MKT310 UITM

1. Public Relations Role in
Management

2. 1. Describe public relations role in strategic management.
2. Understand the importance of public relations in
managing the organization’s reputation
3. Explain the roles of public relations practitioners from the
viewpoint of both scholars and practitioners.

3. Generally PR acts as part of the management team in
formulating strategies for the organization. In performing
this duties , PR must be able to do the followings:
 Reports directly to top management.
 PR must enjoys enough freedom and autonomy to deal
openly and honestly with management.
 Interpret the philosophies, policies, programs and practices
of their management to the public and convey the attitudes
of the public to top management.
 Well verse in management theory and technique.
 Play the role of corporate conscience.

4.  Strategic management starts with organization’s
mission statement.
 All organization must have a mission statement. It is
the responsibility of PR to help in designing a mission
statement.

5. What is a mission statement ?
 “ Mission statement is an idealistic and inspirational
statement design to give those in the organization a
sense of purpose and direction.”
 Mission statement state succinctly why an
organization exist.
 E.g. Mission Statement of Merck Pharmaceutical
“ We are in the business of preserving and improving
human life”

6. From public relation point of view, mission statement
serves two important purpose :
1. Mission statement commit the whole organization
to accountability, creating its own culture and
values.
2. The attitude express provides framework in which
PR can device its goal and objectives, builds its
budgets, directs its talent, device its program and
assess its impact.

7. Cutlip, Center,& Broom. (1994) outlined four ways :
1. Collecting and analyzing information on the changing
knowledge, opinion and behavior of publics.
2. Serving as central source of information and official
channel of communication.
3. Communicating significant information to help public
aware of organization’s policy and action
4. Coordinating activity that affects an organization’s
relationship with its public and other stakeholders group.
Performing the above activities demand a PR practitioner to be a skilful
communicator to craft meaningful messages.

8.  Everyday business decision has several implications on
operational, financial, legal and reputational.
 Reputational aspect is often ignored or neglected.
 Reputational implication can be defined as those that
impact the way in which an organization is regarded by
the publics with whom it interacts.
 A decision has a reputational implication if it has the
potential to effect the relationship between the company
and its public.

9. Reputation management process involved two stages:
1. Earn reputation through behavior as well as
communication.
2. Leverage that reputation to gain tangible business
benefit.

10.  Media
Tendency to give wider coverage on controversial issue.
E.g. Environmental performance, invasion of employee
privacy, unfair hiring, testing product on animal.
 Interest Group – NGO’s
E.g. Nutritional content on food, Unfair business practice.
 Information Technology
Rogue Internet Post. Flooded with online voices. Need to
implement strategy to face web attackers. PR job to maintain
company’s web

11. 1. Protect company against attack.
2. Provide detail information to clear controversies.
3. Initiate programs to explain company goals and
objectives.
4. Pro-active. Identify potential problem and act quickly.
5. Demonstrate good environmental policy.
6. Protect and promote corporate trademark and logos.

12. 1. Clear and direct – say what you mean and mean what
you say.
2. Informative – based on facts, help people made good
decision.
3. Emphasize on main idea or purpose – Easy on
superlative adjectives. No place for puffery.
4. Appeal to people best interest.
5. Emphasize on what the public can benefit instead of
what organization will get to achieve.
6. Appeal to the eye and ear.

13. In performing the job of PR , practitioners normally focus
on the their talents and abilities and the requirement of
their management. Basically there are 5 self describe
roles that a practitioner can perform in executing their
duties :
1. Expert prescriber
2. Communication technician
3. Communication facilitator
4. Problem solving process facilitator
5. Acceptant legitimizer.
( Glen M Broom, Geroge D. Smith )

14. 1. EXPERT PRE-SCRIBER (an Authoritarian and
Prescriptive Model)
 Full authority to identify problems and provide
solution.
 Useful when immediate action is imperative.
 PR defines problems, develops programs,
executes implementation and measure outcome.
 Management knowledge does not get factored in
the process.
 PR practitioner solely responsible and accountable
for the subsequent results.

15. 2. COMMUNICATION TECHNICIAN
 Play the supporting role, not involved in defining
problems and finding solutions.
 Functions are routine and highly structured or
compartmentalization ( Press conference, Launching of
new events, customer complain, research new ideas.)
 Usually meant for fresh graduate without hands-on
experience.
 Background in communication and journalistic skills
such as writing, editing and media placement is
required. Job includes crafting communication
messages and implementing programs.

16. 3. COMMUNICATION FACILITATOR (Liaison model)
 Role as a liaison person, interpreters, mediators that
facilitate communication between organization and its
public.
 Reconcile organization interest with that of the public
 Keeping the channel of communication open.
 Remove barriers from relationship.
 Result in improved quality of the decision that affect
the public.

17. 4. PROBLEM-SOLVING PROCESS FACILITATOR
(Confrontational model)
 Practitioners become part of strategic planning team.
 Collaborate with other managers to define and solve
problems.
 Use management step by step process of solving
organizational problem.
 Better decision making since it involves line managers
who has technical and procedural knowledge.

18. 5. ACCEPTANT LEGITIMISER (A-yes Man Model)
 Practitioners legitimize management and organization
decisions.
 PR has no authority and does not have the initiative to
act on his or her own without management approval.
 A mere endorser, make no contribution to solving
problem.

19. All these five self-describe roles can be categorized into
two areas:
1. Managerial role
Act as counsel to management, supervise staff
and participate in policy making
2. Technician Role
Performing communication skills

20. 1. How to deal with attitudes of people whose job will
be changed or eliminated by the introduction of
more efficient method.
2. How to deal with reactions of intended customers
and dealers to the product.
3. How to persuade the best people to work for the
company.
4. How to deal with the attitudes of investors.
5. How to reach the hearts and minds of the people.
6. How to make people understand that business
works better with minimum restraints.

21.  Need to be aware of and listen to what is important in
the public mind.
 Need to monitor and evaluate current social issues.
 Prevent crisis if occurred, keep them from getting out
of hand.
 Come up with strategies to solve, contain or hinder the
problem.

22.  Performed communication audit, internal or external to
track problem areas.
 A bridge to change. PR must act as a communication
link between organization and its public.
 Identify what needs to be done to accommodate new
attitudes brought about by chance, e.g. global
communication system.
 Stimulate that change where and when necessary.