production: Manufacturing or service, including supply chain Maintenance: Physical surroundings, machinery, equipment Disposal: Distribution, marketing, and sales

Figure 11.1  The organizational subsystems within systems theory

problems, onboarding employees, and building organizational culture. These activities require an enormous amount of communication, listening, collaborative problem solving, and management skill. Boundary Spanning and Counseling on Ethics Public relations professionals also span the boundary of an organization in maintaining relationships with publics in the external environment. This makes the issues management and public relations function best suited to advise on ethics because the relationships maintained with publics give insight into their values, priorities, and what they need from

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the organization. Management, including the communication and issues management functions, drives and coordinates all other activities. By acting as boundary spanners, maintaining relationships with publics outside the organization and collecting information through environmental scanning, the public relations function is perfectly situated to advise on ethical matters. Understanding the values of publics with whom the organization has relationships is enormously valuable because their ethical values can be represented in strategic management. Public relations is already familiar with the strategic publics in the environment of the organization; their values, desires, priorities, and issues with the organization. The relationships public relations managers seek to build and maintain are a source of valuable input and information during ethical decision making because those publics can be consulted on issues that are important to them. No other organizational function is better suited to understand the needs and values of external publics than the communication function. The legal department, no doubt, is well versed in understanding government and regulatory publics, but will have little knowledge of the values of publics extending beyond the legislative arena. Likewise, the marketing function will be knowledgeable about the values of consumers, but will have little knowledge beyond consumers, such as the values of the communities surrounding manufacturing sites. Only public relations fills this knowledge gap in terms of systems theory. By understanding and incorporating the values of publics, more ethically inclusive, integrative, diverse, pluralistic decisions can be made. These decisions result in a greater harmony between the organization and publics over time, fewer lawsuits, fewer disgruntled publics, fewer boycotts, and can prevent an expensive loss of reputation.

Public Relations: Values Managers and Ethical Counselors Should public relations advise on ethics? The public relations professionals in a worldwide study reported the highest levels of agreement to these statements: “Ethical considerations are a vital part of executive decision-making” (mean 4.61 of 5.0) and “public relations practitioners should advise management on ethical matters” (mean 4.12 of 5.0).5

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Two distinct ethical roles were first identified by the International Association of Business Communicators (IABC) Business of Truth study.6 The first role is that of the values manager—institutionalizing ethics in organizational culture, including conducting ethics training. The second role is that of the ethical counselor, analyzing decisions for top management, while incorporating the knowledge of publics gained through boundary spanning. Ethics Role 1: Values Manager As previously reviewed, organizational culture endorses a mission and values, and upholds certain concepts above others.7 Looking at an organization, values can be assessed by examining mission statements,8 policy documents, codes of conduct, ethics statements,9 examining the statements of leaders10 and their views toward communities;11 and the use of the organization’s website as a dialogue building tool or simply as public information.12 Ethicists generally hold that an organizational culture valuing ethics is more important than individual ethical standards.13 Organizations supportive of ethical decision making institutionalize it by incorporating ethical debate; discussion and deliberation as a highly valued activity in their organizational culture.14 Building an organizational culture in which ethical debate is encouraged is ideal.15 It takes delineating the organization’s values, then discussing those values consistently so that all employees know them, encouraging the application of those values in daily operations. Requiring ethics training is also necessary, as is leaders “walk the talk” to acting ethically and modeling ethical behavior.16 Ethics training is normally conducted by the public relations function or an internal relations specialist from the public relations department. Much more detail is offered in Men and Bowen’s Excellence in Internal Communication Management.17 Ethics Role 2: Ethical Counselor to CEO and Management A second approach to ethics that public relations managers can take, in an organization, is to counsel executive management on ethical decisions.

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The public relations counselor has the relationships to know the values of her publics and can help to anticipate reactions and incorporate those views into strategic planning. Most of those who perform this role are CCOs. The CCO can discuss these issues with the CEO to advise on how ethical decisions would impact the reputation of the organization and relationships with publics and stakeholders. For this reason, scholars have argued that public relations should be the “corporate conscience.”18 A corporate conscience role goes far beyond professionalism and simple codes of ethics to deeper philosophical analyses. Ethics is essential for solving complex problems rather than in answering simple questions. Ethical paradigms are useful when there are two or more conflicting arguments of merit. If there are two or more “right” points of view, then it is time to use an ethical analysis. Which option is most congruent with the values of the organization? Training in moral philosophy is essential for ethical analysis; that training can be academic or professional. The analysis of competing values and valid arguments is a difficult, exceedingly complex pursuit. Having a CCO devoted to conducting these analyses is sometimes the only way in which a CEO can hear a counterpoint of view, because chief executives are often surrounded by “yes people:” those who offer groupthink and provide no critical analysis. The CCO must be as objective as possible in the analyses of ethical issues. Providing an objective ethical analysis to the CEO is a vital way that public relations adds value to the organization. Autonomy As an objective decision maker, the public relations professional must have a high degree of autonomy or independent decision-making authority.19 Objective autonomy requires that all the merits of each argument, from various perspectives, be considered equally, without bias. Although we know that no analysis can be purely objective, the goal of moral philosophy is to eliminate bias and strive to be as thorough as possible. Public relations professionals can further build autonomy by being proficient boundary spanners, representing themselves as an autonomous voice in strategy meetings (rather than as an advocate of the organization’s

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position), and seeking to use information collected from the environment to enrich strategy and organizational policy. Oftentimes, CCOs report that they spent years in developing an autonomous relationship with their CEOs, and that autonomy was granted gradually or only after consistently proving the credibility and accuracy of their analyses.20

Conducting Moral Analyses The merits of each perspective, from stakeholders, publics, and in the view of the organization, are considered according to moral paradigms that help to judge the best or most ethical course of action. The best action is the normative (ideal) solution that should create ethical resolution and the least resulting problems for an organization. There are essentially two major perspectives that are helpful in the analyses of ethical dilemmas, including the types of dilemmas common in public relations: utilitarianism (consequences) and deontology (principles, duties, and rights). Utilitarianism: Consequences Utilitarianism advocates a standard of what is ethical, based on how much it serves the public interest of a majority. It is based on the projected consequences of making a particular decision. The ethical is that which serves “the greater good for the greatest number” of people.21 Determining how to define “the good” can be difficult, because of the differing perspectives on what is good or what furthers “the good” for the majority. Knowledge, industriousness, kindness, liberty, and so on can be considered but utilitarians usually refer simply to “the good” in general— or creating more good outcomes than bad outcomes. Utilitarianism was created by Jeremy Bentham and refined by John Stuart Mill as a philosophy that analyzes the impact of decisions on groups of people, making it useful in public relations. However, care must be taken in implementing utilitarianism because it is easy to serve the interests of the majority and to forget the valid points of the minority, creating a disequilibrium in the system that would require a revision of the decision at a later date, costing efficiency.

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Utilitarians diverge over whether the specific decision (the act) or the general situation and past acts (the rule) should be put to the utilitarian test. The most common form of utilitarianism in public relations management is specific to the act under consideration, considering it in all its detail, including the potential consequences arising from many decision alternatives. The option to resolving an ethical dilemma that creates the most positive consequences and the least negative outcomes is considered to be the ethical option. Mill’s theory holds that the ethical decision should not result in grievous harm, such as human sacrifice, but that negative outcomes are acceptable.22 Creating decisions with the most positive outcomes or conducting a cost-benefit analysis comes naturally to most managers. Seeking to create the most good with decisions is a worthy goal. However, utilitarianism has a number of pitfalls that must be guarded against. The pitfall that is most concerning to ethicists is: Utilitarianism judges outcomes based on numbers rather than on moral principles. If numbers of people change, the utilitarian calculus would change the ultimate decision based upon the majority, rather than on changing moral values. Complexity also poses problems for utilitarianism. Christians argued that, “Practitioners usually find themselves confronting more than one moral claim at the same time, and asking only what produces ‘the most good’ is too limiting.”23 How does one decide the best course of action, if there are equal amounts of good produced?24 Utilitarianism requires the manager to be able to predict the future consequences of each possible alternative course of action. In reality, few decisions can be made in which the consequences are predicted with certainty. The dynamic interactions of publics, government regulators, communities, activist groups, stakeholders, investors, community publics, and the media make predicting the consequences of decisions complicated, if not unlikely. Carefully listening to views of various publics, small groups, and minorities, can help guard against this pitfall by minimizing the unexpected. Finally, utilitarianism holds that the majority always benefits. What if a small minority has a valid point of concern? In utilitarianism, those views are dismissed in favor of the majority or maintaining the status quo, which can create a dangerous stagnation within the organization. If guarding against these pitfalls, utilitarianism has certain benefits and can be useful for ethical analyses.

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The benefits of utilitarianism are that it can be used to arrive at a speedy conclusion, understand consequences, serve a majority, and can be helpful in quickly evolving crisis situations. Utilitarianism helps effectively weigh potential consequences of various hypothetical decision options to resolve a dilemma (see Table 11.1 for an example of this speedy analysis). Table 11.1  Utilitarian analysis, maximizing public interest and greater good consequences Option A (potentials)

Good outcome versus bad outcome

Option B (potentials)

Good outcome versus bad outcome

Option C (potentials)

Good outcome versus bad outcome

Option D (potentials)

Good outcome versus bad outcome

Best option result: weigh aggregate potentials

Most good; least bad = ethical

Utilitarianism is most useful when the consequences for the majority need to be examined; it is instrumental in philanthropy and corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives. Normally, utilitarianism as a method for analyzing ethical dilemmas serves public relations best when it is combined with another means of ethical analysis. Keeping the caveats in mind when using a utilitarian analysis can also help to be mindful of the potential oversights. A principle-based framework, discussed next, can be added to strengthen an ethical analysis. Deontology: Principles, Duties, and Rights Deontology is based on moral principles as opposed to consequences. Consequences are but one consideration among many in a deontological approach. This paradigm places duty, principles, and rights as “the good” that should be taken into account in order to make a decision ethical. Those concepts are intrinsically good, meaning good in themselves apart from any consequences. Moral principles are the underlying values that guide decisions: beliefs that are generally held to be true or good. Examples could be: the sacredness of life, justice, accountability, dignity, liberty, honesty, and peace. Most rational people across various societies, time, and cultures hold that those principles are morally good. Deontology seeks to eliminate

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capricious decisions by minimizing bias and holding to standards that have a universal acceptance as right or good. Determining moral principles when conflicting perspectives are present is never easy. Deontology is a demanding form of moral analysis, requiring much information, analyses, time, and autonomy to thoroughly consider numerous competing perspectives. Deontology requires familiarity with the philosophy in order to implement the three tests that deontologists consistently apply. Another constraint of this perspective is that it requires a great deal of research, time to assemble and analyze data, and the ability to place oneself in numerous positions to understand perspectives from outside the organization. However, these seeming drawbacks are also strengths because deontology results in analytical, rigorous, and enduring moral analyses free of bias and inclusive in nature. Deontology was created by the eighteenth-century philosopher Immanuel Kant (1724–1804), who used the virtue ethics of Aristotle to create a more concrete decision-making paradigm. Argued to be one of the most influential philosophers in history, Kant imbued his philosophy with a sense of duty that is supposed to govern all moral decisions.25 A characteristic named moral autonomy means that all rational human beings are equally able to reason through the duty of their decisions; therefore, all rational beings are equal. Kant views equality as ethical. Equality also means that everyone is equally obligated with the duty of making moral decisions. Under that equal obligation, Kant posed three decision tests that he called the categorical imperative. These three decision tests are used to test options to determine whether they maintain moral principle for those involved, including stakeholders and publics. Kant’s Categorical Imperative Decisions must meet the standard of all three of the tests of the categorical imperative before they can be said to be ethical. Table 11.2 presents a summary of the three decision tests or standards to be applied in a deontological analysis. A situation may have numerous alternatives to resolving an ethical dilemma; those options can be put through the three tests to reveal any ethical flaws. It is not unusual for a new option to emerge after testing others with the three forms of the categorical imperative.

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Table 11.2  Deontology’s three decision tests of the categorical imperative, obligating all people equally # Test

Principle

1

Could you will the decision to become universal law? That is, could you obligate everyone else to always do the same thing you are considering, even if you were on the receiving end?

Universal Duty

2

Does the decision maintain the dignity and respect of publics, without “using” anyone simply to accomplish organizational goals?

Humanity

3

Is the decision made from a basis of good intention?

Good Will

The first form of the categorical imperative tests universal duty: it reads, “Act only on that maxim through which you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law.”26 This form of the categorical imperative asks if we could accept the same universal standards as would be applied to all others, for all time. If we could be on the receiving end of a decision, and still believe that it is ethical then it may be ­because it “leaves little room for subjective interpretation or self-interested ­decisions.”27 Honesty, fairness, freedom, life, human rights, respect, and safety are examples of universal moral principles. Ask: What universal principle is at the very basis of this issue? Kant’s second decision-making test, formula two of the categorical imperative, humanity, commands dignity and respect. Kant obligates decision makers to respect themselves, their organizations, as well as all other human beings. If the decision does not maintain the dignity and respect of the involved publics and stakeholder, then it is not ethical. Because an organization may have dozens of stakeholders and publics affected by a decision, this test requires the analytical ability to consider multiple points of view on a proposed action. A stakeholder map, a good deal of formative research, and discussions with leaders both inside and outside the organization are useful. Conduct research, talk with involved publics and stakeholders, consider the issue from the perspectives of numerous vantage points.

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Formula three of Kant’s categorical imperative, good will, tests the intention behind making a decision. Kant wrote, “If our conduct as free agents is to have moral goodness, it must proceed solely from a good will.”28 Good intention is the only morally worthy basis for decision making in the Kantian view because it maintains autonomy and duty and prevents people from being used simply as a means to achieving an end.29 It is incorruptible and requires us to proceed out of good intent rather than from a basis of selfishness, greed, opportunism, exploitation, avarice, deception, falsity, and so on. A manager could ask: “Are we proceeding with this decision because it is the right thing to do?” To be considered ethical, all three tests of the categorical imperative must be answered affirmatively. Kant’s test is considered the most rigorous standard in moral philosophy. It requires a great deal of research and analytical ability, yet is worth the effort. Once you have put potential decisions through these three tests, you can be certain that a decision with an affirmative answer on all three tests is ethical. A decision that passes two tests may be reworked, but it indicates progress. Once all three tests of the categorical imperative are passed, an organization can proceed with confidence in knowing its action is ethical. Analytical: Room for Disagreement A decision may be deemed ethical when it is arrived at through the use of a deontological framework. Deontology allows the most comprehensive, systematic, and thorough means of making difficult decisions.30 Yet, publics may still disagree with the decision or policy because of differences in their priorities or values. Decisions made using deontology have the benefit of being analytical and they can be explained to stakeholders and publics. Some may agree to disagree. The dignity and respect of listening to publics may result in better relationships overall. Therefore, ethical dilemmas resolved through a deontological paradigm are defensible, because they are analytical and made without selfishness. The defensibility arises from using a rational paradigm that does not privilege the organization alone, so the publics can see their view was thoroughly considered.

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Conclusion: Normative Ethics Deontology should always be used as the means of ethical analysis because it offers the most robust test. It is the gold standard, offering both a normative and practical approach. Arriving at ideal (normative) solutions to complex problems in public relations can often benefit from the use of both utilitarian and deontological analyses when public interest or consequences are central. Utilitarian analysis is good at finding public interest and majority benefits, and these can aid a decision. Yet a deontological analysis is a far more powerful, sophisticated or nuanced, and thorough approach, and should always be used as the first step and final word in ethical decision making. With the required knowledge of how to implement the categorical imperative tests, one reveals an organization’s moral responsibility to the greater principles involved, including universal duty, dignity and respect for multiple stakeholders and publics, and good will.

Case Study Leadership and Ethics at Home Depot31 Change often begins in turmoil or crisis, as you can see in a decade of transition at Home Depot (HD). After months of pressure from shareholders, HD’s board of directors ousted high-profile CEO Robert Nardelli in 2007 and replaced him with a much less visible executive named Frank Blake. Though both Nardelli and Blake had joined HD from General Electric, they were extremely different leaders. Nardelli was a tough, authoritarian, Theory X manager who had shunned much of the organizational culture of HD, including its founders, Arthur Blank and Bernard Marcus. Blake decided to reconnect HD to its values. Whereas Nardelli and his team had catered lunches on the top floor, Blake instructed the senior executives to eat in the cafeteria with everyone else, and to pay for it themselves. He asked Blank and Marcus to serve as advisers as HD worked to reconnect with its customers. Blake based his communication platform on two images, one called “the Value Wheel” showing the ethical values that drive HD (see Figure 11.2). The other image was “the Inverted Pyramid” showing an ethical leadership style with the CEO at the bottom of the structure (see Figure 11.3).

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Figure 11.2  Home Depot’s value wheel Source: Used with permission of Home Depot, Inc. 2009. The Value Wheel and the Inverted Pyramid. Personal communication. Taken from presentation made by Brad Shaw

Customers Front-Line Associates Field Support Corporate Support CEO

Figure 11.3  Home Depot’s inverted pyramid Source: Used with permission of Home Depot, Inc. 2009. The Value Wheel and the Inverted Pyramid. Personal communication. Taken from presentation made by Brad Shaw.

Blake began showing the Value Wheel and Inverted Pyramid on his first day as CEO. The wheel portrayed core values and offered them for discussion, placing ethics at the center of all decisions at HD. The

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Inverted Pyramid emphasized the company’s most important objective: servant leadership focused on customers and the frontline associates who directly served them. Deontological ethical values are prevalent in HD’s values wheel, as seen in doing the right thing based on principle, respect, relationships, service, spirit, and the intention to take care of people. Utilitarianism is seen in creating shareholder value and giving back. Blake’s strategic decisions included reinvesting in frontline service and outreach to employees. To reach all associates, Blake decided to use a 1-minute online forum each month to present a brief message to all 300,000 frontline associates. He also asked employees to offer suggestions on how to improve the company. Even though headquarters received from 300 to 400 of these ideas each week, Blake read them all. HD’s CCO during Blake’s tenure, Brad Shaw, explained: “We’ve taken our frontline associates and given them ongoing access to the CEO.” Shaw maintained that the message conveyed by the CEO’s action is really quite simple. “You have to listen to your people,” he said. “The days of centralized top–down communication are over. It’s a two-way communication process.”32 When the CEO is reading the company suggestion box and spending time with frontline employees, other executives tend to follow the example. “What we’re finding is that when Frank asks a question about a comment he read in the In Box, other executives want to be prepared with answers, so they’re paying closer attention to the comments themselves,” said Shaw. In declaring the importance of the frontline employees, HD backed its words with action. As CEO, Blake demonstrated the servant leadership style, facilitating the success of others. Blake retired from the CEO role in 2014. By 2018, HD’s share price had more than quadrupled since the ouster of Nardelli. Craig Menear, who succeeded Blake as CEO, remained committed to the principles that Blake reestablished during his time as CEO and leads by example. Menear said: “Our culture is the greatest gift we received from our founders, and I truly believe it’s a competitive advantage in the market.”33 As CEO, Menear sticks with the principles responsible for HD’s turnaround: ethics and servant leadership. As he explained,

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Our culture is represented by these two powerful symbols: our Values Wheel, which guides the decisions that we make in our business; and our Inverted Pyramid, who defines who’s most important in our business: our customers and our frontline associates.33 Stephen Holmes, the current CCO, noted, “I see it every day through our leadership, that cascades throughout our organization, through our values. It’s not only the everyday, but at times it is very intentional, to intentionally invoke our values in taking care of associates.”34 Holmes meets with the CEO and advises him consistently, and ethics comes up frequently. Holmes noted that Menear is most enthusiastic whenever he visits a HD store, and is careful to seek feedback directly from the frontline. Holmes said that at headquarters, the servant leadership model is prevalent: “We are at the bottom of the pyramid and ask how can we better support the stores, the online distribution centers, our supply chain, ship-to-store, and direct shipping to consumers?”35 When asked how ethics dramatically changed operations, Holmes offered a poignant example: In 2018, when we had tax reform, it brought in a lot of money for us. We decided immediately to pay out one-time bonuses to our hourly associates, the folks on the front line. A thousand dollars in bonus for each associate goes a long way toward taking care of our people. That is a true use of our values wheel and inverted pyramid. Holmes added that success sharing has been constant since the founding of the company 40 years ago. The change in culture, values, and servant leadership is continuing to succeed. HD, comparatively by size, is a more profitable organization in 2018 than the giant Amazon.36 What Can Be Learned from the Home Depot Case? Home Depot demonstrates that organizational values and culture make a tremendous difference in profitability, employee retention, job

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satisfaction, and good relationships with stakeholders and consumer publics. The HD’s example demonstrates the power of the chief executive officer communicating with employees to facilitate success as a servant leader. It also illustrates the CCO as servant leader, and values manager. An ethical approach of values-based communication and servant leadership are clearly achieving desirable results and offering a competitive advantage in the marketplace.

Chapter Summary In this chapter, a systems theory rationale was used to explain the ­importance of public relations as a boundary spanner who can counsel the dominant coalition on ethics and the ethical values of publics and ­stakeholders. Ideally, the public relations professional should be a leader who can represent the views of publics in strategic decision making. ­Research on the two primary ethics roles of: (a) institutionalizing values; and (b) ethical counselor to management, were discussed, highlighting the importance of ethical leadership and values in an organization’s culture. The moral frameworks of both utilitarianism and deontology were offered as means of conducting ethical analyses. Utilitarian analysis advises focusing on the outcomes and effect of potential decisions to maximize good outcomes for a majority and minimize bad outcomes. Deontology offers three tests through which to analyze decision options: universal duty, dignity and respect, and good intention. Deontology is the strongest decision-making test available. The categorical imperative offers an ethical resolution that is defensible, rational, lacks selfishness, is enduring and inclusive, and can be explained to stakeholders and publics. The HD case was offered as an example of ethical (servant) leadership and a deontological organizational culture, based on principle, represented in the values wheel. The financial success of the HD illustrates that ethics can offer a competitive advantage to help an organization achieve its goals and build strong and enduring relationships.

CHAPTER 12

Organizational Effectiveness: Excellence in Public Relations Management How do we define and measure excellence in public relations management? Studying the factors of excellence allow one to know how to help organizations achieve their goals and be the most effective they can be, as well as the best way in which public relations should be conducted.

Effectiveness and Excellence Organizational effectiveness is achieved when any type of organization becomes efficient at accomplishing its goals and mission. Organizational effectiveness can be defined in two ways: (1) the strategic constituencies perspective, or (2) the goal attainment perspective. In the strategic constituencies’ perspective, groups who have influence over the organization are (to varying degrees) satisfied with that organization. Constituencies such as consumers or regulatory agencies have the power to decide whether the organization thrives or fails. When those constituencies are satisfied, an organization thrives. In the goal attainment perspective, an organization sets clear measurable goals, such as rankings, market share, or sales figures. The organization has accomplished its goals when the figures match or exceed the stated goals. An ineffective organization is termed as one with “competing values” in which “the organization is unclear about its own emphases” or criteria for success.1 Organizational effectiveness involves the entire organization,

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not only communication. However, communication is an important part of helping the firm maximize organizational effectiveness. Grunig and a team of researchers studied the question of effectiveness in the International Association of Business Communicators (IABC) Excellence Study, that distilled (through quantitative and qualitative research) the most important variables for public relations in contributing to organizational effectiveness. Remarkably, the variables that emerged did not vary across cultures or national boundaries, or by size of organization, or industry; therefore, they were termed generic principles of excellence. The Excellence Study team identified 10 generic principles of excellence in public relations, as seen in Table 12.1. Table 12.1  The 10 generic principles of excellence in public relations that are stable across organizations, cultures, and varying situations #

Generic Principles of Excellence in Public Relations

1.

Involvement of public relations in strategic management

2.

Empowerment of public relations in the dominant coalition; a direct reporting relationship to the CEO

3.

Integrated public relations function

4.

Public relations as a management function, separate from other functions

5.

Public relations unit headed by a manager rather than a technician

6.

Two-way symmetrical (or mixed-motive) model of public relations

7.

Department with the knowledge needed to practice the managerial role in symmetrical public relations

8.

Symmetrical system of internal communication

9.

Diversity embodied in all roles2

--

And the team later added the last principle, that has now been well researched as an addition to the theory:

10.

Ethics and integrity3

The more of these 10 generic principles that are present in a public relations function, the more excellent that function should be. Another important consideration is that the CEO must be aware of the contributions that public relations and communication in general can make toward the effectiveness of the overall organization.



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Explaining the Generic Principles of Excellence Here is an overview of why each of the 10 generic principles of public relations contributes to organizational effectiveness: 1. The involvement of public relations in the strategic management function allows for more inclusive decision making, better organizational policy from the perspectives of publics, and more enduring decisions. Higher levels of satisfaction with the relationship are reported by publics who were taken into consideration by an organization in its decision making. 2. The public relations function must be empowered to report directly to the CEO in order to advise on matters involving publics, values, and ethical decision making. She is probably aware of how reputation can impact the bottom line of the organization, and that reputation can be enhanced and protected by the public relations function; yet, achieving and retaining a place in the dominant coalition is not automatic and must be earned. 3. An integrated public relations function has access to and influence in all levels and functions of the organization. It is not isolated and not encroached upon by marketing, legal, or other functions; it has autonomy. 4. It is important for public relations to be a separate management function to prevent encroachment by marketing or legal departments into the responsibilities of communication management. When encroachment occurs, smaller publics can be ignored in organizational decision making. 5. The public relations unit should always be headed by a manager, rather than a technician, someone who is adept in the technical skills or writing. Without a manager in charge of the public relations function, it is likely to be pigeonholed as media relations rather than seen as a true management function. Managers have the research knowledge necessary to collect information, facilitate conflict resolution, engage in issues management, resolve ethical dilemmas, and to manage the staff of the public relations department.

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6. It is important to use the two-way symmetrical model because a dialogue-based approach has been shown more effective than any other in resolving conflicts, preventing problems, and to building and maintaining relationships with publics. 7. An excellent public relations department has the knowledge necessary to manage public relations symmetrically—it can conduct advanced research to understand publics, and it can engage in negotiation and integrative problem solving. 8. Dialogue-based systems of internal communication are important for building employee engagement, teamwork, morale, feedback, job satisfaction, and decreasing employee turnover. Internal research also allows issues managers to identify problems early so that they can be resolved before escalation into a crisis. 9. It is important for public relations departments to have diverse professionals (managers) in all roles of the function so that decisions and communications will include varying viewpoints. Inclusivity breeds excellence, lessening missteps by management created by excluding the views of some publics.4 10. The excellence researchers added ethics and integrity as important considerations 4 years after the publication of the Excellence Study, remarking that ethics is important enough to be a stand-alone principle of excellence; modern research also has a high focus on ethics and trust.5 Bowen’s research found that ethics was included in the decision making of the most successful organizations issues management, leading to higher levels of organizational effectiveness when ethics is planned, trained, and instilled throughout the organization through action and institutionalization.6 She elaborated on ethics as the tenth generic principle of public relations by building a deontological framework for analyses, and indicated that the rational analysis of ethical dilemmas could be the most important facilitator of organizational effectiveness.7 The ethics found in issues management was highly deontological, and resulted in a principle-based model of ethics for use in real-world public relations.8 These principles of excellence can be used to help organizations and clients to be their most effective selves. Additionally, knowing and using them



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will also help to advance your own career in communication.9 The excellence study has shown that these generic principles of excellence apply to any type of organization, size of pursuit, any industry, and across cultures.

Ethics and Relationship Management Trust is at an all-time low across nations and types of institutions, from business to government. Building trust is a central theme in the future development of public relations. Ethics lies at the center of building trust between organizations and stakeholder publics.10 Additionally, ethical training for communication professionals is in high demand in the field and in academic majors. Trust is a key component of relationship management in which scholars examine facets of organization-publics relationships (OPR).11 The variables of OPR include: • Ethics: must be present before a relationship can be built, enhances credibility over time and allows the eventual formation of trust.10 • Trust: each party in the relationship believes that the other will act with good will and protect their interests. • Commitment: each party wishes to continue the relationship and work to resolve differences. • Satisfaction: each party feels the return on investment garnered from the relationship is worthwhile and wishes to continue relating. • Control Mutuality: each party holds some influence over what happens in the relationship and decisions of the other.12 The variables of OPR are reliable and valid across varying situations; they have been studied extensively by scholars. Although relationships are dynamic and cannot simply be “managed,” these variables allow a means to test and refine relationships. Using OPR, one can manage relationships by strategically planning improvement efforts with key publics using these variables to understand, contextualize, and plan efforts for improvement. Ethics is a central part of OPR because it must be present before relationships can be created, be present to earn trust, and as a part of positive relationship outcomes.13 Ethics can enhance relationships by creating longer term and more enduring decisions that are inclusive of the interests

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of diverse publics and stakeholders. Ethics can help to foster employee engagement by giving internal stakeholders voice, enhancing teamwork, creating organizational citizenship, fostering a warm communication climate, and lowering costly employee turnover.14 Among leaders, ethics can be used to demonstrate commitment to ethical action and result in the institutionalization of ethics throughout an organization’s culture. Strategic management is strategic because it is based on research, and that research includes ethical analysis to offer views from numerous vantage points outside that of the organization alone. When ethics become the foundation of decisions, management becomes consistent and can meet expectations, building trust among publics and stakeholders. That trust is a valuable asset to the organization because research shows that publics and stakeholders give an organization they trust the benefit of the doubt in times of turbulence, problematic issues, or crises. Trust offers valuable time to manage issues and crises. In these instances, publics and stakeholders can then become “ambassadors” for the organization. Employing ethics as both a precursor to relationships as well as a positive relationship outcome allows public relations to contribute to organizational effectiveness. Starting and ending with ethics allows public relations to contribute to strategic management, enables organizations to establish strong relationships, which in turn offers a competitive advantage, and permits organizations to fulfill an ethically responsible role in society.15 Ethical public relations management is enduring, relationship focused, research and analysis based, and truly strategic management. In conclusion, excellent or effective public relations management should start with ethics as a precursor to relationships and end with ethics as a normative and positive outcome contributing to moral and social responsibility. Two divergent cases that each represent different aspects of public relations theory conclude this chapter.

Case Studies Best Practices: Entergy’s Survival of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita16 This historical disaster case offers a good opportunity to observe the generic principles of public relations excellence in action.



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Entergy is a large-scale utility provider along the Gulf Coast of the United States. Entergy weathered the two worst hurricanes in the company’s history within the same 26-day period in 2005: hurricanes Katrina and Rita. Both hurricanes were Category 3 at landfall with Katrina bringing vast flooding and sustained 175 mph winds. It was devastation without precedent. The one-two punch of these powerful storms devastated the region served by Entergy. Almost two million homes and businesses lost power. Dozens of Entergy power generation plants were forced to close, and thousands of miles of transmission and distribution lines were down. In all, more than 1,700 structures and 28,892 utility poles were destroyed or damaged by the storms. For the communication team at Entergy, the crises caused by Katrina and Rita were more severe than any they had ever experienced. The pressure was intense to communicate quickly with Entergy employees, customers, communities, and businesses that relied on the service for the delivery of emergency aid. To add to this pressure, members of the communication team had personally suffered losses in the storms. While they grappled with how to get their jobs done, they were also trying to cope with the loss of their own homes, transportation barriers, and the impact that the hurricanes had caused in their own personal lives. Arthur Wiese, Jr., Entergy’s vice president of corporate communications, noted that “Major storms are more than just an operational crisis for a utility company. They also pose communications hurdles, directly impacting corporate reputation and the company’s relationship with its employees, its shareholders, and its customers.”16 In Entergy’s headquarters city, New Orleans, the damage was catastrophic. Thousands of people were dead or missing; tens of thousands were homeless. Electrical power was virtually nonexistent; the gas distribution system was inundated with corrosive saltwater; 1,500 displaced Entergy employees were scattered across the nation—from Los Angeles to Boston—after the company’s evacuation on August 27. It was hard to know where to begin restoration work. In the hours after the winds subsided and the scope of the damage became clear, Entergy faced multiple challenges. The company had to assemble the largest restoration workforce in its history to begin repairing

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the worst damage it ever incurred. Entergy had to address the logistical needs of its workers, providing a constant supply of food, water, and medication. It had to find shelter for the workforce, many of whom had their lost homes. Entergy improvised a system to pay workers and to communicate with them in the absence of cell service, computers, and other traditional channels. In addition to meeting these basic human needs, Entergy needed to continue to manage its business, despite the fact that its corporate headquarters was shut down and inaccessible. The communication team began preparing for Katrina before the storm hit. As Katrina was heading toward New Orleans, Entergy activated its command center in Jackson, Mississippi, and moved a multidisciplinary team there 2 days before Katrina made landfall. The command structure included additional transmission centers in Jackson and New Orleans, and distribution operations centers at utility operations in Louisiana, Mississippi, Texas, and Arkansas. Personnel began coordinating preparation efforts, recruiting outside restoration help through mutual assistance agreements with other utilities, and lined up safe staging areas for materials and crews. Additionally, customers as well as crews in the projected impact zone were put on alert, and arrangements were made to support the lodging of crews during restoration. Entergy used issues management to learn valuable information from the aftermath of Hurricane Ivan that had occurred the previous year. Hurricane Ivan forced Entergy to mount a full-company evacuation, which had never been done before. Ivan demonstrated the limits on the company’s ability to provide evacuation lodging, which many employees had been expecting. Confusion abounded. Through analyzing these issues, Entergy learned to prioritize clear employee communication about the company and individual responsibilities in a catastrophe. Entergy assembled a cross-functional issues management team to address the lessons learned from the Ivan evacuation procedures. The team found several areas that posed problems for the company. The past practice of individual business units independently implementing evacuation policies resulted in chaos, including internal competition for lodging. And, planners did not fully appreciate the potential danger of a major hurricane, since the area had not experienced a direct strike in decades.



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The communications team targeted these areas of confusion and ­implemented a new plan. The goal was to educate employees on new evacuation policies and procedures and to provide them with information to help prepare. This approach emphasized the severity of the danger posed by a major hurricane and the need to plan ahead. Entergy explained why it was implementing more consistent storm policies, and how these changes would help implement the storm restoration plan for customers. Communication began with supervisors, who were sent talking points. They were invited to attend a webcast that provided an overview of the changes and an opportunity to ask questions and offer input. These supervisors were asked to meet with their employees within 2 weeks to discuss these changes and to distribute a communications packet outlining new procedures. The communication team also developed a new website titled “IEStormNet.” This website was designed to communicate important information before, during, and after a disaster. It was made available to both employees as well as their families; and flyers were distributed that highlighted the information available through the site. Ivan had demonstrated how difficult it would be for Entergy to restore service quickly and the company wanted customers to better understand the challenges it would face in getting them back online. Entergy released communications to help customers better appreciate the challenges it would face in restoring service in the event of a major storm. Although Ivan was bad, the company had no idea how catastrophic the 2005 hurricane season would be. On August 29, Katrina made landfall near New Orleans. Approximately 1,500 Entergy employees were forced to evacuate. They were scattered and hard to reach: cell phone circuits were overloaded, and conventional telephone service was destroyed. Entergy had to use other methods to locate, mobilize, and inform the large restoration workforce. CEO J. Wayne Leonard sent out daily e-mails to over 14,000 employees, including those unaffected by the ­Katrina. An employee information line was kept up to date with recorded messages and detailed information. The recently created IEStormNet produced daily online newsletters, which were also printed and distributed at crew staging sites. Entergy posted toll free numbers on its website and

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broadcast public service announcements on the radio asking employees to call in for information. Maintaining employee morale during the restoration process was a major objective. Many employees had dead or missing family members and friends. Their homes and possessions were damaged or destroyed by the winds and floods. These same men and women were being asked to work 18-hour shifts in hot, humid conditions, surrounded by tragedy and devastation. Slowly, conditions for the restoration force began to improve. By September 7, Entergy had tent cities in seven locations throughout Louisiana and Mississippi equipped with cots, food, water, and medical supplies for all of its workers. Entergy CEO Leonard posted letters on IEStormNet and asked for supervisors to deliver them to crews at campsites and even in remote areas where they were working. These letters focused on the progress of the restoration efforts. Just days after Katrina hit, Leonard expressed ethical leadership by writing, “Please work safely and know that this organization of caring people is working night and day to help you pull your life back together.”17 Days after Katrina, Entergy established the Power of Hope Fund, which aimed to help employees and customers rebuild their lives after the storms, with an initial corporate investment of one million dollars. To  spread news of the Power of Hope Fund, Entergy embarked on a 2-week media campaign and spread the word via television, radio, print, and the internet. The fund received over $4 million in donations from around the world. Entergy also established Operation ReSTORE Hope. This project had both distribution centers and a virtual store where people could donate clothes, furniture, and household supplies for employees. Entergy employee volunteers and retirees, acting as goodwill ambassadors, staffed the distribution centers. These centers benefited more than 2,000 employees who had been affected by the hurricanes. Entergy provided redeployment coordinators in each major hub where displaced employees and their families would be relocating. Coordinators helped displaced employees and their families make the transition to new work locations. They helped to provide information on schools, neighborhoods, churches, local services, and resources available in the area.



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Only 26 days after Katrina, unimaginable tragedy struck. Just as restoration was beginning to take hold, Hurricane Rita made landfall on September 24 on the Texas–Louisiana border. Hurricane Rita caused even greater damage to Entergy’s transmission system than Katrina, severing the ties between generating plants and ­customers, and plunging the area from Conroe, Texas, to Jennings, ­Louisiana, into darkness. Over 400 substations were knocked out of ­service. Rita brought damaging winds to the territory of all five utility subsidiaries in the Entergy system and interrupted service to over 750,000 customers. This second storm further complicated Entergy’s efforts to ­restore service to customers, care for the human needs of its employees, and maintain its viability as a public company. Throughout the restoration after Katrina and Rita, Entergy made every effort to maintain a mutually beneficial relationship with media. Conducting media relations effectively was critical to winning the support of publics, governmental officials, and Wall Street. Through issues management, Entergy knew that symmetrical public relations would help shape those relationships. Those relationships evaluated the firm in large measure by how well Entergy took care of its employees and customers. Clarity was central. All Entergy spokespersons, including the 45 communicators in its corporate communications department who were working on the storm restoration effort, were provided the same sets of talking points up to four times a day to keep them informed. Entergy issued over 50 news releases and held multiple news conferences and media conference calls throughout the restoration. The public relations function was empowered to launch an enormous effort. It produced and managed over 40,000 radio, 15,000 television, and 700 newspaper advertisements. They participated in more than 300 conference calls or meetings and held dozens of coordination calls of its own to ensure the proper coordination of all messages being dispersed, both internally and externally.18 Reporters were looking for complete access and unique story angles regarding Entergy’s restoration process. The media had been highly critical of the government’s response to Katrina at the federal, state, and local levels. Entergy thus had to deal honestly with individuals who were already skeptical of how the situation was being managed.

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Using a symmetrical strategy, Entergy opened its doors to the media. The company discussed its story with reporters and did virtually every interview that was requested. Entergy invited reporters to tour the command center and to visit crews in the field (many did). When Entergy used helicopters to assess the damage, a seat was usually reserved for a photographer or journalist. Such relationship management affected how the public and the government perceived Energy’s restoration efforts by making available a steady flow of information. The resulting media often boosted employee moral by projecting Entergy’s workers as heroes. Entergy’s issues management team drew a number of lessons from the Katrina and Rita restoration that have aided in the further development of its disaster response protocol. The company better understands that employees are its most important public, surpassing even c­ ustomers. ­If  employees do not perform, company messages to other publics are diminished, and power does not reach customers. Entergy also learned that it must anticipate significant emotional strain among employees when they are faced with difficult personal impact. Entergy was reminded of the importance of having efficient and detailed operational, communication, and business continuity plans. Frequent drills are necessary to test these plans. When a hurricane approaches, communicators must reach a preestablished command center quickly. Entergy also learned how important it was to create its own options for evacuations, and not rely solely on government. In reacting to the approach of Katrina, Entergy got a head start in relocating its hurricane command center—and ultimately its whole headquarters—to Jackson, Mississippi. This decision proved to be pivotal in allowing the restoration process to begin as quickly and effectively as possible. Entergy also learned the value of having optional backup communication channels, such as IEStormNet. When conventional communication systems were down, this internal website helped Entergy and its employees communicate much more effectively. Entergy sought to maintain credibility, responsibility, and a consistent voice of caring for employees and customers across all communications. The ethical voice of leadership was important in maintaining trust.



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Finally, the company learned that ethics and issues management should take central roles in planning. By using ethical and symmetrical relationship management strategies, such as opening its doors to the media, and demonstrating the tangible steps it was taking with both employees and customers, Entergy was able to restore trust that had been damaged in the immediate aftermath of the storm. The focus on ethics, relationships, the accessibility of key executives, and the recognition that its employees were the most critical public for communication all enabled Entergy to emerge from the chaos of Katrina and Rita and regain its footing as a profitable and effective organization. Issues Management Case: Labor Relations at UPS19 Public relations can truly mean the difference between life and death for an organization, or the difference between profitability and failure. This case illustrates that issues management could have prevented the losses encountered by United Parcel Service (UPS). Being the world’s largest transportation and logistics company, UPS, best known for parcel delivery, faced a difficult set of challenges in 1997. It serves 220 countries and delivered more than 5.1 billion packages—20 million packages a day—in 2017. The company achieved $66 billion in 2017 revenues; it has over 9 million customer contacts per day. It is the second largest employer in the United States with 454,000 employees and 1,800 global distribution centers. In 1997, UPS was a privately held company. The public relations department was small, with only 10 management employees and a limited budget of $5 million in the United States. Negotiations with the International Brotherhood of Teamsters (the Teamsters’ union), began in January 1997, even though the existing contract did not expire until 12:01 a.m. on August 1, 1997. UPS is the largest employer of Teamsters in the country, with 225,000 members. The president of the Teamsters, Ron Carey, a former UPS driver from New York City, who—according to many accounts—had left the company with a profound dislike for UPS. Carey won reelection as president of the Teamsters in 1996—an election that resulted in an investigation of allegations of Carey’s illegal fund-raising and kickbacks.

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At the start of negotiations, the primary issues focused on traditional areas such as wages and health and retirement benefits. But two other areas proved to be far more important: the creation of a higher percentage of full-time jobs (over part-time jobs), and control of the pensions for union employees. Negotiations deteriorated and culminated with the Teamsters rejecting UPS’s final contract offer on July 30. At that point, federal mediators intervened; negotiations continued through August 3. As the talks concluded at the end of the day, the union indicated it would return to the table the next day. Without warning, the Teamsters union announced to its members that evening that it would go on strike. UPS, it appeared had not to been doing strategic listening and was caught completely off guard. Carey held a press conference and launched a media blitz with a well-coordinated campaign using television, radio, print, and Internet. UPS operations were affected in 1,800+ locations and generated concordant media interest. UPS was caught unprepared for the onslaught: The public relations office received more than 20,000 phone calls during the strike. According to Ken Sternad, the CCO at the time, “We got slaughtered in the press.”19 In Sternad’s view, “The Teamsters stayed in control of the message and it worked for them.” They effectively engaged third-party experts and made effective use of the Internet. The strike lasted 15 days and had a severe impact on U.S. and global commerce, costing UPS $750 million in lost revenue and expenses. Consumer ire rose at packages stopped in warehouses. UPS had a crisis communications plan in place to use in the event of a strike. But the company acknowledges that they could have done a better job of handling the communication before and during the strike. Sternad explained, “We had essentially no communications in the first 24 hours. We had not adequately tested our messages. We just didn’t have the proper resources aligned to manage the crisis.” The lack of rapid response was devastating. UPS learned how to prepare for future crises from the experience. Sternad again noted, “The real work begins before the crisis hits. The PR team must make decisions for the long-term and stay focused on priorities. That is why advance research is so critical.”



ORGANIZATIONAL EFFECTIVENESS

151

In conclusion, President Carey of the Teamsters was removed from office, expelled from the union, and banned from participating in labor activities for life as a result of his involvement with election irregularities. The Teamsters controlled the pension plan after the strike, but its financial viability eroded. It cost UPS six billion dollars to later exit the failing union plan and cover its liabilities, compared to a fraction of that amount it would have cost them if they had won the pension plan in 1997. Though UPS lost money and failed to use issues management, or proactive problem solving, strategic listening, and relationship management in the battle, the story ends with a rebound. Following the resolution of the strike, UPS saw its strongest growth and most profitable years. In 1999, UPS became a publicly traded company through a large initial public offering (IPO) of stock. In 2000, UPS was named by Forbes as its “Company of the Year.” Although UPS ultimately overcame the setbacks it had incurred from the strike, it would have been much more profitable and effective by avoiding the strike. The case demonstrates the importance of issues management (proactive problem prevention and forecasting through systematic listening), and developing and maintaining relationships with stakeholders, employees, and leaders. The more successful an organization is, the more vulnerable it is to disruption—this is when excellent public relations makes the difference.

Chapter Summary This chapter reviewed the core knowledge of what it takes to make public relations the best that it can be by contributing to organizational effectiveness. The 10 principles of excellence reviewed in this chapter are said to be “generic” because they apply across cultures, industries, types of organizations, and sizes of pursuit. The more of these factors that an organization has, the more effective its public relations function should be. Ethics was added after the original excellence study but has been well researched as the foundation of building trust, as well as an outcome for building positive OPRs. Ethical rectitude, analyses, and actions should not only start the strategic management of communication as a relationship precursor, but also be an outcome of excellent public relations.

Notes Chapter 1 1. Rutherford (2018). Case based on interviews with Linda Rutherford and documents provided by Southwest Airlines (personal communications, September, 2018 and October, 2018). 2. https://www.swamedia.com/releases/release-de080387b716f7f68a21d1f86491d2a4-initial-statement-southwest-airlines-flight-1380

Chapter 2 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9.

Grunig and Hunt (1984, p. 4). Emphasis in original. Heath and Bowen (2002). Zerfass et al. (2018, p. 46). Grunig, Grunig, and Dozier (2002, p. 2). Public Relations Society of America (2018). Bowen et al. (2006). Frandsen and Johansen (2017, p. 1). Zerfass et al. (2011). Pritchard and Smith (2015); Men and Bowen (2017).

Chapter 3 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11.

Bowen (2016a). Grunig and Hunt (1984). Cutlip (1995). Grunig and Hunt (1984, p. 28). Grunig and Hunt (1984, p. 29). Grunig and Hunt (1984, p. 32). Hiebert (1966, p. 54). Grunig and Hunt (1984). Grunig (2001). Hutton (1999). Bowen (2010a).

154 NOTES

12. 13. 14. 15.

Pritchard and Smith (2015). Stacks and Bowen (2013). DiStaso, Michaelson, and Gilfeather (2018). Men and Bowen (2017).

Chapter 4 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19.

Cutlip, Center, and Broom (2006). Bowen and Erzikova (2013). Commission on Public Relations Education (2017). Bowen (2006). Dozier and Broom (1995, pp. 3–26). Grunig, Grunig, and Dozier (2002). Bolton, Stacks, and Mizrachi (2018). Berger and Reber (2006); Harrison and Mülhberg (2014). Bowen et al. (2006). Bowen (2009c). Bowen (2009c). Harrison and Mülhberg (2014); Bowen (2009c). Bowen et al. (2006). Bowen (2003) and Bowen (2009a). Men and Bowen (2017). Arthur W. Page Society (2007, pp. 29–30). Bowen (2015b). Harrison and Mülhberg (2014). Bowen, Hardage, and Strong (2018).

Chapter 5 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10.

Grunig (1992). Duhaime, Stimpert, and Chesley (2012, p. 1). Hambrick (1981, pp. 253–76). Saunders (1981, pp. 431–42). Bowen (2004b). Sims and Brinkman (2003). Grunig (1992b, p. 469). Bowen (2015a). Bowen, Hardage, and Strong (2018). Sriramesh, Grunig, and Buffington (1992, pp. 577–96).

NOTES 155

11. 12. 13. 14.

Weick (1969). Robbins (1990). Argenti (2007). Mintzberg (1980, pp. 322–41).

Chapter 6 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17.

Griffin (2008). Robbins (1990). Katz and Kahn (1966). Pfeffer and Salancik (1978, p. 11). Cutlip, Center, and Broom (2006), p. 181). Robbins (1990, p. 62). Robbins (1990). Grunig, Grunig, and Ehling (1992, p. 68). Pfeffer and Salancik (1978, p. 15). Grunig, Grunig, and Ehling (1992, p. 72). Carroll (1996). Mitchell, Agle, and Wood (1997, pp. 853–86). Ferguson (1984); Ledingham and Bruning (1998); Hon and Grunig (1999); Huang (2001). Bowen (2006). Bowen, Hung-Baesecke, and Chen (2016). Hon and Grunig (1999). Huang (2001).

Chapter 7 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10.

Winn (2001, pp. 133–66). Freeman (1984). Grunig and Repper (1992, p. 128). Dewey (1927). Grunig and Hunt (1984). Grunig and Hunt developed the model based on the work of Thayer (1968); Esman (1972); Evan (1976); Parsons (1976). Luoma-aho and Vos (2010). Matta-Barrera and Nofziger (2013). Mitchell, Agle, and Wood (1997). Mitchell, Agle, and Wood (1997). Boesso and Kumar (2009).

156 NOTES

11. Grunig (2005). 12. Kim and Grunig (2011). 13. Wilson (2005).

Chapter 8 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16.

Bowen (2009a, pp. 402–410). Stacks (2002). Stacks and Bowen (2013). Michaelson and Stacks (2017). Michaelson and Stacks (2017). Yin (1994). Miles and Huberman (1994). Tashakkori and Teddlie (1998). Stacks (2016); Michaelson and Stacks (2017). Bowen (2013); Bowen (2012) . DiStaso and Bortree (2014); Bowen and Stacks (2013). The Conclave on Social Media Measurement Standards (2013). Ji and Stacks (In press). Weiner and Kochhar (2016). Bowen (2018c). Stacks (2016); Michaelson and Stacks (2017).

Chapter 9 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

Marston (1979). Lindenmann (2003). Lindenmann (2003). Paine (2007). Stacks and Michaelson (2017).

Chapter 10 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6.

Heath (1997, p. 44). Grunig and Repper (1992). Bowen (2006). Heath (1997, p. 149). Heath (1997, p. 149); Bowen, Hung-Baesecke, and Chen (2016). Heath (1997, p. ix).

NOTES 157

7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20.

Chase (1984); Renfro (1993); Buchholz, Evans, and Wagley (1994). Heath (1997, p. 100). Grunig, Grunig, and Ehling (1992, p. 67). Bowen and Rawlins (2005); Bowen and Heath (2006). PR Council (2018). Heath (1997, p. 45). Lerbinger (2006). Heath and Palenchar (2008). Gass and Seiter (2009, p. 160). Murphy and Dee (1992, pp. 3–20). Grunig (1992a, p. 523). Cloud Foundation (2018). Eckhoff (2018). Personal interviews October 18 and 19, 2018; Cloud Foundation (2018).

Chapter 11 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23.

Edelman (2018). Singer (1994, p. 3). Goodpaster (2007). Luhmann (1984). Bowen et al. (2006). See Bowen et al. (2006); Bowen (2008, pp. 271–96). Goodpaster (2007); Sims and Brinkman (2003, pp. 243–56). Bowen (2018a). Sims and Brinkman (2003). Bowen and Heath (2005). Leeper (1996, pp. 163–79). Bowen (2010b). Bowen (2002); Sims and Brinkman (2003). Bowen (2004b, pp. 311–24); Goodpaster (2007). Bowen (2018b). Bowen (2015a). Men and Bowen (2017). Ryan and Martinson (1983). Bowen (2006, pp. 330–52). Bowen (2009c). De George (1999, p. 57). Elliott (2007, pp. 100–112). Christians (2008, p. 33).

158 NOTES

24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31.

32. 33. 34. 35. 36.

Ross (2002). Baron (1995). Kant (1785/1964, p. 88). Bowen (2004a), p. 73. Kant (1963, p. 18). Paton (1967). Bowen (2002); Bowen and Prescott (2015). Case based on interviews with Home Depot’s Brad Shaw (personal communication, September 2009); Interviews with Home Depot’s Stephen Holmes (personal communication, October 2018). Interviews with Brad Shaw (personal communication, September 2009). Menear (2017). Interviews with Stephen Holmes (personal communication, October 2018). Interviews with Stephen Holmes (personal communication, October 2018). Rossolillo (2018).

Chapter 12 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16.

17. 18. 19.

Robbins (1990, p. 77). Vercic, Grunig, and Grunig (1996, pp. 37–40). Vercic, Grunig, and Grunig (1996, p. 58); Bowen (2000). Vercic, Grunig, and Grunig (1996, p. 58). Vercic, Grunig, and Grunig (1996, p. 58). Bowen (2004a, pp. 65–92). Bowen (2004b, pp. 311–24). Bowen (2005, pp. 191–216). Dozier, Grunig, and Grunig (1995). Bowen (2016b); Bowen, Hung-Baesecke, Chen (2016). Ferguson (1984, 2018); Ledingham and Bruning (1998); Ledingham and Bruning (2000); Ledingham (2003). Grunig and Hon (1999); Grunig and Huang (2000). Bowen, Hung-Baesecke, Chen (2016). Men and Bowen (2017). Bowen (2015a). Case based on Entergy company documents and interviews with Art Wiese (personal communication, 2009). Information also based on Entergy’s (2005) corporate Web site, http://www.entergy.com IEStormNet Update (2006). Entergy (2005). Case based on classroom lecture and interviews with Kenneth Sternad (personal communication, March 30, 2009; September 2009). Information also based on United Parcel Service website (2009).

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About the Authors Shannon A. Bowen, PhD, is a full professor at the University of South Carolina. In 100+ publications, she focuses on ethical decision making within the highest levels of organizations, issues management, leadership, values, mission and vision, organizational culture, and management. Bowen is a columnist for PRWeek, serves on several boards, and has won numerous awards for her research. Her other BEP book is Excellence in Internal Communication Management (2017). ORCID: 0000-0001-7675-5002. Thomas R. Martin serves as executive-in-residence in the Department of Communication at the College of Charleston in South Carolina. In 2016, he launched the Martin Scholars program, a selective mentoring, networking, and learning program. He also serves on numerous advisory boards. Martin was formerly senior vice president and director of corporate relations at ITT Corporation and vice president of corporate communications for Federal Express Corporation. Brad Rawlins, PhD, is the author of dozens of publications on transparency, trust, stakeholder prioritization, and ethics. A professor of communication at Arkansas State University, he has served as department chair, dean, and chief academic officer of a branch campus in Mexico. He has won many awards and serves on several professional and ­academic boards.

Index ABC’s 20/20 program, 6 Activist public relations sector, 31, 76, 112–114 Advertising, 23 Advocacy groups, 24, 65, 113 AI. See Artificial intelligence Artificial intelligence (AI), 85–86, 108–109 Asymmetrical model, 17 Authoritarian organizational cultures, 43–44 Autonomy, 125–126, 139 BDHG. See Big data human generated Benchmark, 96 Bernays, Edward, 17 Big data, 84–85, 108–109 Big data human generated (BDHG), 85 BLM. See Bureau of Land Management Boundary spanners, 123, 125–126 Bureau of Land Management (BLM), 114–117 Business acumen, 36–37 Business management, 37–38 C-suite, 29–38 Case study Entergy’s survival of hurricanes Katrina and Rita, 142–149 Home Depot, leadership and ethics at, 132–136 NIMBY, 71–72 Southwest Airlines, 3–8 United Parcel Service, labor relations at, 149–151 wild horse public policy, 114–117 CCO. See Chief communications officer

CEO. See Chief executive officer CERT (Credibility, Ethics, Relationships, Trust) formula, 18–19, 87, 120 CFO. See Chief financial officer Chief communications officer (CCO), 4, 30–32, 107, 125–126 overriding mission of, 36 responsibilities of, 37 Chief executive officer (CEO), 19–20, 29–32, 107, 125–126, 138, 139 Chief financial officer (CFO), 30 Chief information officer (CIO), 30 Chief marketing officer (CMO), 30 Chief operations officer (COO), 30, 48 CIO. See Chief information officer Claim. See Stake “Click it or Ticket” campaign, 94 Closed systems, 54 The Cloud Foundation, 112, 116 CMO. See Chief marketing officer Communication channels, 11, 94, 148 Communication climate, 45 Communication, defined, 10 Communication function team, 33, 35 in dominant coalition, 30–31 Communication manager, 29 Communication technicians, 28 Community relations, 20, 37 Constraints, 56, 105, 129 recognition, 67–68 COO. See Chief operations officer Corporate communication sector, 12–13, 19, 106–107 life versus agency/firm life, 109–110 organizational structure, 47–48 subfunctions, 19–22

172 INDEX

Corporate conscience, 33, 120–121, 125 Corporate identity services, 109 Corporate public relations, 9 Corporate social responsibility (CSR), 20–21, 109 Creating shared value (CSV), 20 Crisis management, 22 CSR. See Corporate social responsibility CSV. See Creating shared value Dashboard, 96 Data analytics, 22–24 Decision-making, 30, 32, 123, 125, 127, 129, 130 ethics in, 140 Demographics, 79, 93 Deontology, 128–132 Development fund-raising, 23 Digital marketing, 23 Digital public relations, 22–24, 108–109 Diversity, 45, 117, 140 Dominant coalition, 30, 41 gaining access/membership in, 32 inclusion in, 30–31 Dynamic environments, 55 Earnings per share (EPS), 52 Entergy’s survival of hurricanes Katrina and Rita, case study, 142–149 EPS. See Earnings per share Ethical counselor, 123–126 Ethical dilemmas, analyses of deontology, 128–132 utilitarianism, 126–128 Ethics, 33, 41–42, 59–60, 119–120 boundary spanning and counseling on, 122–123 culture, 120–121 in decision-making, 140 Home Depot, case study, 132–136 in issues management, 103 in organizational culture, 44–45 public relations counselor, 123–126

and relationship management, 141–142 systems theory for, 121–122 and trust, 120 values manager, 123–126 Evaluative research, 74–75 Executive management, 29–38 Facebook, 6 Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), 7 Financial and investor relations, 21 501c3s. See Nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) Formal research, 76, 88–89 Formative research, 74–75 to analyze situation, 88–91 Full service agency, 108 Gantt chart, 95 General Counsel, 30 General Electric, 132 Generic principles of excellence, 138–141 Geographics, 93 Goal-attainment approach, 51–53 Government relations, 10, 19, 21, 108, 110–111 subfunctions, 24 Graphics, 23 Greenpeace, 113 Gross margins, 52 Grunig and Hunt’s definition, of public relations, 10–11 Grunig’s situational theory of publics, 66–72 HD. See Home Depot Headquarters Emergency Command Center, 4 Home Depot (HD), case study, 132–136 HR. See Human resources Human resources (HR), 30 Hurricane Ivan, 144–145 Hurricane Katrina, 142–149 Hurricane Rita, 142–149

INDEX 173

IABC. See International Association of Business Communicators IC. See Internal communication IEStormNet, 145–146, 148 Industry associations, 24 Influentials, 71 Informal research, 76, 88 Integrated communications. See Marketing communications Interdependence, defined, 56 Internal communication (IC), 22 dialogue-based systems of, 140 Internal relations, 22, 42 International Association of Business Communicators (IABC), 11, 124, 138 International Brotherhood of Teamsters, 149 Interstate Natural Gas Association of America, 89 Intervening publics, 70–71 Inverted pyramid, of Home Depot, 132–134 “Issue arenas,” 63 Issues forecasting, 104 Issues management, 19–20 defined, 101–102 in Entergy, 144, 147–149 in ethics, 103 executive function of, 101–106 and public affairs sector, 111 steps of, 105 United Parcel Service, case study, 149–151 wild horse public policy, case study, 114–117 Issues managers, 54, 140 Kant’s categorical imperative, 129–131 Kant, Immanuel, 119, 129 Kathrens, Ginger, 116 Key performance indicators (KPIs), 16 Key publics, 11, 27, 70, 94 KPIs. See Key performance indicators

Leadership, 29, 35 Home Depot, case study, 132–136 Lee, Ivy Ledbetter, 16 Legitimacy, 58, 64 Level of involvement, 66–67 Lobbying, 10, 21, 22–23, 108 Management defined, 10 executive, 29–38 functions of, 27 process, phases of, 37–38 Management theory, 51 Managers, 28, 139, 36. See also Communication manager; Issues managers; Values manager qualitative research, 81 roles of, 29 Marathon Petroleum Corporation, 88–89, 91 Market capitalization, 52–53 Marketing communications, 21 Media relations, 20, 107 Member relations, 23 Military, governmental public relations, 24 Mission, organization’s, 38 Mixed method research. See Triangulation MNCs. See Multinational corporations Moral principles, 128–129 Motivation, strategy and profit, 34–36 Multinational corporations (MNCs), 48 The National Park Service, 79 National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), 4, 6 Net earnings, 52 Netgraphics, 79, 93 NGOs. See Nongovernmental organizations NIMBY (Not in My Backyard), case study, 71–72

174 INDEX

Nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), 10, 24, 66, 104, 112–114 Nonprofit/not-for-profit public relations. See Nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) Not in My Backyard. See NIMBY NTSB. See National Transportation Safety Board Objectives, 92 levels of, 92–93 tie strategy to, 93 One-way communication models, 16 Online marketing. See Digital marketing Open systems, 54 Operation ReSTORE Hope, 146 OPR theory. See Organization-public relationship theory Organization. See also Corporate communication sector; Government relations; Nongovernmental organizations (NGOs); Public relations agency/firm defined, 10 dynamic environments, 55 key functions, 30 static environments, 54–55 Organization-public relationship (OPR) theory, 59–60 variables of, 141 Organizational culture, 43 authoritarian, 43–44 communication climate, 45 ethical dimension of, 44–45 participative, 44 Organizational effectiveness defined, 137 Entergy’s survival of hurricanes Katrina and Rita, case study, 142–149 goal-attainment approach, 51–53 relationship management theory, 59–60

stakeholder management approach, 56–59 systems theory approach, 53–56 Organizational structure, 45–46 centralization, 46–47 charts, 45–46 decentralization, 46–47 types of, 47–49 Outcome objectives, 93 Output objectives, 92–93 Outtake objectives, 93 Participative organizational cultures, 44 People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), 81, 112 PETA. See People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals Philanthropy, 20–21 Polling, and research, 23 POP. See Potential Operational Problem Potential Operational Problem (POP), 4 Power, 58, 64 Power of Hope Fund, 146 Press agentry, 16 Primary research, 77, 89 Priority publics. See Key publics Problem recognition, 66–67 Programming algorithms. See Artificial intelligence (AI) PRSA. See Public Relations Society of America Psychographics, 79, 93 Public affairs, 10, 21, 108 Public affairs sector, 110–111 issues management and, 111 Public information, 10, 16, 24, 25 Public policy issues, 102, 110–111 Public relations, 9–10 CERT formula, 18–19, 87, 120 corporate, 106–107 definitions of, 10–11 digital, 22–24 dimensions of, 17–18 ethical counselor, 124–126 excellence in, 137–151

INDEX 175

function of, 11–12 government/public affairs/lobbying, 110–111 historical development of, 15–19 importance of, 3–8 management function of, 27–38 manager. See Managers models of, 15–25 naming of, 12–13 nonprofit/NGO/activist, 112–114 and organizational effectiveness. See Organizational effectiveness practitioners, 28 professionals, 28–29, 87 RACE process, 87–97 research, 73–86 sectors of, 106 strategic management and, 42–43, 139 subfunctions of, 19–22 values manager, 124 Public relations agency/firm, 9–10, 19, 108–110 corporate identity services, 109 corporate social responsibility, 109 digital public relations, 108–109 full service, 108 government relations, 108 life versus corporate life, 109–110 lobbying, 108 organizational structure, 49 public affairs, 108 strategic counsel services, 108 subfunctions, 22–23 trends in, 109 Public Relations Society of America (PRSA), 11–12 Publicity, 16, 21, 75, 110 Publics defined, 10–11, 62 situational theory of, 66–72 types of, 70 Qualitative research, 77, 80–81 Quantitative research, 77–80

RACE (Research, Analyses/Action planning, Communication, Evaluation) process, 87–97 Referent criteria, 67 Relationship management, 51, 59–60 ethics and, 141–142 Research artificial intelligence, 85–86 big data, 84–85 evaluative, 74–75 firms, 23 formal, 76 formative, 74–75, 88–91 informal, 76 key to strategy, 73 mixed methods/triangulation, 82 primary, 77 qualitative, 77, 80–81 quantitative, 77–80 secondary, 77 social media, 82–84 Research and development (R&D), 30 Return on investment (ROI), 52 ROI. See Return on investment Sarbanes-Oxley Act (2002), 21 Search engine optimization (SEO), 12 SEC. See Securities Exchange Commission Secondary research, 77, 88–89 Securities Exchange Commission (SEC), 21 Self-interests, 70, 94 SEO. See Search engine optimization Situation analysis construction of, 91 using SWOT, 89–90 Situational theory of problem solving (STOPS), 67 Social media measurement, 82–84 Southwest Airlines, 3–8 Stake, defined, 57 Stakeholder management, 51, 56–57, 61–72 process of, 57–59

176 INDEX

Stakeholders, 33, 93 communication strategy with, 68–71 defined, 62 identifying, 62–63 NIMBY, case study, 71–72 prioritizing, 63–66 typology, 64 Static environments, 54–55 STOPS. See Situational theory of problem solving Strategic action planning, 91–94 Strategic communication, 13, 108 role of, 32–34 Strategic counsel services, 108 role of, 11, 32–34 Strategic management defined, 42 ethics and trust in, 142 and public relations, 42–43, 139 uncertainty and, 43 Strategic plan, for public relations campaign, 87–97 Strategic public relations, 13, 34, 61, 73, 87 SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats) analysis, 89–90 Symmetrical model, 17 Systems theory approach, 51, 53–56 for ethics, 121–122 Tactics, 20, 21, 28, 87, 88, 94–95, 113 Teamsters, 149–151 Trade associations, 24

Triangulation, 81, 82 Trust, 59–60, 141 and ethics, 120 Twitter, 6, 94 Two-way communication models, 16–17 Uncertainty, and strategic management, 43 United Parcel Service (UPS), case study, 149–151 UPS. See United Parcel Service Urgency, 58, 64 U.S. Department of the Interior, 114–117 U.S. House Committee on Agriculture, 115 U.S. Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, 90 Utilitarianism, 126–128 Values wheel, of Home Depot, 132–134 Values manager, 33, 42, 123–126 Values, organization’s, 38 Vision, organization’s, 38 Wild horse public policy, case study, 114–117 WOMMA. See Word of Mouth Marketing Association Word of Mouth Marketing Association (WOMMA), 83–84 YouTube, 6, 94

OTHER TITLES IN OUR PUBLIC RELATIONS COLLECTION Don W. Stacks and Donald K. Wright, Editors • Excellence in Internal Communication Management by Rita Linjuan Men and Shannon A. Bowen • A Professional and Practitioner’s Guide to Public Relations Research, Measurement, and Evaluation, Third Edition by David Michaelson and Donald W. Stacks • Corporate Communication Crisis Leadership: Advocacy and Ethics by Ronald C. Arnett, Sarah M. Deluliis, and Matthew Corr • A Communication Guide for Investor Relations in an Age of Activism by Marcia W. DiStaso, David Michaelson, and John Gilfeather • Public Relations Ethics: Senior PR Pros Tell Us How to Speak Up and Keep Your Job by Marlene S. Neill and Amy Oliver Barnes • The New Era of the CCO: The Essential Role of Communication in a Volatile World by Roger Bolton, Don W. Stacks, and Eliot Mizrachi

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