Top issues and responsive strategies in public relations practice

Public Relations Review 39 (2013) 597–599

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Public Relations Review

Research in brief

Top issues and responsive strategies in public relations

practice: An empirical assessment in the Greater China area

Juan Menga,∗, Yan Jinb, Flora C.J. Hung-Baeseckec

a Department of Advertising and Public Relations, Grady College, The University of Georgia, Athens, GA 30602, United States b School of Mass Communications, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, VA 23284, United States c Department of Communication Studies, Hong Kong Baptist University, Hong Kong, China

a r t i c l e i n f o

Article history:

Received 4 April 2013

Received in revised form 21 July 2013

Accepted 31 July 2013

Keywords:

Talent recruitment

Social media

Employee engagement

Responsive strategies

a b s t r a c t

An online survey of 132 public relations practitioners in Mainland China, Hong Kong, and,

Taiwan revealed three issues (i.e., finding, developing and retaining highly talented com￾munication, professionals, managing the digital revolution and rise of social media, and

dealing with the speed and, volume of information flow) as the most urgent ones to deal

with in today’s public relations practice. Consequently, various responsive strategies have

been applied to deal with emerging critical issues.

© 2013 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction

As an important emerging power, the Greater China area (i.e., Mainland China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan) has experienced

a rapid growth and development in public relation and communication management since the early 1990s (e.g., Chen &

Culbertson, 2009; Chen, 2003; Culbertson & Chen, 1996; Li, Cropp, Sims, & Jin, 2012; PR Landscape China, 2012). At the same

time, organizations in that region face a host of challenging environments as a consequence of the fast growing economy.

One of the key issues that organizations face is how to minimize the gap between adapting to rapid changing environment

and securing highly qualified communication professionals when the profession of public relations and communication

management is still in its immature but rapid developmental stage in that region. It is important for communication leaders

in organizations to develop a number of environment-responding strategies to cope with the challenging, and sometimes

chaotic, environments in such an important emerging economy. Thus, this research aims at finding out the top three critical

social issues and changes currently affecting public relations practitioners’ daily communication strategy development and

management in that specific region. By using an online survey, we also investigated how public relations practitioners

have come up with relevant responsive strategies and actions to help them cope with those critical issues. Two major

research questions were addressed in this study: (1) what are the most significant social issues and changes in that region

affecting practitioners’ communication practice? (2) What specific responsive strategies appear to be effective in dealing

with those critical issues? We hope to use the research findings to advance our understanding of public relations practice

and development in the Greater China area.

∗ Corresponding author at: Department of Advertising and Public Relations, Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication, The University of

Georgia, Athens, GA 30602-3018, United States. Tel.: +1 706 542 2173; fax: +1 706 542 2183.

E-mail address: [email protected] (J. Meng).

0363-8111/$ – see front matter © 2013 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.pubrev.2013.07.023