Organizations need to interact and communicate with public or different audiences from their country and outside their country. For that, organizations focus on building strong public relations nationally or internationally. For trading, foreign direct investment, marketing, and political coalition good public relations are required. The matter of fact is that communication is the main key to build strong public relations. However, professional bodies and academics describe public relation in a different manner. In this paper with the help of vast literature, definitions, academic researches, and professional practices the difference between professional level practices and academic researches/studies or perspectives on public relations will be discussed.
Public relations in the new world are now mostly based on communicating through media and then communicating the right audience. The main focus is to build a good market reputation and for that PR aims to take social networking media, branding, and marketing to the next level. Moreover, PR evaluates the changing behaviors of people in this world and their changing demands for new and innovative products. It helps to convey organizational mission to different audiences. The current PR practices are changing because of the current market situation and needs. On the other side, researches done by Baines, Egan & Jefkins (2007) describe public relations as an art to communicating with people. The old concept of public relations is that a public relation officer will be responsible for communicating organization’s message with public at the right time. The responsibilities of PR professional included press releases, newsletters, public appearances, etc. whereas, now the focus of PR professionals is on the utilization of the internet and media to promote the organization’s message or product (Baines et al., 2007).
For global public relations is it necessary that organizations should use strong public relations strategies. For that, organizations are working hard with their PR professionals to train them to deal with international traders. The theoretical perspectives help organizations and PR professionals to create strong relations globally. There are different tools that are use in PR. It helps PR professionals to deal internationally. Gregory (2004) explained public relations as it is the interaction of PR members with the media to ensure the message of marketers and their intent that they will deliver the promised products. They follow the marketing communication mix elements in which they interact with media too with a message and the media supply their message to the concerned department or company. It is the reason that PR is a part of marketing, and it promotes a product or service with little or no cost. It is because the objective of PR is to complement paid marketing and communicate the market credibility towards the traditional digital channels.
Oliver (2007) believes that PR should be capable of influencing public opinion through strong communication strategies. Therefore, companies focus on developing strong communication strategies which must include ethical codes as communication with public requires proper communication strategy process to be followed by PR managers. Moreover, integrated marketing and PR are interlinked, and both focus on the multichannel messages to create a difference. It also generates good profits and earns a good reputation for the company. PR department is supposed to put their best efforts to manage and shape the public perception about the company. PR helps companies to build their brands and achieve business goals with the help of integrated marketing strategies.
Public relations manager creates strong communication between an organization and internal and external stakeholders. It is the reason that the
Bowen (2007) believes that following the ethical code of conduct in public relations is necessary. However, the current practices are facing ethical issues in public relations as they are using social media, and sometimes they fail to satisfy the customer through social media. PR is a strategic communication process that needs the proper involvement of PR officer to build a strong relationship between the organization and their public. It is necessary for organizations to study public relations ethics. The PR manager at any organization is involved in ethical advising, and planning process thus, they should know the ethical standards. Violation of ethical standards may create problems for the organization, and its reputation can be affected. The responsibility of PR manager also increases when he is assigned for high-level decisions with the upper management. There are various ethical challenges that need to be dealt with care and by following the ethical standards.
Green (2007) mentioned that the current PR practices are focusing on the promotions or creating a positive image of the organization more than following the ethical standards. For example, there are few famous companies of goods which are outsourcing their production to those countries where they find cheap labor. Knowing the fact that the cheap labor is because of the child labor these companies are not doing anything to stop this. Moreover, in few countries bribery is common and PR managers still suggest outsourcing the production in such countries where work can be done easily due to bribery. The upper management of the organization such as CEO or head of the departments appreciates their idea as they are giving favorable and cost effective suggestions but they are not giving ethical solutions. It is the reason that organizations should make it compulsory for PR department to learn the ethical code of conducts as they are the representatives of the organization in public. Therefore, organizations also give ethics training to the PR department employees. From a PR representative to manager everyone in the organization should receive the ethical training as they are the image generator of the company to the audience.
Considering the importance of PR in organizations and role of PR manager universities have included PR as a part of their academic courses. The academic training and study of ethics for students help them to learn ethical standards, ethical advisements, and the way ethical dilemmas can be managed. highlighted the importance of PR specialist as an image shaper because they have to generate positive publicity to enhance the reputation of the organization and its projects. Therefore, analyzing the importance of PR at workplaces, the academic sector has included PR to their curriculum, and it is giving new ways to students to integrate marketing strategies with PR to convince the public to buy or to trust anything they say. The professional experiences are also included to let students know about the current practices. It helps them to learn things from the current business world, and ethical education helps them to avoid ethical dilemmas.
It is analyzed from the academic studies that public relations are an art to communicating virtually and physically with different people. PR works to build a positive image of the organization and for that organization is adopting different marketing strategies to promote their products and services. It is the reason that PR is also changing and with time the responsibilities of PR department are also increasing. With the increased set of responsibilities, the current practices are becoming different and unique than ever before. Thus, it can be said that the literature on PR suggested communicating with people, though, the managers are still communicating with public but through social media or the internet mostly. Moreover, the current practices of PR managers are increased, and they also give ethical advice to the management. Therefore, it has become necessary for the organizations to give ethical training to their employees, especially PR department as they can analyze ethical dilemmas. It will not be incorrect to state that both academic literature and professional practices are almost similar because the purpose of PR is still same as before that is to communicate with the public. It can be said that the defined PR theories and current practices share same values and interest. Though, with the passage of time ways to promote organizational messages, are changed, but the purpose is still same. Differences can be found in professional practices and theoretical studies but at the end current, both are similar as the main aim is to communicate with people.
List of References
Baines, P., Egan, J. & Jefkins, F., 2007. Public Relations. 1st ed. New york: Routledge.
Bowen, S., 2007. Ethics and Public Relations. [Online] Available at: http://www.instituteforpr.org/ethics-and-public-relations/ [Accessed 25 July 2016].
Green, A., 2007. Creativity in Public Relations. 3rd ed. London: Kogan.
Gregory, A., 2004. Public Relations in Practice. 2nd ed. London : Kogan Page Publishers.
Henslowe, P., 2003. Public Relations: A Practical Guide to the Basics. 2nd ed. London: Kogan.
Kermani, . & Needham, A., 2006. Marketing and Public Relations. 1st ed. New Delhi: Rotludge.
Molleda, J.-C., 2009. Global Public Relations. [Online] Available at: http://www.instituteforpr.org/global-public-relations/ [Accessed 25 July 2016].
Oliver, S., 2007. Public Relations Strategy. 2nd ed. London: Kogan.
