Public relations roles and functions by organization

L a u r a C o t t o n e , D.G. W a k e f i e l d , R. R o c c o C o t t o n e and Willard North Public Relations Roles and Functions By Organization This descriptive study defines the principal role and fimction of public relations as perceived by the most senior communication executives in organizations in the central United States. The authors report that they undertook the study because of their difficulty in finding hard, statistical data to support planning needs in the educational setting in which public relations is taught." Their methodology: Factor analysis, applied to 19 "'global" task measures, which resulted in six "'factors" that were then statistically related to agency or corporate organization. The authors: Laura Perkins Cottone is an instructor of communication and head of the public relations sequence at Central Missouri State University. She is also president of C.P., Inc., a firm offering specialized marketing and communication services. D.G. Wakefield is an assistant professor and director of the public relations program at Southern Illinois University, Carbondale. E. Rocco Cottone is an associate professor of psychology at Central Missouri State University. Willard North is a professor of psychology and director of research services at CMSU. T his study was designed to assess the current state of public relations practice in Missouri and the central United States. It is a "study of the role and function of public relations as viewed by the "most senior communication executives" in an 11-state region. A survey was conducted which focused on major or "global" functions of the communicataion executives as well as their perceptions of the importance of study in academic areas. This article reports the findings of the first part of the study, which analyzed the global functions of communication executives. The specific research questions addressed by the role and function part of this study were: 9 What factors can be identified (from 19 global task descriptors) that best describe the role and function of public relations practitioners in Missouri and the central United States? 29 Public Relations Review 9 Given identified factors, are there differences in the judged importance of these factors across organization types (i.e., corporate vs. agency)? Method Subjects The target population for this survey was the population of the "most senior communication executive" in an agency or corporation in the central United States, which included the following: Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, Ohio, Oklahoma and Wisconsin. A list was purchased from Ed Bumett Consultants, Inc., a company with 25 years of direct mail experience in stratified and randomized list compilation. Bumett's nationwide lists, updated regularly, are drawn from telephone directories, trade directories, organization rosters, and special listings. Communication executives were identified from the Burnett list, and a sample of 500 individuals from that list comprised the sample population. Individual subjects were chosen as follows: The population of subjects was split into two clusters, "in Missouri" and "outside of Missouri." Since Missouri subjects were of primary concern to the researchers, 250 subjects were randomly chosen from the "in-Missouri" cluster, and 250 subjects were randomly chosen from the other 10 states. In effect, the sample represented two major clusters, with each potential subject within a cluster having an equal chance of being selected for the sample. The sample consisted of owners/presidents of 261 agencies involved primarily in public relations and publicity services, 56 agencies involved primarily in advertising (with a secondary focus on public relations), and public relations directors of 183 corporations and other non-agency organizations. Subjects were from firms of varying size, with net worths ranging from less than $10,000 to more than $1 million. Firms represented in the study served communities ranging in population from less than 1,000 to more than 500,000. The Instrument The instrument used in this study was designed specifically for this study. Information from the relevant public relations literature was used in question formulation. Each of the global tasks listed in the instrument was a word or phrase relating to the practice of public relations. (A complete list of the tasks is provided in the results section of this article under the subheading of "factor analysis Of the global tasks.") Subjects were allowed one of four responses on each item in a Likert-type format (ranging from "very unimportant" [1] to "very important" [4]). 30 Roles and Functions The demographic section was designed to collect data such as age, experience, gender, job title, and other descriptors. Procedure The survey was conducted in the summer of 1984. Each subject was mailed, a survey form, a cover letter, and a return-addressed stamped envelope. Packets were coded for follow-up, but respondents were guaranteed anonymity. Four days after the questionnaires were mailed, a reminder postcard was mailed to all subjects. Three weeks later, a follow-up letter and additional survey with a return-addressed stamped envelope was mailed to subjects who had not yet responded. Three weeks after the follow-up letter, all Missouri subjects who had not responded were telephoned and encouraged to respond. Results The return rate for this survey was 50.95 percent (188 questionnaires were completed from a final sample of 369). Thirty-five of the original 500 questionnaires were returned by the post office as "undeliverable," and 96 subjects disqualified themselves (i.e., reported they were ineligible, or the primary respondent was reported by others as "not available" during the time frame of the survey). Demographics The demographic data can be summarized as follows: Seventy-six percent of the respondents were male and 24 percent of the respondents were female. Fifty-three percent of the respondents were owners or chief executive officers (CEOs), 25 percent were directors or managers, 13 percent were executive vice presidents, and 9 percent were account executives. Sixty-four percent of the respondents were from agencies, while 36 percent were from corporations. Fifty-one percent of the respondents were from Missouri, while 49 percent were from one of the other 10 states in the survey. The median income was S40,001-$65,000 with 35 percent of the respondents reporting income in this range. Thirty-one percent reported incomes in the $25,001-$40,000 range, while 14 percent said their incomes fell in the $65,001-$100,000 range. Eleven percent reported income of $25,000 or less, and 9 percent had incomes of $100,001 or higher. In regard to age, 30 percent were between 51 and 60. Twenty-seven percent were between 31 and 40, and 23 percent of the respondents reported ages in the 41-50 age range. The mean for all ages fell in the 41-50 age range. 31 Public Relations Review Factor Analysis of the "Global Tasks" A principal components factor analysis was applied to the 19-item global tasks data. Six factors were identified as having eigenvalues greater than "1." The six-factor solution accounted for nearly 64% of the variance across the 19 global tasks. The six factors were then orthogonally rotated using the Varimax approach. The resulting factor matrix revealed that each item had at least a .46 loading on at least one of the six factors. A .46 factor loading represents a significant factor loading w h e n the sample size is larger than 50, as was the case in this study. Two items had factor loadings of at least .46 on two different factors (i.e., each of these two items was significantly related to two factors). The six identified factors, and the items which significantly loaded with each factor, are as follows (listed as extracted by order of importance, with the higher factor loaded items listed first). The factors were n a m e d according to the c o m m o n content aspects of the significant items within each factor. Factor 1: Large-scale events. Items: (a) convention and meeting planning; (b) trade shows and exhibits; (c) special events planning and coordination; and (d) fundraising and development. Factor 2: Communication with publics. Items: (a) school relations; Co) governmental relations; (c) employee/labor relations; (d) stockholder relations; and (e) community relations. Factor 3: Management. Items: (a) budgeting; (b) decision-making/problem solving; (c) project management; and (d) management counsel regarding corporate decisions. Factor 4: Media~community relations. Items: (a) media relations; (b) community relations; and (c) fundraising and development. Factor 5: Logistics. Items: (a) trafficking; (b) coordination of creative effort; and (c) research. Factor 6: Client Relations. Items: (a) customer/client relations; and (b) account sales/service. 2-by-2 Factorial Analysis of Variance Each of the six factors was additionally assessed in a 2-by-2 factorial design for significance across type of organization ("corporate" vs. "agency") and locale ("in Missouri" vs. "outside of Missouri"). The major purpose of the 2-by-2 factorial analysis of variance was to assess differences across organizational types (corporate versus agency) on the six factors identified by the factor analysis. Because this project was designed to give Missouri respondents near equal representation to the 10 other sampled states in total, the 2-by-2 factorial analysis of variance was applied with the intent of partialing out the effect of geographic locale (by itself or in interaction) while assessing any differences across organizational types. Whereas a bias in favor of Missouri respondents was valued by the investigators in the deft32 Roles and Functions TABLE 1 A Factor Analysis of 19 Public Relations Skills and Knowledges* Factor 1 Factor 2 Factor 3 Factor 4Factor 5 Factor 6 Large- Communication scale with Manage- FundCustomer events public ment Raising Logistics service 1. Budgeting 2. Decision-making/ problem-solving 3. Project management 4. Management counsel 5. Media relations 6. Community relations 7. Customer/client relations 8. Employee/labor relations 9. Stockholder relations 10. Governmental relations 11. School relations 12. Coordination of creative effort 13. Trafficking 14. Research 15. Account sales/service 16. Special events planning and coordination .676 17. Trade shows and exhibits .753 18. Fundraising and development .515 19. Convention and meeting planning .853 .766 .752 .694 .498 .473 .731 .595 .787 .703 .688 .704 .737 .481 .876 .461 .750 *The loadings were obtained from a Principal Component Solution and a Varimax rotation. Only loadings exceeding .45 are shown. nition of "factors" in the global role and function of public relations, the geographic locale variable was viewed as "'unwanted" when analyzing the results across organizational types. The 2-by-2 factorial analysis (using a regression model) allows a clearer interpretation of differences across organizational types. Therefore, the reported within-groups degrees of freedom 33 Public Relations Review (df), s u m of squares (SS), F-values, and probabilities relate to the regression model analysis (type III Sum of Squares) of the Statistical Analysis System (SAS) within a 2-by-2 factorial analysis of variance design. The scores for each "factor" used in this analysis were based on the factor items with factor loadings more than .46. The level of significance used to test each hypothesis was p<.05. The results are as follows. Factor 1: Large-scale events. There was no significant difference between corporate vs. agency organizations. Factor 2: Communication with publics. There was a significant difference across type of organization, with corporation executives rating this more highly than agency executives. Factor 3: Management. There was no significant difference between corporate vs. agency organizations. Factor 4: Media~community relations. There was a significant difference across organization types, with agency executives rating this factor more highly than corporate executives. Factor 5: Logistics. There was a significant difference across organization types, with agency executives rating this factor more highly than corporate executives. (There was also a significant difference across location, with non-Missouri respondents rating this factor higher than Missouri respondents.) Factor 6: Customer service. There was a significant difference across organization types, with agency executives rating this factor more highly than corporate executives. (There was also a significant organization by location interaction effect.) Conclusions The "typical" respondent to this survey was a 41 to 50-year-old male, with an income between $40,001 and $60,000. Two-thirds of those w h o responded had reached the top echelon of their organization. Nearly twothirds were employed by or o w n e d a public relations or communication agency. W h e n the 19 global tasks were statistically clustered through factor analysis, six significant groupings became evident. Those six "factors" (largescale events, communication with publics, management, media/community relations, logistics, and client relations) represent the global functions of senior communication executives in the central United States. When those six functions were analyzed across type of organization, it became clear that corporate communication executives rated "communication with publics" as significantly more important than their agency counterparts. This is probably because corporation executives more closely identify with those they would consider "primary" publics. Corporation executives gear their communication efforts toward those publics they are likely to have an impact on. 84 Roles and Funetlons ~D 0 0 o..r o 0 c4 u~ m~ U ;zr 0 t~ 0 C~ v-r 0 0 8~ Public Relations Review u CD ~D 0 0 o...~ 0 o...~ 0 ~0 cO ~ ~.) tf~ 0 0 T-I 0 cq r.j d ~J o,..~ 00 r.~ ~ 0 0 .< ~ 0 36 Roles and Functions On the other hand, agency communication executives rated "logistics," "client relations," and "media/community relations" as significantly more important than their counterparts in corporations. From an agency perspective, day-to-day "logistics" and "client relations" are very significant, because the agency provides the means for a variety of clientele to achieve very diverse objectives. On the other hand, the "media/community relations" finding is more difficult to explain. It would appear that media relations, community relations, and fundraising and development (those items making up the "media/community relations" factor) would be just as important to corporation executives as to agency executives. Yet the statistics for the two groups are significantly different. The agency executives' responses to this study showed they viewed "media/community relations" as significantly more important than their corporate counterparts. Could it be that corporations are relying more heavily on agencies to handle these tasks? This is a finding that raises additional questions and deserves further scrutiny. Overall, this descriptive study has identified and ordered by level of importance six major functions of public relations through an analysis of 19 global tasks. This study is, of course, limited by the tasks which were listed in the survey, and indeed, specific functions (such as direct-mail promotion, print or broadcast advertising, copy editing, etc.) were not included in the analysis. However, it is believed that identification of these major factors (derived from global tasks) can help to explain the current state of affairs of public relations practice in the central United States. Since these findings represent only the role and function of public relations professionals in the central United States, the results may not be generalizable on a national scale. Comparison of the identified factors and demographic data to similar studies in other regions will be necessary to determine if there are major geographic differences. This Publication is available in Microform. University Microfilms International 300 North Z~eb Road, Dept. ER., Arm Arbor. Mi. 48106 37