Institute for Public Relations

2002 – To facilitate the use of qualitative interviews and focus groups to assess relationships, researchers at the University of Maryland have developed procedures and questions to gather information about the type and quality of relationships. These qualitative questions reflect the same dimensions and operational definitions of the relationship indicators identified in an earlier paper, “Guidelines for Measuring Relationships in Public Relations” by Linda Childers Hon and James E. Grunig.

November 1999 – In order to answer the question — “How can PR practitioners begin to pinpoint and document for senior management the overall value of public relations to the organization as a whole?” — different tools and techniques are needed. The authors have found through their research that perceptions regarding an organization”s longer-term relationships with key constituencies can best be measured by focusing on six very precise elements or components of relationships discussed in this paper.

This study seeks to understand and describe the strategies that multinational companies use to develop and maintain relationships with their publics in China. It also seeks to extend the findings to develop a normative theory of relationship management for public relations research. The author studies cultural factors that affect these strategies and explain why companies use them. The proposed normative theory encompasses types of organization-public relationships, maintenance strategies, the effect of multiple publics in an organization-public relationship, relationship outcomes, and the external forces influencing relationship maintenance and outcomes.

A valid measurement scale for organization-public relationships can offer practitioners and scholars a way to measure the relationship as it develops. This study examines the measurement of organization-public relationship by testing measures on one organization and a key public in an Eastern culture, South Korea.

This study examines the critical roles that employees play in an organization’s relationship-building with its publics. The findings suggest that employees who have high levels of commitment and use symmetrical cultivation strategies contribute significantly to positive organization-public relationships. The study also found that employment empowerment can occur through participation in public relations programs for external 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 ...

The personal influence model of public relations, developed principally by public relations scholar Krishnamurthy Sriramesh, acknowledges that the success of public relations is greatly influenced by personal networks. With this model, practitioners try to establish personal relationships – friendships, if possible – with key individuals in the media, government, or political and activist groups (Grunig, 1995, 18). This paper provides background on knowledge management and examines the role that the personal influence model could play in organizations by the adoption of knowledge management practices, which would involve instituting a mechanism to ...

This paper explores adapting the PZB Service Quality Model developed by Parasuraman, Zeithaml and Berry (1985) as an instrument for assessing reputation risk. The paper will suggest an adapted instrument for measuring the gaps between stakeholder quality expectations and organization performance. The paper will also elaborate on the importance of communication in the PZB model.

This paper will examine two cases in which Greenpeace targeted the environmental practices of Cargil. These case studies will demonstrate how two-way symmetrical communication can be used to avoid conflict, foster mutually beneficial relationships between companies and activist publics and converge seemingly conflicting ideologies.

A public relator’s personal relationships network has always been considered an essential (when not the essential) part of her/his professional assets. Where and when it is also described as a model of practice, it seems to be the most universally adopted, quite contrary to the stereotype that it is mostly practiced in Asia. “I think that PR has always been about relationships, but it has changed fundamentally in that relationships have almost become the primary responsibility of a PR practitioner–and it’s not just with the Wall Street Journal or New York Times–it’s relationships with everyone ...