Excellent public relations and effective organizations

EXCELLENT PUBLIC RELATIONS

AND EFFECTIVE ORGANIZATIONS

A Study of Communication Management

in Three Countries

COMMUNICATION SERIES

Jennings Bryant/Dolf Zillmann, General Editors

Selected titles in Public Relations (James Grunig, Advisory Editor) include:

Austin/Pinkleton l Strategic Public Relations Management: Planning and

Managing Effective Communication Programs

Culbertson / Chen l International Public Relations: A Comparative Analysis

Dozier / Grunig/ Grunig l Guide to Excellence in Public Relations

and Communication Management

Fearn-Banks l Crisis Communications: A Casebook Approach

Grunig l Excellence in Public Relations and Communication Management

Ledingham / Bruning l Public Relations as Relationship Management:

A Relational Approach to the Study and Practice of Public Relations

Lerbinger l The Crisis Manager: Facing Risk and Responsibility

Spicer l Organizational Public Relations: A Political Perspective

For a complete list of titles in Communication Series, please contact

Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Publishers at www.erlbaum.com.

EXCELLENT PUBLIC RELATIONS

AND EFFECTIVE ORGANIZATIONS

A Study of Communication Management

in Three Countries

LARISSA A. GRUNIG

Department of Communication

University of MaryZand

JAMES E. GRUNIG

Department of Communication

University of Maryland

DAVID M. DOZIER

School of Communication

San Diego State University

The Excellence Study was funded through a grant

from the International Associition of Business

RESEAI(~MTION Communicators (IABC) Research Foundation

1

EL LAWRENCE ERLBAUM ASSOCIATES, PUBLISHERS

2002 Mahwah, New Jersey London

Copyright 0 2002 by Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in

any form, by photostat, microform, retrieval system, or any other

means, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc., Publishers

10 Industrial Avenue

Mahwah, New Jersey 07430

Cover design by Kathryn Houghtaling-Lacey

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Grunig, Larissa A.

Excellent public relations and effective organizations : a study of communication

management in three countries : Larissa A. Grunig, James A. Grunig, David M. Dozier.

p. cm. - communication series)

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 0-8058-1817-O (casebound : alk. paper) - ISBN o-8058-1818-9 (pbk. : alk. paper)

1. Corporations-Public relations-United States. 2. Corporations-Public

relations-Canada. 3. Corporations-Public relations-Great Britain. I. Grunig, James E.

II. Dozier. David M. III. Title. IV. Series.

HD59.6.U6 G78 2002

2002016471

CIP

Books published by Lawrence Erlbaum Associates are printed

and their bindings-are chosen for strength and durabili-q.

on acid-free paper,

Printed in the United States of America

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

We dedicate this book to our friend and colleague Fred C. Repper, who died

May 5,2001, before he had the chance to read this final product of our collabo￾rative work. Fred was a valuable member of the Excellence team. He provided

insight into the world of working professionals to which we-as academics-do

not have such ready access as he did. We remember fondly his insights, his sup￾port and encouragement, and the good times we had with Fred and his wife,

Dorothy Repper.

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Contents

Preface ix

1 Excellence in Public Relations and Communication

Management: A Review of the Theory and Results

2

3

4

5

6

7

Methodology of the Excellence Study 31

Isolating the Excellence Factor 55

The Value of Public Relations 90

Empowerment of the Public Relations Function 140

Communicator Roles 196

Organization of the Communication Function,

Relationship to Other Management Functions,

and Use of Consulting Firms 262

8 Models of Public Relations 306

9 The Origins, Management, and Outcomes of Programs

for Key Publics 383

Vii

*..

Vlll

10 Activism and the Environment

11 Inside the Organization: Culture, Structure,

Systems of Internal Communication, Job Satisfaction,

Gender, and Diversity

12 New Directions for Research Suggested

by the Excellence Study

Appendix A. Questionnaires for Heads of Public

Relations Departments

Appendix B. Questionnaire for CEO or Other Member

of the Dominant Coalition

Appendix C. Employee Questionnaire

Appendix D. Qualitative Interview Protocol

Author Index

Subject Index

CONTENTS

442

480

538

563

601

610

619

625

631

Preface

During the summer of 1984, the IABC Foundation (now the IABC Research

Foundation) issued a request for proposals for a research project that gave us a

chance to conduct what is probably the largest study ever of the public relations

profession. The IABC Foundation wanted to know “how, why, and to what ex￾tent communication affects the achievement of organizational objectives.”

Project director James Grunig assembled a research team of both scholars and

practitioners from the United Kingdom as well as the United States. The team

consisted of the three of us, James Grunig and Larissa Grunig of the University

of Maryland and David Dozier of San Diego State University, along with Wil￾liam Ehling, then of Syracuse University and now retired, Jon White, then of

the Cranfield School of Management in the United Kingdom and now with City

University of London, and Fred Repper, the retired vice president of public rela￾tions for Gulf States Utilities in Beaumont, Texas.

This team demonstrated what true collaboration means. Together, we put

together a proposal that promised to review the literature on organizational ef￾fectiveness to develop an answer to the question of how and why public rela￾tions has value to an organization. Because we believed that not all public rela￾tions units have value to their organizations, however, we also promised to do

an extensive review of the literature on public relations to isolate the character￾istics that make it more likely that a communication unit will add value to an or￾ganization. We could do that because each member of the team had been

heavily involved in research on different, but complementary, aspects of com￾munication management-such as strategic management, practitioner roles,

gender and diversity, models of public relations, operations research, employee

communication, organizational culture, and activism.

In the summer of 1985, the IABC Foundation awarded us a grant for

$400,000 to conduct the project we had outlined. The literature review started

ix

PREFACE

out as a paper but expanded into the 666-page book, Exceknce in Public Re/.utions

and Communication Management, edited by James Grunig and published by Law￾rence Erlbaum Associates in 1992. As the book was in press, we developed three

survey questionnaires, which you can see in Appendixes A to C, that we admin￾istered to heads of public relations, CEOs, and employees in more than 300 or￾ganizations in the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom. In Septem￾ber 1991, The IABC Research Foundation published the first results of this

study-the development of the index of Excellence described in chapter s-as a

report titled ExcelZence in Public Relations and Communication Management: Initial

Data Report und Practical Guide. After finishing this initial report, we provided a

report to each of the organizations participating in the study. The report ex￾plained the theory behind the study and provided percentile scores showing

each organization where it stood relative to the other organizations on overall

Excellence and each of the component variables of the Excellence scale.

We believed that our research would reveal much more about excellence in

communication if we went beyond the survey results to do detailed case studies

of some of the organizations in our sample. We chose 25 organizations to study

in more depth. Most of these had scored at the top of the Excellence scale. A few

had scored at the bottom. We, student assistants at the University of Maryland

and San Diego State University, and John Blamphin and Jon White in London

interviewed three people in each of these organizations and wrote a detailed

case study of each organization. Larissa Grunig analyzed the case studies for

patterns that would answer our research questions. The IABC Research Foun￾dation published this qualitative analysis as a second report, IABC Excellence in

Public Relations anA Communication Management, Phase 2: QuuZitutive Study, Initial

Analysis: Cases of Excelknce, in 1994.

David Dozier, with the assistance of Larissa Grunig and James Grunig, wrote

a short book-primarily for communication professionals-that summarized

the results of the quantitative and qualitative studies. He was assisted by a team

of IABC members who reviewed the book to help make the language and inter￾pretation accessible to communication managers. In 1995, Lawrence Erlbaum

Associates published this book, Guide to Excellence in Public Relations

und Communication Munugement.

Over the span of the project, we have lectured or presented seminars to

more than 150 professional groups in over 35 countries. Needless to say, the Ex￾cellence study has generated tremendous interest and debate worldwide.

Now you are about to read the final product of this Is-year program of re￾search. This book puts it all together. It summarizes and updates the literature

published in ExceHence in Public ReZutions anA Communication Management. It in￾corporates the results presented in the reports published by the IABC Research

Foundation and in the Guide. This book goes well beyond any of the

previously published reports on the Excellence study. It contains many new sta￾tistical analyses of the survey data and more details from the case studies. The

PREFACE xi

book is intended for scholars, applied researchers, students, and informed pro￾fessionals who understand the value of research in developing a profession such

as public relations. Knowledge of quantitative and qualitative research methods

will make it easier to understand the book. However, we believe we have inter￾preted the results in a way that makes the analyses understandable even to

those with little or no knowledge of statistics and research methods.

The book discusses theory and data related to several ongoing discussions in

the communication profession. How can we show the value of public relations?

What is the value of relationships? How do relationships affect reputation?

What does it mean to practice communication strategically? How can we meas￾ure and evaluate the effects of public relations programs? Should communica￾tion programs be integrated? How does the new female majority in the profes￾sion affect communication Excellence?

In a nutshell, we show that the value of public relations comes from the rela￾tionships that communicators develop and maintain with publics. We show

that reputation is a product of relationships and that the quality of relationships

and reputation result more from the behavior of the organization than from the

messages that communicators disseminate. We show that public relations can

affect management decisions and behavior if it is headed by a manager who is

empowered to play an essential role in the strategic management of the organi￾zation. In that role, communicators have their greatest value when they bring

information into the organization, more than when they disseminate inforrna￾tion out of the organization. We show how communication programs for

publics such as employees, consumers, or investors can be planned and man￾aged strategically and evaluated to demonstrate their effectiveness.

We show that communicators can develop relationships more effectively

when they communicate symmetrically with publics rather than asymmetri￾cally. Symmetrical communication is especially important inside the organiza￾tion where it helps to build a participative culture that, in turn, increases em￾ployee satisfaction with the organization. We show, though, that symmetrical

communication inside the organization and participative culture largely result

from the structure that top management chooses for the organization. Commu￾nicators cannot be successful, therefore, unless they are part of the top-manage￾ment team that develops an organizational structure. We show that diversity is

important in a public relations department and throughout the organization.

Women and men are equally effective in top communication roles, but we also

show that women have a more difficult time than men developing the experi￾ences needed for a top communication role.

We show that excellent communication functions are integrated. However,

they are not integrated through another management function, such as market￾ing or human resources. They are integrated through a senior communication

executive-who usually has a background in public relations-or through a sin￾gle public relations department. We found that integrated marketing communi-

xii PREFACE

cation (IMC) is integrated into the integrated public relations function. IMC

should not be the concept that integrates communication.

Finally, we show that activism is good for an organization rather than bad.

Activism provides the impetus for excellent public publics. Excellent public rela￾tions departments develop programs to communicate actively, and symmetri￾cally, with activists. Organizations that collaborate with activists develop a

competitive advantage over organizations that do not because they behave in

way that is acceptable to publics and, therefore, make fewer decisions that re￾sult in negative publicity and regulation, litigation, and opposition.

This book, as well as the research that it reports, is the product of symmetri￾cal communication and collaboration. William Ehling, Fred Repper, and Jon

White collaborated closely with us in writing the first book and in developing

the study. The three of us took responsibility for conducting the research, ana￾lyzing the results, and writing the reports and books that followed. James

Grunig and David Dozier did most of the quantitative analysis. Larissa Grunig

did most of the qualitative analysis. However, each of us had a role in all phases

of the analysis. The order of authors for this book does not indicate the impor￾tance of each of our contributions. Rather, it reflects our desire to have a differ￾ent first author for each of the three Excellence books to show that our work

truly was collaborative.

As we finish 17 years of work together on this project, from the writing of the

proposal to the writing of this preface, we wish to express a mutual respect for

each other. We have learned from each other. We have argued with each other.

We have challenged each other. Our research is better because it is the product

of collaboration and not of one person. At the same time, we have had fun to￾gether.

At this point, we are ready to move on to new research challenges. The Ex￾cellence study has provided a comprehensive picture of how we think the com￾munication profession should be practiced. It shows that public relations is an

important profession for society. It can make organizations more responsible. It

can give publics a voice in management decisions that affect them. It can en￾hance relationships and manage conflict. In chapter 12, however, we outline

what we think the new challenges are for public relations research: globaliza￾tion, strategic management and relationship building, ethics and social responsi￾bility, and change. We hope you will join us in meeting these new challenges.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

We already have acknowledged the contributions of our three colleagues on

the Excellence research team: Jon White, William Ehling, and Fred Repper. We

also have acknowledged each other. Jim and Lauri Grunig acknowledge the tol￾erance and support of each other. David Dozier acknowledges the support of

his wife, Lorri Anne Greene.

PREFACE

. . .

x111

Many of our students have worked with us over the life of the Excellence

project. At the University of Maryland, they have included Linda Childers Hon,

K. Sriramesh, Jody Buffington, Judith K. Meyer, Kenneth D. Plowman, and John

M. Blamphin. At San Diego State University, student assistants have included

Jane Ballinger, Jo Nell Miettinen, Troy Anderson, Valerie Barker, Brian Fer￾rario, Danielle Hauck, Nancy Lowden, Susie Maguire, James Ritchey, Natalie

Walsh, and Kimberly J. White.

Finally, we acknowledge the tremendous contribution that the men and

women of the IABC Research Foundation and of IABC in general have made to

this project and to scholarship in public relations. They have donated gener￾ously of their time and money in developing and carrying out the project. We

are especially grateful to the many individuals and chapters who contributed fi￾nancially to the project and to the other contributors. There are too many IABC

members to name them all, but we especially acknowledge the chairs and board

members of the Foundation who were instrumental in the development and

support of the project: Linda Stewart, Louis Williams, Jean Cormier, Fred

Halperin, Wilma Mathews, and Robert Berzok. We thank Robert Berzok for re￾viewing early chapters of the manuscript and Dejan VereiC who reviewed the

entire final manuscript. We also thank Dejan VerCiC for replicating most of the

study in Slovenia.

Finally, we express our thanks to Lawrence Erlbaum Associates-especially

to communication editor Linda Bathgate, her predecessor Hollis Heimbouch,

and marketing vice-president Joseph Petrowski. They have embraced and sup￾ported our work and public relations scholarship in general.

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