Research Conversations The Institute for Public Relations (IPR) is an independent nonprofit foundation dedicated to the science beneath the art of public relations™ focusing on research that matters to the practice.
Reputation = Performance + Behavior + Communications
Former IPR Trustee Björn Edlund mounts a spirited defense of focusing on reputation. He responds to a column in The Economist that “says it is wrong for companies to aim at leveraging its reputation – or even to regard reputation as a corporate asset.”
Read Björn’s piece on the Arthur W. Page Society blog.
Frank Ovaitt is president and CEO of the Institute for Public Relations.
Brain Science and Public Relations Listening
Why do we get such a kick out of focusing on ourselves?
Thirty to 40 percent of human speech informs others about ourselves. Eighty percent or more of social media posts announce our own experiences or views. Nine-month-old babies already try to draw the attention of others to things they find important in their environments. Adults in all societies try to share their knowledge with others.
Humans are wired to disclose. In fact, a battery of studies by Diana Tamir and Jason Mitchell of the Department of Psychology at Harvard University finds that talking about ourselves lights up the same brain pleasure ...
“Glocalization” of China’s Public Relations Market
The following post is excerpted from an article in PR Magazine, published by the China International Public Relations Association.
2003: The arrival of a turning point
If 10 years can be considered as a generation, international firms were no doubt the backbone of the first generation of PR companies in China from the mid-1980s to the mid-1990s. In 1984, Hill & Knowlton, one of the biggest PR companies in the world, was the first to set up an office in Beijing. In 1985, Burson-Marsteller, another leading international PR company, also entered China by way of forging cooperation with Xinhua News Agency. This ...
Measurement Jumps to 9% of Corporate PR Budgets
Research budgets are up, organizations increasingly evaluate outcomes instead of outputs, and the way companies measure PR is related to indicators of success. These are just some of the powerful insights about what appears to be a transformation of PR measurement and evaluation provided by USC Annenberg’s Generally Accepted Practices (GAP) for Public Relations study. In its seventh iteration this year, GAP VII is the largest and most comprehensive study to date of senior-level PR/communication practitioners in the United States. It was conducted with IPR as research partner and in cooperation with PRSA, IABC and the Arthur Page Society, and ...
Criticism Keeps You on Your Toes
The following has been adapted from a January 2012 interview with van Riel in www.managementboek.nl , based on his book “The Alignment Factor.”
Alignment is building long-term relationships with all internal and external stakeholders, those you depend on as an organisation. Where reputation is a means, alignment is an end.
Communication staff are focusing increasingly on building alignment, the degree to which you are able to build long-term relationships with both your internal and external stakeholders. This has two consequences. First, communication professionals need to really deliver, they must initiate dialogue with all those who criticize you most or demand something from ...
Legendary Research Conference, Stunning Venue
The organizers of Bledcom, the legendary international public relations research conference at Lake Bled, Slovenia, have released the program for 2012.
The July 6-7 conference breaks into two tracks focused on academic and corporate research. Current and former IPR Trustees, Research Fellows and commission members appearing the program include Don Wright, Rob Wakefield, Ansgar Zerfass, Krishnamurthy Sriramesh, James and Larissa Grunig.
Registration is available online.
Frank Ovaitt is President and CEO of the Institute for Public Relations.
Internal Consulting: Research on New Roles for PR Professionals
Internal consulting as a part of the role of communication professionals within organizations has been discussed by a number of researchers. But what does “consulting” in this context mean? Who are clients, what is the content? Which objectives, forms, and specifications are relevant?
A recent research project conducted in Germany addresses these questions. We have developed a theoretical framework based on research in business consulting and existing public relations role models, and verified this in in.-depth interviews with corporate communication executives in major European corporations. The full paper has received an IPR Top-3-Paper award at the IPRRC 2012 conference in Miami ...
Making Peace with Capitalism and Ourselves
We need a new definition of corporate social responsibility (CSR) to apply not only to corporations, but also to governments, NGOs – any organization that competes for societal resources – thereby helping societies set a sustainable path.
The economic crisis is a good opportunity for social scientists to talk to each other, who for decades have been telling us that organizations are not perfect: Herbert Simon and many others have proved Max Weber wrong. For what concerns the environment nothing is very new either: The Limits to Growth was published 40 years ago. As for self inspection, on one side, we ...
Public Relations, No More Excuses
Last month I was in Miami for the 15th Annual International Public Relations Research Conference. For three days, researchers, teachers, masters, doctoral students and PR professionals from around 15 different countries were gathered together to discuss over than 108 researches that were made the past year.
All kind of topics were presented, but social networks took the major attention this time: 38% of the research had to do something with this issue, while another important topic, with the 18%, was the one that involved the issue of Financial Crisis, eight papers were done about the evaluation and measurement of Public Relations ...
Developing Risk-Literate Communications Professionals
Careers in reputation management, public relations and corporate communications can be made or broken during times of crises. Communications practitioners who want more than a seat at the press-release end of the table should consider expanding their knowledge beyond communications to incorporate an understanding of the theory and research around risk communications.
A compelling case for risk literacy among the profession is made in a soon-to-be-published paper by Dr. Chris Galloway, Swinburne University, Melbourne. Galloway’s paper suggests that risk communications expertise could be one of the most important contributions a PR practitioner can offer to an employer.
The core of his paper ...
Archives
IPR Tweets
-
Jenn Moyer: Former #IPR Trustee Björn Edlund says it is wrong for companies to aim at leveraging reputation. http://t.co/flXSeL2a. What do you think?
-
Jenn Moyer: Reputation = Performance + Behavior + Communications: http://t.co/flXSeL2a
-
Frank Ovaitt: @LynnCBrown congrats!
-
Jenn Moyer: 80% of social media posts announce our own views. Humans are wired to disclose. What are the implications for PR? http://t.co/fSdXRJqS
-
Frank Ovaitt: Gen's Shinseki: :“If you don’t like change, you’re going to like irrelevance even less.”
-
More Ways to Follow Us