2/21/10

Week8: Public Relations Management in Organisations

Management is important in the organisation, and every department requires proper management, including Public Relations management as well. I agree to Skyttner (2001) as he claimed that theories are needed for people who attempt to solve problems, make recommendations and predict the future through using theories as a basis.

As I continued reading, the part on Adjustment and Adaptation left me thinking. I think that it is really not easy to be able to adapt and adjust accordingly cause sometimes, Public Relations practitioners may not feel the need to do so. However, it is the role of Public Relations practitioners to establish and maintain mutually beneficial relationships that are good for the organisation. Sometimes, people may be too accustomed to their environment. It may become problematic when an organisation faces conflicting needs from another. Thus, it is the Public Relations practitioner's role to help decision makers in the organisation through this predicament and ensure that it results in positive outcomes. Besides the external environment, I do agree that employees in the organisation are equally important. This is because they are the ones who make up the organisation, thus it is vital for them to be committed to the organisation and also, for them to adapt to the organisation's policies, rules, or decisions. This can be further supported as Chia and Peters )2008) found out that employees are becoming social capital investors as they take a key role in growing the organisation's internal and external relationships. This shows that employees can mean a lot to the organisation as they become an intergral part of a public relations communication management program.

All in all, I believe that employees, community, environment (internal and external) are important in the growth of an organisation. That is why terms such as community engagement, corporate social responsibility, employee communication channels come about. They are all inter-related and Public Relations practitioners should look into these factors when completing their task for the organisation. Everyone should work together to make the working environment a comfortable place.


I personally prefer the open systems as compared to the closed systems because i think that it is important to view environment as important to survival. As the saying states "No man is an island", I believe that organisations cannot survive alone and are definitely affected by the external environment. Unlike the closed system whereby the Public Relations department only react to crisis or when problems arise, I think that Public Relations practitioners should be more proactive and constantly seek information at any point of time. This also makes the role of a Public Relations practitioner more interesting and challenging. Also, a two-way communication approach is definitely better in the sense that as compared to a linear communication, feedback is important as it allows organisation to improve.

I also agree with Gurnig (1992) as he stated that public relations department should seperate from marketing function because there is still a fine line between these two and if the there is a mix between these two, it will seem very much similar to advertising. We have to remember that besides customer relationships, public relations practitioners have to take into account non-customer public which include employees, communities and shareholders.

Even animals can live in harmony.

2 comments:

  1. Jayne, I like photos you put in every post.
    I agree with you that open systems are more flexible to changes in the environment. I guess PR practitioners in such systems have more challenges. However, they have grounds to practise and even learn from other PR practitioners in other organizations.
    :)

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  2. Heya Jayne, I agree with you that management is important in every organisation.

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