Read Björn’s piece on the Arthur W. Page Society blog.

Frank Ovaitt is president and CEO of the Institute for Public Relations.

Thirty to 40 percent of human speech informs others about ourselves.  Eighty percent or more of social media posts announce our own experiences or views.  Nine-month-old babies already try to draw the attention of others to things they find important in their environments.  Adults in all societies try to share their knowledge with others.

Humans are wired to disclose.  In fact, a battery of studies by Diana Tamir and Jason Mitchell of the Department of Psychology at Harvard University finds that talking about ourselves lights up the same brain pleasure centers as food, money and sex.  We can’t help talking about ourselves because it feels so good.

The full research article can be found in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

If our brains so deeply enjoy it when we talk about ourselves, what are the implications for public relations?  Sue Wolstenholme, chair-elect of the UK Chartered Institute of Public Relations (good friends but no relation to our own Institute for Public Relations), says, “We have to listen even more!”

Now you have an answer the next time a client or a senior executive wants to know why your social media strategy is less about pumping out company messages and more about hearing what your stakeholders have to say.

Frank Ovaitt is president and CEO of the Institute for Public Relations.

2003: The arrival of a turning point

If 10 years can be considered as a generation, international firms were no doubt the backbone of the first generation of PR companies in China from the mid-1980s to the mid-1990s. In 1984, Hill & Knowlton, one of the biggest PR companies in the world, was the first to set up an office in Beijing. In 1985, Burson-Marsteller, another leading international PR company, also entered China by way of forging cooperation with Xinhua News Agency. This venture led to the establishment of China Global Public Relations Company, the first local PR company in China. In the same year, Interasia, the first Sino-foreign PR company, was born. But, it was acquired by Edelman in 1993.

Entering the 1990s, Ogilvy & Mather, Edelman, Fleishman-Hillard, Rhodes, Ketchum and Weber Shandwick successively came to China. On June 2, 1995, 8 leading Chinese and foreign companies signed in Beijing a document entitled The Position Statement on the Professional Standards for Doing Public Relations Business in China. Seven of them were international PR companies, while China Global Public Relations Company was the only local PR firm. This showed the basic pattern of China’s PR market (especially PR companies-dominated consultancy industry) at the time.

After the mid-1990s, the fast-growing IT industry gave birth to a new generation of PR companies dominated by local firms in China. BlueFocus, Shunya, D&S, NTI and LINKSUS were representative of them. In its 2001 China Public Relations Industry Survey Report, the China International Public Relations Association released a ranking list to name the top 10 Chinese and international companies, e.g. “TOP10-International” and “TOP10-Local”.

Up to 2003, all the China PR industry survey reports showed that international PR companies far outperformed local PR companies. But, the 2003 survey report indicated for the first time that the top 10 surveyed local PR companies had a bigger average annual business turnover (RMB40 million) than the top 10 international PR companies (RMB30 million). However, international PR companies still took a slight lead in terms of operating revenues. In 2006, the separate ranking lists of Chinese and foreign PR companies were combined into “CIPRA TOP20” for the first time. From then on, all surveyed companies are comprehensively ranked in terms of operating revenues, number of employees, brand influence, service network, customers and expertise. In 2006, only 7 international PR companies were left on the list. The number continued to fall, with only 4 remaining in 2010. Of course, this may have something to do with international PR companies’ lack of enthusiasm for taking part in the surveys. Therefore, there are clear shortcomings if the survey results are used to reflect the whole picture of China’s PR market.

The challenges of glocalization

There is no denying that local PR companies (especially new companies) in China have made major progress and markedly improved their competitiveness in the past 20 years. Indeed, entering the 21^st century, local PR companies have clearly outgrown their international counterparts in terms of annual operating revenues. While international PR companies might be said to have opened up China’s PR market in the early period, local PR firms have actually made this market bigger. In an interview with Fortune World in early 2003, I pointed out that the RMB2.5 billion industry business turnover as suggested in the 2002 China Public Relations Industry Survey Report was up to debate. “In fact, we actually estimated revenues in the whole industry from the operating revenues of the TOP 10 Chinese and the TOP 10 international PR companies. Because the survey only involved PR companies but not those customers which they served, such as enterprises, the inferred size of China’s PR market clearly is incomplete statistics.” “I put my estimate of the market size to around RMB16 billion. According to the prevalent foreign calculation method, the PR/advertising value ratio is roughly at 1:5. Currently, some RMB80 billion worth of advertisements is published in China each year, and the PR amount should be around RMB16 billion. In other words, PR companies’ operating revenues only account for 10-20% of the whole market size.” (China’s PR Market: The World’s Last Business Vanity Fair, Fortune World, Issue 5, 2003).

According to the 2010 China Public Relations Industry Survey Report, business turnover in the whole PR market that year stood at around RMB21 billion, and local PR companies accounted for at least over 2/3 of it. But, does big size equal to high competitiveness?

What is worth recognition is that local PR companies have performed extremely well in the Chinese market in recent years. This is due to their improved internationalized operations (after all, public relations is a concept imported from abroad) and their familiarity with the local market. In the face of international customers, let alone local customers, in the local market, local PR companies are in an advantageous position in their horizontal competition with their foreign counterparts. Following China’s accession into the WTO and the arrival of a post-WTO accession era, especially after a global financial crisis has given way to an economic crisis, more and more Chinese enterprises now enter the overseas market to get listed or make M&As there. As foreign PR companies continue to go through a localization process and can only gradually get familiar with Chinese culture, local PR firms will no doubt have an absolute advantage in the domestic market. This advantageous position may be difficult to change in the near term.

Besides the local and overseas PR markets, the difference or gap between Chinese and foreign PR companies is also reflected in a trend called “glocalization”. Some 10 years ago, I borrowed the concept of compulsory and voluntary routines in gymnastics as a metaphor to evaluate Chinese and foreign companies: On the whole, “foreign PR companies” are good at ‘compulsory routines’ and pay attention to standardized routines and procedures, while most Chinese PR companies are strong with ‘voluntary routines’. Without standardized procedures as guarantee, ‘voluntary routines’ can hardly get any quality assurance. Mere pursuit of standardization can easily result in lack of creativity and make major breakthroughs difficult”. I still hold this view today. Recently, I wrote an article entitled “New challenges of ‘glocalization’” for China Daily, and my basic view is still the same.

“In fact, both Chinese and foreign companies now increasingly realize that China’s PR market needs meticulous and creative changes, because this last business vanity fair in the world is by no means easy to grab. Adopting a localization policy to make an overall internationalization strategy successful and using an internationalization slogan to attract local attention serve the same purpose of taking a lion’s share of the internationalization cake. However, dire talent shortages are practically slowing down PR companies’ pace of business transformation. This is the issue to be urgently addressed or the huge challenge facing in “glocalization”.

Prof. Guo Huimin is Vice President of the University of International Relations and Director of the Academic Committee, China International Public Relations Association.

As a top-level finding in GAP VII, budgets allocated to measurement and evaluation by corporate PR departments have increased substantially, from 4% reported in 2009 to 9% in 2011. This could be an indication that PR is viewed as more strategic, and that programs are being evaluated on actual results. It could further indicate increased use of digital measurement engines, which weren’t as prevalent only two years ago.

We also delved deep into the research methods and tools used by corporations, and have identified four clusters indicating distinct categories of measurement typically adopted:

1. PR Outputs defined by traditional measures such as advertising equivalency, content analysis, number of clips and total impressions;
2. Stakeholder Outcomes with measures such as influence on corporate culture, reputation, employee attitudes, stakeholder awareness and impact on crisis mitigation;
3. Strategic Outcomes with metrics for digital/social media, primary research – both pre- and post-campaign;
4. Bottom-line Impact, such as contribution to market share and sales as well as influence on stock performance.

We then looked at how these different clusters of measurement are related to indicators of success, such as PR’s perceived contribution to sales and stock valuation and how it is regarded by senior management. Notably, the outcome measures (strategic, stakeholder and bottom line) are linked to these indicators of success, while more traditional PR output measures are not. Further, the number of organizations measuring strategic outcomes has increased.

Clips and impressions, the hallmarks of traditional, or “old-school,” measurement came in at the very bottom of our respondents’ top ten list of research and evaluation tools, and even content analysis of clips has declined markedly in use. As indicated, these pronounced changes likely speak to the improved ability to measure web content via social media monitoring tools, and may also signify a more strategic view and use of public relations on a larger scale than before.

In addition to these findings, GAP VII also offers insight into all aspects central to managing the PR/communication function. Key findings include:

PR/COM has its seat at the table: In nearly 60% of responding companies, PR/COM reports directly to the “C-Suite” (chairman, CEO, COO, etc.), reflecting today’s increasingly transparent, communication-intensive environment.

Social media has become mainstream: Seventy percent of PR/Comm departments report budgetary responsibility for social media monitoring and 66% for social media participation. This reflects a 17% and 13% growth, respectively, over two years ago.

Prevalence of social media tools has increased: The most widely used social media tools by corporations are social networking sites (i.e. Facebook, which is used by 53% of public companies), micro blogging (i.e. Twitter, also used by 53% of public companies), Search Engine Optimization (52%), and sharing and producing online videos. Meanwhile, the use of wikis and virtual worlds has become nearly extinct.

The field is expanding to include new functions: In addition to growth in social media, the PR/COM field is experiencing growth in the areas of Internal Communication (up from 47% to 58% of respondents having such responsibility over the last two years) and Customer Relations (up from 6% to 15%).

Marketing/product PR is in a state of decline: While still a “core” function with 51% of corporate respondents having budgetary responsibility for it (versus 61% in 2009), there has been a substantial decrease in the emphasis on traditional Marketing/Product PR.

Agency-of-record relationships are vanishing: Over the last ten years, the use by client organizations of a single outside PR agency of record has consistently decreased. In 2002, more than 50% of public corporations reported an AOR relationship. This number decreased continuously and has now shrunk to just over 15% for public companies.

Burghardt Tenderich is an Associate Professor at USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism and the Associate Director of the Strategic Communication and Public Relations Center.

Jerry Swerling is Professor and Director of Public Relations Studies at USC. Jerry is the Director of the Strategic Communication and Public Relations Center and is a Public Relations Management Consultant.

Alignment is building long-term relationships with all internal and external stakeholders, those you depend on as an organisation. Where reputation is a means, alignment is an end.

Communication staff are focusing increasingly on building alignment, the degree to which you are able to build long-term relationships with both your internal and external stakeholders. This has two consequences. First, communication professionals need to really deliver, they must initiate dialogue with all those who criticize you most or demand something from you. That’s much more complicated than it might seem, but a good communication professional knows exactly how to direct this process. The second consequence is that you must ensure that both parties actually listen to one other’s arguments, sparking true dialogue.

Criticism keeps you on your toes. If criticism is communicated, you at least have the opportunity to respond to it.

Prof. dr. Cees B.M. van Riel is professor of corporate communication at Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University, and vice chairman and co-founder of Reputation Institute. He received IPR’s Pathfinder Award in 2011.

The July 6-7 conference breaks into two tracks focused on academic and corporate research.  Current and former IPR Trustees, Research Fellows and commission members appearing the program include Don Wright, Rob Wakefield, Ansgar Zerfass, Krishnamurthy Sriramesh, James and Larissa Grunig.

Registration is available online.

Frank Ovaitt is President and CEO of the Institute for Public Relations.

A recent research project conducted in Germany addresses these questions. We have developed a theoretical framework based on research in business consulting and existing public relations role models, and verified this in in.-depth interviews with corporate communication executives in major European corporations. The full paper has received an IPR Top-3-Paper award at the IPRRC 2012 conference in Miami and is available here (PDF).

Communication with stakeholders takes place at nearly every spot in today’s organization. The traditional strategies of allocating and limiting access and interactions for specific stakeholders to dedicated units like marketing and sales, public relations, or customer services are no longer viable in networked societies.  Therefore communicative organizations can be described by the following elements: a) awareness of the communicator role of every employee, b) consistent outbound communication, c) inbound activities with a holistic view as well as integration and interpretation of information from neighboring areas.

This requires a re-conceptualization of the role set for communication managers within organizations. Based on their professional knowledge and expertise, they have to consult members of the organization on communication issues as well as enable the whole organization to communicate adequately.

The idea of communication professionals as consultants and enablers of communication has been introduced by a number of researchers.  Nevertheless, these role descriptions almost never explain the specific dimensions and practices of internal communication consulting and its various objectives, forms and specifications in detail.

To close that gap we developed a theoretical framework based on research in business consulting and on existing public relations role models to identify the variety of objectives and forms of communication consulting within organizations. Research of management consulting generally distinguishes between the forms of expert consulting (as advice based on professional expert knowledge and experience) and process consulting (as enablement of clients to solve problems independently by providing underlying structures and by facilitating the client’s reflections).

Thus, we developed a comprehensive framework for internal communication consulting, which comprises four different specifications of the internal consultancy function role.  Public relations professionals need to:

a)      advise others how to communicate in specific situations by recommending communication activities and proceedings

b)      enable others to master communicative challenges by providing and supporting corresponding competencies, structures and processes

c)       integrate communicative insights into task-related decision-making

d)      build and encourage the awareness for the communicative dimension of any management or other task-related decision within.

This study lays the groundwork for quantitative research identifying the utilization of the four specifications of internal communication consulting. The results might serve as indicators of the institutionalization of the internal consultant role. But also thinking of public relations education, the framework of internal communication consulting opens new dimensions for students and might also encourage them to prepare for these requirements.

The idea of the communicative organization will remain a pipe dream until communication professionals develop differentiated role models and day-to-day routines that make the enabling function and task-related communication consulting come true. The self-perception of communication professionals as experts who are able to give valuable advice and enable others is crucial for building a strong identity as communication experts. The consultant role is not meant to relieve other core roles, but it shows how communication professionals can accept the broad challenge of leading within communicative organizations in a very practical sense.

Dr. Ansgar Zerfass is a professor for communication management at the University of Leipzig, Germany, as well as executive director of the European Public Relations Education and Research Association, Brussels, and editor of the “International Journal of Strategic Communication”, Routledge Publishers.

Neele Franke, M.A. is a consultant at IBM Strategy & Transformation Management Consulting in Frankfurt, Germany, focusing on organizational change management and communication consulting.

The economic crisis is a good opportunity for social scientists to talk to each other, who for decades have been telling us that organizations are not perfect: Herbert Simon and many others have proved Max Weber wrong.  For what concerns the environment nothing is very new either: The Limits to Growth was published 40 years ago. As for self inspection, on one side, we demonized Milton Friedman when he said that the business of business is business, on the other side, the Global Compact points the finger at the bad corporations, but we were never able to analyze countries’ workforces and figure out the job responsibility of each person in the economy.

The work that I have done in my book, Values and Stakeholders in an Era of Social Responsibility, draws from diverse fields of social science: micro-economics, public relations and organizational behavior. The book seeks to address some of the points that need to be fixed in current capitalism: no economics textbook in fact ever said that capitalism was not in need for careful attention.

CSR is too often manipulative public relations or bombastic marketing. CSR should reflect the accountability of the core business. I develop the concept of “accounting for work” as a duty for everybody within society. I analyze the CSR reports of corporations, presenting them as cases in capsule form.

One result of this analysis is that preventing irresponsibility is of the essence as we run the risk of anesthetizing ourselves in the CSR reports (and in reality) with all the good deeds we do and avoid the key issues that afflict our organizations. This problem can be observed in the over-wording of most CSR reports. I also analyze the potential CSR that is there even if no reporting takes place. An example of “no reporting” is in the financial accounts of many governmental organizations that only balance the flow of funds and do not say a word about the quantity and the effectiveness of the work done.

Of the cases, one reviewer wrote:  “this book has the courage to take a point of view by disclosing its specific criticism of individual corporations, while avoiding ideological traps. It does confront and challenge the powerful. The result is convincing to the skeptical executive.”

Through one hundred cases in all sectors of the economy and society, I demonstrate that responsibility is for all organizations and that being subject to competition is a key driver of accountability. Where there is no competition, it is much harder for users and citizens to get good service. My analysis in fact focuses on the accountability of work throughout the economy and the workforce. As the economic crisis has revealed, a large share of the employed population is not accountable for their work, not being subject to fair and transparent competition. Government agencies for instance very seldom account for their work, even though they metabolize more than half the GDP of nations. NGO’s themselves sometimes think they are good in their DNA and don’t need to prove their effectiveness to their sponsors and to society.

Through the rethinking of the corporate social responsibility concept and discipline, I have developed a comprehensive approach to dealing with the current and future straits of the economy. I have also developed an operational definition of CSR as the discipline to account for the potential irresponsibility of organizations.

We have to acknowledge that fair implementation of capitalism is still far from our reach and strive for that goal. We have to make an effort to become aware of our own individual responsibilities. Accountability of work can therefore be analyzed and built through a process framework formed from four values: stewarding the unknown stakeholder, providing select disclosure, focusing on implementation and practice micro-ethics. These values take into account the specific criticism of organizational behavior, economics and society that has been formulated within the general view of capitalism.

Paolo D’Anselmi is a management consultant and a lecturer at the Università di Roma Tor Vergata.

All kind of topics were presented, but social networks took the major attention this time: 38% of the research had to do something with this issue, while another important topic, with the 18%, was the one that involved the issue of Financial Crisis, eight papers were done about the evaluation and measurement of Public Relations nowadays, another nine were done for Social Responsibility and the rest of them talked about various topics. It caught my attention the boom of PR in different Asian markets, there were eight Asian speakers discussing this topic.

There is no doubt that the phenomenon that has changed the life of every PR specialist is the creation and development of the Social Networks; most of the research about this topic tries to reveal the great mystery of how we use them, and how they had become our most powerful communication tool between corporate and society. Today it is impossible to talk about public relations without mentioning social networking.

In fact, the social networking phenomenon has meant a “renaissance or resizing” for the PR activity, the effect is such that it has generated inside the PR community an energizing effect: all its exercise around the world is on the rise, its growth inside European and Asian Markets has been very dynamic in recent years. Today talking about PR in China is a revelation, even though the media restrictions.

This makes me think that the task of public relations is going through a time of great importance since, on the one hand, we´ve been dragging a generation that has fought for several years for the profession for giving it the due importance; and on the other side, we have in the new generations an understanding established as a matter of vital importance for the business world. They walk now without the old obstacles against which we fought for years and where the basic dispute was against the traditional media.

Today, traditional media is also in a struggle for its own survival against large audiences who have slipped through the back door of technology and took them away their control of public opinion without any warning. Nowadays we get the news out of society and through social networks faster than through traditional media.

It is time for the PR Old School to stop suffering a world that no longer exists, a world where they use to spend more time giving explanations than really achieving business goals. Today with no doubt, theories, as important as public affairs and social expectations, are the new issues on the agenda of the CEO´s, businesses and PR professionals.

For practical purposes, we no longer need to prove the importance, or effectiveness, of this profession. We must turn back the page and leave behind the eternal existential doubt about how we should define Public Relations, the specialization will give it the right dimension of the function, since, as in any mature profession plain and simple, it counts with professionals of all kinds.

Marco Herrera is a Consultor.
Mail:marco.herrera@grupopublic.com
Blog- Rayoneando: http://www.elfinanciero.com.mx/blogs/rayoneando/
Twitter: www.twitter.com/@Marcovherrera

A compelling case for risk literacy among the profession is made in a soon-to-be-published paper by Dr. Chris Galloway, Swinburne University, Melbourne. Galloway’s paper suggests that risk communications expertise could be one of the most important contributions a PR practitioner can offer to an employer.

The core of his paper is that “risk managers often fail to communicate effectively” while PR practitioners (and their academic theorists) fail to understand and embrace research about risk effectively.

Galloway describes risk-literate practitioners as those who pay attention to emerging risks and perceptions that are at the root of the issue. He posits the idea that if a crisis is a risk manifest, and the profession claims both crisis communications and management as core competencies, “then we do ourselves and our clients a disservice if we fail to pay sufficient attention to risk as the antecedent condition to crisis.”

Risk communication is a field that is based on persuasiveness, Galloway says, that seeks “not only to inform but also to elicit action,” a primary goal of PR practitioners.

Risk is typically part of the portfolio of finance, audit or even operations. And, the end goal of the efforts of enterprise risk management (ERM) is typically a focus on managing revenue.

The challenge, and missed opportunity, is to align ERM and PR/reputation management with a risk focus that is also oriented toward managing reputation as a bottom-line goal.

The urgency for such thinking is high because the context in which most organizations exist is defined by risk. Yet academics conducting risk communication research may provide meaningful direction for practitioners with issues such as message design (for example, are words or numbers more relevant in messaging that seeks to change behaviour through understanding?).

The benefit to PR practitioners in expanding their knowledge base is that they are “capable of exercising a wider mandate than merely reactive communication,” Galloway suggests.  In a crisis stakeholders want to know about the issue driving the situation but also what risk managers are doing to mitigate impact. If stakeholders don’t get enough information about the risk emotions may grow and shift negative.

An organization that is defined by high risk expects its communications and risk managers to identify risk before or as it emerges, and to develop strategies to mitigate before full-on outrage is expressed against the company. Full-scale outrage is likely to result in regulatory, legislative or litigatory reaction. Thus, it is in the best interests of the PR practitioner to identify tools and means of understanding outrage (as well as the lesser emotions) inherent in public attitudes about issues attached to or influenced by a company’s business goals.

In the modern, connected world, PR must accept “that citizens are more than mere message targets: they can assume active participant positions in risk policy-making.”

Galloway’s article, “Developing risk-literate public relations: threats and opportunities” will be published in July 2012 in the Asia Pacific Public Relations Journal. An advance copy is available at http://www.reputareconsulting.com/risk-literacy.html

Linda Locke, principal at Reputare Consulting, subscribes to journals from which she draws inspiration and concepts for clients of her corporate reputation consulting practice. If you wish to suggest a research article for her review, contact her at Linda.Locke@ReputareConsulting.com, or DM her on Twitter @Reputationista.