Institute for Public Relations

MILAN, ITALY [October 20, 2008] – Tiffany Derville Gallicano, Ph.D., assistant professor at the University of Oregon School of Journalism and Communication, has won a 500 Euro special prize for best new research on the personal influence model of public relations. The award, funded by the Institute for Public Relations, was presented today at the EUPRERA (European Association for Public Relations Research & Education) World Congress in Milan, Italy.Gallicano’s paper is titled “Personal Relationship Strategies And Outcomes In A Case Study Of A Multi-Tiered Membership Organization.” Through interviews and observational techniques, she documented how a health advocacy organization goes about cultivating personal relationships and obtaining results.

The personal influence model describes the use of relationships with strategic individuals to achieve public relations objectives, a major factor in a professional’s contribution to the organization. The model appears worldwide in practice, but there is little research about it.

Gallicano’s study, available on the Institute’s free website, identified specific personal influence strategies such as direct engagement (responding immediately to a person’s request rather than passing it along to someone else in the organization) and task sharing (partnering to meet a challenge together). The outcomes included the emotional bonds that scholars call “affective commitment,” political leverage, and member recruitment and retention.

The EUPRERA World Congress in Milan has been organized by FERPI (the Italian Federation of Public Relations) and Milan’s IULM University, whose public relations degree course was the first to be implemented in Italy since 1993.

EUPRERA (www.euprera.org) is the European Association for Public Relations Education and Research. The Institute for Public Relations (www.instituteforpr.org) is an independent US-based nonprofit dedicated to the science beneath the art of public relations.™