Research has stressed that the quality of the relationship between an organization and its publics is an indication of public relations effectiveness. While it seems intuitive that public relations should demonstrate its greatest impact on the organization-public relationship (OPR), early perspectives on the role of public relations within an organization did not always recognize this concept, focusing instead on one-way models of public relations. Probably due to the practitioner-focused research while the discipline was in its infancy, evaluating success in public relations consisted primarily of measuring the short-term, immediate results of a public relations program ("outputs") or assessing the impact the program had on a target audience ("outcomes"). While it is necessary for public relations professionals to monitor these outputs and outcomes, focusing on these factors will only yield information about the success of an individual public relations program. To gauge the true effectiveness of public relations over time, a long-term perspective needed to be taken, requiring not just a new way of measuring public relations impact, but a complete shift in the focus of public relations research and a new way of thinking about organizations and their publics.

This paper details the development of a new way of measuring public relations effectiveness. It focuses on the impact of public relations programming on the quality of the relationship between an organization and its publics by using established relationship measures within a coorientational framework. Unlike previous approaches, this paper outlines an integrated approach that will attempt to include both parties (the organization and the public) in an evaluation of the organization-public relationship (OPR) by combining the coorientational methodology advocated by Broom and Dozier (1990) with the relational dimension measures proposed by Hon and Grunig (1999). Applying these measures within the coorientational model will indicate the degree of agreement and accurate perception between organizations and their publics when assessing important relationship dimensions. This should generate a complete picture of the OPR. Furthermore, the strength of the OPR over time can then be used to help demonstrate the return on investment in public relations in order to illustrate the value of public relations to managers and clients.