Gaining Influence in Public Relations

Gaining Influence

in Public Relations

The Role of Resistance

in Practice

LEA’s Communication Series

Jennings Bryant/Dolf Zillmann, General Editors

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

include:

Austin/Pinkleton • Strategic Public Relations Management: Planning

and Managing Effective Communication Programs

Dozier/Grunig/Grunig • Manager’s Guide to Excellence in Public

Relations and Communication Management

Fearn-Banks • Crisis Communications: A Casebook Approach,

Second Edition

Grunig/Grunig/Dozier • Excellent Public Relations and Effective

Organizations: A Study of Communication Management in Three

Countries

Hearit • Crisis Management by Apology: Corporate Response

to Allegations of Wrongdoing

Lamb/McKee •Applied Public Relations: Cases in Stakeholder

Management

Lerbinger • Corporate Public Affairs: Interacting With Interest

Groups, Media, and Government

Mickey • Deconstructing Public Relations: Public Relations Criticism

Millar/Heath • Responding to Crisis: A Rhetorical Approach to Crisis

Communication

Parsons • A Manager’s Guide to PR Projects: A Practical Approach

Sriramesh/Vercic • The Global Public Relations Handbook

For a complete list of titles in LEA’s Communication Series,

please contact Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Publishers at

www.erlbaum.com

Gaining Influence

in Public Relations

The Role of Resistance

in Practice

Bruce K. Berger

University of Alabama

Bryan H. Reber

University of Georgia

LAWRENCE ERLBAUM ASSOCIATES, PUBLISHERS

2006 Mahwah, New Jersey London

Copyright © 2006 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 prior written permission of the

publisher.

Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc., Publishers

10 Industrial Avenue

Mahwah, New Jersey 07430

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Berger, Bruce K.

Gaining influence in public relations : the role of resistance in

practice / Bruce K. Berger and Bryan H. Reber.

p. cm. — (LEA’s communication series)

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 0-8058-5292-1 (alk. paper)

ISBN 0-8058-5293-X (pbk. : alk. paper)

1. Public relations. 2. Power (Social sciences). I. Reber, Bryan H.

II. Title. III. Series.

HM1221.B47 2006

659.2—dc22 2005049943

CIP

“To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s

collection of thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk.”

This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2008.

ISBN 1-4106-1697-5 Master e-book ISBN

Contents

About the Authors vii

Preface ix

1 Influence in Public Relations and Why It’s Important 1

2 Public Relations Roles, Responsibilities, and the

“Right Thing”

22

3 Resistance, Politics, and Power Relations 52

4 Identifying and Using Influence Resources in Public

Relations

76

5 Alpha Approaches in Public Relations: The Use

of Sanctioned Influence Tactics

107

6 The Communication Change Project at Whirlpool:

Converting Power Into Performance

122

7 Omega Approaches in Public Relations: The Use

of Unsanctioned Influence Tactics

151

8 The Use of Dissent in Public Relations 169

9 The Power of Political Will and Intelligence 199

v

10 Breaking Out of the “Iron Cage” of Practice 218

11 A Public Relations Manifesto 247

Appendix: The Dissent Survey 251

References 257

Author Index 267

Subject Index 271

vi l CONTENTS

About the Authors

Bruce K. Berger, PhD, is professor and chairman of the Department of

Advertising and Public Relations at the University of Alabama. He re￾ceived his PhD in Communication at the University of Kentucky. Previ￾ously, he was a public relations practitioner and executive for 20 years.

At The Upjohn Company he worked on public relations projects in more

than 30 countries. At Whirlpool Corporation he was Vice President of

Corporate Affairs and was responsible for public relations, government

affairs, employee communications, and financial communications in

the company’s global businesses.

Dr. Berger’s research on business and public policy formation, orga￾nizational power, and strategic communication practices has appeared

in more than 15 scholarly and professional publications, including Com￾munication Yearbook, Journal of Public Relations Research, Journal of Asian

Pacific Communication, Public Relations Review, Dartnell’s Public Relations

Handbook, Journal of Employee Communication Management, and Busi￾ness Marketing.

He is the recipient of a number of awards, including the Robert Heath

Top Paper Award in the Public Relations Division of the International

Communication Association, a PRSA Silver Anvil Award for a diabetes

education program, an Inside PR All-Star Award for innovative em￾ployee communication leadership at Whirlpool, and the PRSA Big Apple

Award for global communication programs.

Bryan H. Reber, PhD, is assistant professor of public relations in the

Department of Advertising and Public Relations at the University of

Georgia. He earned his PhD in Journalism at the University of Missouri.

vii

His research focuses on public relations theory, organizational roles,

factors affecting organizational stance toward stakeholders, and curric￾ular issues.

Dr. Reber has published research articles in Journalism and Mass Com￾munication Quarterly, Journal of Advertising Education, Journal of Public

Relations Research, Public Relations Review, and Newspaper Research Jour￾nal, among others.

His professional experience includes more than a dozen years as di￾rector of public information at Bethel College in Kansas before embark￾ing on an academic career. He taught journalism at Bethel College,

strategic communication management at the University of Missouri,

public relations at the University of Alabama, and currently teaches

public relations courses at the University of Georgia. He has conducted

research through the Institute for Communication Research at the Uni￾versity of Alabama and the Center for Advanced Social Research at the

University of Missouri.

viii l ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Preface

This book examines power and influence in and around the practice of

public relations. We explore forces that shape and constrain the practice

and argue that professionals must do more to resist these forces and in￾crease their influence inside organizations. The central issue is how to do

so, and we enter this ongoing conversation about what public relations

is and might be through a power relations perspective.

Understanding operations of power in organizations seems neces￾sary for advancing a profession that advocates for decisions, actions,

and communications that fall in the area of doing the right thing. After

all, helping organizations do the right things requires a thorough un￾derstanding of how things actually get done in those organizations. Mi￾chael Foucault (1988) claimed that every relationship is to some extent a

power relation, and we are surrounded by ongoing strategic relations.

Our own professional experiences suggest we encounter relations of

power at our first moments in practice, and such relations attach to us

like shadows as we march through assignments and years, whether we

so name or engage them.

Our approach is counterintuitive: We argue that public relations pro￾fessionals can increase their influence and legitimacy with organiza￾tional decision makers by engaging in resistance activities against the

forces that constrain them. Longtime approaches to legitimate the pro￾fession—we call them Alpha approaches—have relied on case studies,

accreditation and measurement initiatives, and repeated claims about

the value and crucial role of the practice, among others. Despite such ef￾forts to induce support from top decision makers, and there have been

ix

some successes, many professionals still do not hold a seat at the table,

and the public image of the profession remains tarnished.

We contend that practitioners have many power and influence re￾sources available for use, and they can benefit from developing and mo￾bilizing more of them. They also may gain influence by supplementing

traditional Alpha approaches with Omega approaches, which are forms

of dissent, professional activism, and more controversial influence tac￾tics that represent potentially rich but largely untapped power sources.

Above all, professionals must possess the political will to engage in the

often messy and confrontational power relations that occur in organi￾zational decision-making arenas.

Ultimately, our concerns are to first make sense of power relations

and then to develop a portfolio of influence resources and tactics that

practitioners may call upon when they engage in power relations. To do

so, we have grounded the book in the workplace and the routines and

structures of practice. Our combined 30 years of professional experience

helped us construct our questions about power. For the answers, we

turned to those in the practice fields.

Through depth interviews with nearly 200 diverse professionals, and

survey responses from more than 1,000 others, we examine perceptions

about power, influence, professional roles, constraints on practice, or￾ganizational politics, dissent, and activism. We also try to answer a

number of related questions along the way. For example, how do PR

professionals engage in power relations? What influence resources and

tactics do they draw from, which ones are in short supply, and which

ones are underdeveloped or underutilized? To what extent, and under

what conditions, are practitioners willing to advocate forcefully and use

dissent approaches? And what does it mean to “do the right thing” in

public relations when organizational leaders make an inappropriate or

questionable decision?

The Research Projects

Seven research projects were carried out to provide insights into these

little explored topics. Three projects involved in-depth interviews with

professionals:

The Power Relations Interviews (Berger, 2005) were conducted with

21 senior public relations executives to learn more about constraints

on practice, power relations, and what happens inside dominant co￾alitions in organizations.

x l PREFACE

The Influence Interviews examined how professionals define influ￾ence in practice, the resources and tactics they bring to bear in power

relations, their perceptions about Omega approaches, and their ideas

for strengthening the power and legitimacy of the profession. Sixty￾five professionals from eight countries participated in these inter￾views in spring 2004.

The PR Success Interviews were conducted with 97 high-level pub￾lic relations executives in spring 2004. These interviews were used

primarily to support another research project, which examined suc￾cess factors in PR leadership positions. However, several questions

regarding power sources, influence tactics, and constraints on the

profession were the same as those questions raised in the Influence

Interviews.

Three survey research projects examined related topics:

The Most Important Issue in PR Survey was conducted in spring of

2003 to identify the most pressing issues in the field. More than 200

public relations professionals, teachers, and graduate students par￾ticipated in the survey.

The Dissent Survey, carried out in fall 2004, captured the percep￾tions of more than 800 diverse professionals regarding dissent prac￾tices and tactics, conditions in which practitioners are most likely to

dissent, and relationships between PR roles and resistance tactics.

The Profile Project was carried out in early 2005 to further assess

professionals’ views about situational dissent approaches and to con￾struct some preliminary dissent “types” for future research projects.

Fifty-one professionals participated in this project.

Finally, a comprehensive case study was prepared to demonstrate how

professionals at one large company used a variety of influence strategies

and tactics to develop and implement a major employee communication

program.

Outline of the Book

Chapter 1 introduces five assumptions on which the book is based, de￾fines power and influence within the practice, and explains how concep￾tualizing public relations as resistance helps to reflect on the profession.

Chapter 2 addresses the longtime issues of public relations roles and ser￾vice. Data from the Dissent Survey underscore the essential dissonance

PREFACE l xi

in the field about these issues and what it means to do the right thing in

public relations, our normative framework in the book. Professionals

concur that advocacy is the right thing to do, but they disagree about

what advocacy approaches are appropriate, for whom they advocate,

and the extent to which they should advocate.

In chapter 3, we elaborate a resistance role in public relations and ex￾amine organizational politics and three relations of power at work in

most decision-making arenas: power-over, power-with, and power-to re￾lations. The interplay of these relations produces organizational deci￾sions and shapes public relations practices. A conceptual model depicts

relationships among the key elements in power relations—social and

organizational forces, internal and external influencers, influence

resources, political arenas, and political outcomes.

Chapter 4 details five categories of influence resources—personal, re￾lational, structural, informational, and systemic—that professionals

may develop, mobilize, and use. Data from the Influence Interviews and

PR Success Interviews illustrate the influence resources that profession￾als use most often, which ones are in short supply, and which ones are

underutilized or underdeveloped. We draw from the same data sets in

chapter 5 to examine Alpha approaches, or the sanctioned influence tac￾tics that professionals actually use on the job. Practitioners rely most of￾ten on rational arguments, coalitions, and pressure in power relations

and use consultation, exchange, personal appeals, ingratiation, and

legitimation approaches far less often.

Chapter 6 presents a depth case study through the lens of power rela￾tions. The case portrays how public relations professionals at Whirlpool

Corporation used a range of influence strategies and tactics to develop,

sell, and carry out a major internal communication change program

during 1992–1995. We assess successes and failures in the change ini￾tiative and examine some lessons of power relations in practice.

Chapter 7 explores unsanctioned influence tactics, or Omega ap￾proaches, that professionals sometimes use when other tactics don’t

work. These controversial approaches include planting rumors or infor￾mation in the grapevine, leaking information outside the company,

constructing counternarratives, and whistle-blowing. A small number

of professionals reported using such tactics, but a majority said that

they were aware of other practitioners who did so.

In chapter 8, we present findings from the Dissent Survey, the first

major study to explore organizational dissent in public relations prac￾tice. When, how, and to what extent practitioners express dissent in the

face of perceived organizational missteps or wrongdoings were found to

xii l PREFACE

differ by gender, age, role, type of practice, and professional tenure.

Overall, practitioners are more likely to use more extreme tactics to re￾dress illegal, immoral, or unethical decisions or actions. However, about

10% of the 800 participants said they wouldn’t express dissent or chal￾lenge management decisions in any situation, no matter how egregious.

Chapter 9 explores the issue of political willpower, the resource that

may be in shortest supply in the profession. We identify a number of fac￾tors that weaken or strengthen the will to engage in power relations and

explain why greater willpower is needed at the individual and profes￾sional association levels to advance the profession’s influence and image.

In chapter 10, we argue that many of the Alpha approaches that pro￾fessionals have used to try to gain a seat at the table have further ratio￾nalized and bureaucratized the practice, but they have not boosted its

power or legitimacy. The best opportunities to advance the profession

may lie in increased professional activism and accelerated development

of systemic influence resources.

Chapter 11 is a brief public relations manifesto, which reflects profes￾sional values and beliefs associated with a resistance role in public rela￾tions. We call for professionals to push back on the forces that constrain

their potential to become more positive and influential change agents in

organizations.

Acknowledgments

We want to thank the many individuals who helped us complete this

book. The reviewers and editors at Lawrence Erlbaum provided helpful

suggestions and excellent support throughout the process. William

Blodgett, John Chisholm (The Institute for Communication Research),

Chandler Harriss, Stan Kaufman (The Epimetrics Group), Dong-Jin

Park, and Jennifer Robinson provided invaluable assistance in carrying

out several of the research projects that support claims we make in the

book. Many colleagues at the University of Alabama and the University

of Georgia provided both technical assistance and intellectual stimula￾tion for our work. Joan and Sharon shared their enthusiasm and un￾qualified support throughout the project. Finally, we want to thank the

hundreds of public relations professionals who generously shared their

time and their candid insights and hopes about the practice. Their voices

ground and illuminate our work.

—Bruce K. Berger

Bryan H. Reber

PREFACE l xiii

This page intentionally left blank