Journal Resume "Excellence Theory in Public Relations: Past, Present, and Future"

Rulan Suciyanti

135120207121010

This paper contain my resume a journal by James E. Grinig and Larissa A. Grunig “ Excellence Theory in Public Relations: Past, Present, and Future With James Grunig’s research on public found among Columbian farmers began in the 1960s called programme of research as the excellence theory. The “excellence theory” is the name their colleagues and they gave to an integrated collectionnof middle-range theories that we used in a 15-years' study sponsored by the International Association of Business Communicators (IABC) Research Foundation.

They followed Peters and Waterman’s example of searching for best practices in their excellence study, although they defined excellence differently and conducted large-scale survey research along with qualitative interviews rather than case studies, as them did. They defined excellence as a set of characteristics of a public relations function that were correlated with organizational effectiveness. They defined organizational effectiveness as occurring when an organization achieves goals chosen in consultation with stakeholders – goals that served the interests of both the organization and these strategic constituencies. We defined excellence in public relations as a set of attributes and practices that helped to “build quality, long-term relationships with strategic constituencies” (J. Grunig and L. Grunig, 2007, 328).

A public was or how the characteristics of an organization influenced how public relations practitioners behaved. J. Grunig (1966) began to construct the conceptualization that he now calls the situational theory of publics; and J. Grunig (1976) used organizational theory to identify how an organization’s structure, environment, history, size, and technology affect the practice of public relations – research that eventually produced his four models of public relations (e.g., J. Grunig, 2001) and explained why organizations practice one or more of these models rather than others. Today, we often call the excellence theory a theory of public relations as a strategic management function because the excellence study established participation of public relations in strategic management as the critical component that ties together the middle-range theories we integrated into our general theory.

In the part two explained about two approaches to Public Relations. The approaches the symbolicinterpretive paradigm and the strategic management, or behavioural, paradigm. The symbolic-interpretive paradigm sees reality as subjective and views concepts such as organizations themselves, their environments, and the behaviour of managers as subjective enactments of reality rather than observable and measurable reality enactments whose meanings can be negotiated through communication. According to Hatch, postmodernism “found its way into organization theory through applications of linguistic, semiotic, and literary theory via the interest in meaning and interpretation introduced by symbolic-interpretive organization theorists”(J. Grunig & L. Grunig, 2007, 329)

Throughout their careers, they have seen public relations as a means of giving voice to and empowering publics in organizational decision-making (a post-modern perspective), while at the same time developing explanations of why empowering publics also benefits organizations (a semi-modernist perspective). Thus, they believe the excellence theory contains elements of both modernism and postmodernism, although they do not adhere rigorously to the assumptions of either stereotyped approach. they believe the symbolicinterpretive paradigm devotes excessive attention to the role of communication and public relations in negotiating meaning and not enough attention to their role in negotiating the behaviour of both organizations and publics.

In the part three told about the origins of the strategic management paradigm. The excellence study, which began in 1985, then provided the means for unifying these concepts and adding other theoretical building blocks to the strategic management theory of public relations. In addition to explaining the value of public relations, the excellence study provided solid theory and empirical evidence of how the function should be organized to maximize value.

The characteristics of an excellent public relations function can be placed into four categories, each containing several characteristics that can be audited  (J. Grunig and L. Grunig, 2007):

1.      Empowerment of the Public Relations Function

2.      Communicator Roles

3.      Organization of the Communication Function and its Relationship to other

4.       Models of Public Relations

This general theory has provided concepts to teach to future public relations practitioners, tools that professionals can use in practice, principles and rules that will make public relations more acceptable to society and understood by both organizations and publics, and a conceptual framework that continues to generate research.

Bibliography:

Grunig, J. E., & Grunig, L. A. (2008). Exellence theory in public relations: Past, present, and future. In A. Zerfass., B. Van Ruler., K. Sriramesh (Eds.), Public relations research: european and international perspectives and innovations (pp. 327-347). Wiesbaden, Germany: VS Verlag.