An institutional perspective of public relations practices in the Chinese cultural contexts

Public Relations Review 38 (2012) 916–925

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Public Relations Review

An institutional perspective of public relations practices in the Chinese

cultural contexts

Zhengye Houa,∗, Yunxia Zhub

a School of Journalism & Communication, University of Queensland, QLD 4072, Australia b School of Business, University of Queensland, QLD 4072, Australia

a r t i c l e i n f o

Article history:

Received 6 January 2012

Received in revised form 23 April 2012

Accepted 10 May 2012

Keywords:

Public relations in China

Institutional work

Guanxi

Elite-authoritarianism

Harmony

a b s t r a c t

To respond to a recent call for a sociological turn to the promotion of institutional thought

in public relations research, we propose a novel theoretical framework based on institu￾tional work for studying PR practice in Chinese cultural contexts. Specifically, we attempted

to stay away from the functional approach of examining PR outcomes, and focus on how

institutional actors “navigate” the existing cultural contexts for institutionalising PR. We

used triangulate methods based on 40 semi-structured interviews, participant observation

and document collections. We found that PR actors do not passively respond to institu￾tional pressures, but rather creatively and reflexively interpret and incorporate existing

cultural aspects, especially guanxi and harmony, to construct and transform their PR prac￾tices. These practices offer insights into why and how guanxi, as well as other cultural

factors, are integrated and legitimised in PR practice in China.

Crown Copyright © 2012 Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction

Public relations in China has drawn increasing research attention (e.g. Chen, 1992; Huang, 1997; Wu, 2001) since Chinese

organisations have actively involved in PR practices with the economic opening-up in 1978. However, due to a short history

and weak theoretical foundation, the nascent PR studies tend to largely borrow from mainstream western concepts, theories

and models, such as the four PR models (Grunig & Hunt, 1984) and excellence principles (Grunig, 1992). To detour from the

rational choice and managerial perspective, scholars (e.g. Lammers & Barbour, 2006; Sandhu, 2009) have recently called for

a sociological turn to the influential institutional thought in communication research in general and in PR in particular. As

Sandhu (2009) argued, an institutional approach to PR defocalises the intentional behaviour of actors central to the rational

managerial paradigm, but highlights the “cultural embeddedness” in organisational practices (p. 87). Unfortunately, most of

extant institutional studies on PR (e.g. Moreno, Verhoeven, Tench, & Zerfass, 2010; Tench, Verhoeven, & Zerfass, 2009) have

preferred to focus on the “outcomes” of PR practices (e.g. structural aspects of institutions), rather than look at the “process”

of institutionalising PR.

To fill this gap, we adopt “a practice view on institutional work” (Lawrence & Suddaby, 2006). Specifically we attempt

to explore how PR actors, ranging across PR agency professionals, in-house PR practitioners, media journalists and state

regulators, creatively and actively “navigate” existing cultural contexts not only by working within, but also by interpreting,

negotiating or transforming them in order to build a more favourable set of conditions for institutionalising PR. In so doing,

we aim to free PR research from the “iron cage” of excellence study (Sandhu, 2009, p. 87). We contribute to the institutional

∗ Corresponding author at: School of Journalism & Communication, University of Queensland, Joyce Ackroyd Building 37, Blair Drive, St. Lucia, QLD 4072,

Australia. Tel.: +61 4234 20549.

E-mail address: [email protected] (Z. Hou).

0363-8111/$ – see front matter. Crown Copyright © 2012 Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.pubrev.2012.05.002