Tag: management

‘Public Relations: A Management Function’ now available

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Penning PR Management Front Cover AppleThe book Public Relations: A Management Function is now available from Penning Ink.

The book is written and self-published by Timothy Penning, PhD, APR, Fellow PRSA, a public relations professor and consultant. It follows his previous books Media Relations Writing and Corporate Communications Writing.

Affordable and available as a paperback or e-book, the 90-page book stresses that public relations is a management function, and not merely a function to be managed. That means the purpose, practice and impact of public relations affects the entire organization and its overall goals, not just communications.

The first part of the book lays down foundations with chapters on public relations as management, integrating business knowledge and PR, and reviewing the accepted standards of the PR process. Part 2, the core of the book, drills down on the specifics of public relations work with six key publics–employees, community, government, investors, consumers and international. The final part of the book addresses crisis communications and integrated communications.

“Public Relations: A Management Function” can be used as a textbook for public relations management and case studies classes, supplementing it with cases from the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA) Silver Anvil Awards winners, PR Week Awards winners, or cases from academic journals and trade publications. The practically written book is also useful for PR agency professionals and those who work in-house on communication teams.

The book sells for $4.99 as an e-book and $14.99 as a paperback and is available at Amazon, Apple, or Barnes and Noble. Links to all outlets are on the books page of the Penning Ink web site.

 

Evidence That Good Management Depends on Good PR

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UnknownA Wall Street Journal article yesterday about the Management Top 250–the most effectively managed companies–reminded me of a fundamental principle.

Good public relations is essentially the same thing as good management.

I learned that years ago reading a book by Peter Drucker, the management guru on whose principles these awards are based.

Public relations academics and seasoned professionals will say that public relations is a “management function.” We stress it in classes, at conferences, and on the job.

It’s important to stress, because the word on the street–and, sadly, even within the ranks of public relations practitioners–is that PR is merely media relations, one-way communication, or worse, purposeful spin and deception.

Public relations, properly understood, IS good management. If public relations is properly practiced, there are tangible management benefits. Practicing good PR means considering ALL publics, striving for mutually beneficial relationships with all of them, and communicating with them strategically through ALL available tactics.

As evidence, consider the five criteria of performance for the Management 250 and the corresponding public relations contribution to each:

  1. Customer satisfaction. Some would think immediately this has to do with marketing. But PR involves consumer relations, communication after the sale, reputation, CRM (customer relationship management) and is the basis for concepts like “permission marketing” and “relationship marketing.” Customers do not only derive satisfaction from the product or service, but from the relationship with the brand.
  2. Employee engagement and development. Here, human resources comes to mind naturally. But public relations professionals who specialize in internal or employee relations have much to do with this performance indicator. Communicating beyond benefits and annual performance reviews, being intentional about culture, retention, empowerment, being the ’employer of choice,’ and other objectives are ways PR enhances this aspect of management.
  3. Innovation. As mentioned above, culture is a key objective of internal public relations. And studies have shown that companies that are innovative don’t just hire innovative individuals but work on developing an innovative culture. Culture is based on and perpetuated by communication, the purview of internal PR professionals.
  4. Social responsibility. Corporate social responsibility has been a key aspect of public relations for decades. It relates to the fact that proper PR considers not just reaching but listening to all stakeholders and working toward mutually beneficial relationships. Recent research has shown more PR professionals take on the role of corporate conscience or ethical conscience of their organization. This leads to socially responsible practice.
  5. Financial strength. OK, maybe we leave this one to the accountants and finance experts. However, numbers 1-4 above are key drivers of performance, which is what gets the finances you are able to manage.

So, while public relations is mentioned in articles about bad management and crises, the unseen truth is that the best managed companies have a good public relations person offering strategic counsel on relationships, ethics, culture and more that are well beyond mere proficiency in communication tactics.

 

From the Journals–Latest Research on Investor Relations, PR Ethics, PR Law, Communication Management

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From time to time I catch up on reading a batch of academic journals and like to share a quick overview of some of the articles I find most interesting. Many PR practitioners can benefit from being aware of this research but lots of academic publications are hard to access other than through a university library. Here then are some interesting points from recent research. (Citations provided in case you want to seek out the full article for yourself).

Investor Relations:
Matthew W. Ragas, Alexander V. Laskin, (2014) “Mixed-methods: measurement and evaluation among investor relations officers”, Corporate Communications: An International Journal, Vol. 19 (2), pp.166 – 181
The results indicate that IROs strongly (80 percent) believe that mixed-methods (i.e. both quantitative and qualitative methods) should be used to measure the success of investor relations. Mixed-methods advocates place significantly more importance on measurement than IROs that prefer quantitative- or qualitative-only approaches.
Matthew W. Ragas, Alexander V. Laskin, Matthew Brusch, (2014) “Investor relations measurement: an industry survey”, Journal of Communication Management, Vol. 18 (2), pp.176 – 192
Respondents strongly rebuked using share price as a valid measure of investor relations performance. A factor analysis revealed that IROs use four factors to measure program success (listed in order of stated importance): first, international C-suite assessment; second, relationship assessment; third, outreach assessment; and fourth, external assessment. IROs at large-cap companies place significantly more importance on both C-suite assessment and relationship assessment than their peers at small-caps.
Ethics:
Patrick Lee Plaisance (2014) “Virtue in Media: The Moral Psychology of US Exemplars in News and Public Relations,” Journalism and Mass Communication Quarterly, Vol 91 (2), pp. 308-325.
This study looks at journalists and public relations professionals who exemplify good moral character and virtue to construct a profile of ethical professionals in these fields. Findings show that they scored higher than peer professionals on the personality traits of extroversion, agreeableness, openness, and conscientiousness. As a group they rejected situational or utilitarian ethical reasoning in favor of a moral absolute approach. Overall, an ethical professional can be described as one who places value on concern for others,  professional duty, and proactive social engagement, all of which demonstrate higher order ethical reasoning.
Steve Mackey (2014) “Virtue Ethics, CSR, and ‘Corporate Citizenship’”, Journal of Communication Management, Vol 18(2), 131-145.
Mackey critiques the PR concept of CSR (corporate social responsibility) and corporate citizenship through the ethical theory of Alasdair MacIntyre, who favors the ancient Greek or Aristotelian notion of character as the only foundation for ethics. He criticizes CSR as being done for strategic reasons and personal corporate benefit rather than as an extension of character. He suggests that PR professionals need to respect and respond to existing social norms and democratic discourse rather than trying to influence them. His points are well laid out, however he tends to have a shallow anti-corporate bias and an assumption of the actual intentions of PR practitioners and collective corporate attitudes and reasons for conducting CSR programs. He cites several PR scholars but does not acknowledge that the notions of two-way symmetrical communication or mutual adjustment based on research in fact are the form of practice he encourages. He also rather naively puts forth government and nonprofit institutions as exemplary of the type of social engagement that would be favored from an ethical standpoint, even though human actors in both of those sectors can lead to greed, selfishness, corruption and unethical behavior as well.
Law:

Cayce Myers and Ruthann Lariscy (2014), “Corporate PR in a post-Citizens United World,” Journal of Communication Management, Vol 18 (2), pp. 146-157.
This is a very interesting and helpful historical review of case law that led up to the Citizens United case, which is in the long line of debate about corporate vs. commercial speech and the recognition of corporations as “persons” in terms of speech rights. In addition to the back and forth arguments and decisions of precedent cases at both lower courts and the Supreme Court, the paper identifies the practical impact of Citizens United on PR practice: 1) corporate PR can now legally include political relations; 2) corporate political issues may take on a more nuanced structure; 3) key publics and tactics will change to include voting blocks, special interest groups and others in the political arena; 4) a changing relationship of public relations departments with the press, particularly an added strain because of the increase in opinion journalism or punditry in political issue coverage.
Communication Management:

Catrin Johnson, Vernon D. Miller, and Colange Hamrin (2014) “Conceptualizing Communicative Leadership: A Framework for Analyzing and Developing Leaders’ Communication Competence,” Corporate Communication: An International Journal, Vol 19 (2), pp. 147-165
Since PR is supposed to be a “management” function, this paper is interesting for identifying four essential communication behaviors of leaders as well as eight principles of “communicative leadership,” a Swedish concept. This is a form of leadership that may or may not be evident in CEOs and other managers, thus making the case that part of a PR professionals role is to counsel management on their communicative leadership, not just their communication. A communicative leader is defined in the paper as: “one who engages employees in dialogue, actively shapes and seeks feedback, practices participative decision making, and is perceived as open and involved.”
Andreas Schwarz and Alexander Fritsch (2014), Communicating on Behalf of Global Civil Society: Management and Coordination of Public Relations In International Nongovernmental Organization, Journal of Public Relations Research, Vol. 26 (2), pp. 161-183.

Most studies of excellent PR management are about corporations, especially in the international context. This paper takes an interesting look at non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and determines that “excellent” NGOs assign more resources to PR and more frequently consider the cultural context in their communication. More specific characteristics of well-managed PR in NGOs include: communications department contributes to strategic planning and decision making, the head of the communications department is part of the senior management team, the communications department reports directly to the most senior manager, and employees from different gender or race have equal opportunities.