Review Journal Excellence Theory in Public Relation: Past, Present, and Future

Review Journal Excellence Theory in Public Relation:

Past, Present, and Future

Aazarah Ayu Anggraini

NIM 135120207121007

            “Excellence Theory in Public Relation: Past, Present, and Future” is a journal article written by James E. Grunig and Larissa A. Grunig. This journal is talking about how excellence theory build, how the excellence theory used in the corporate environment, and how the excellence theory develop into global theory. The author followed the role of public relations in organizational decision-making, the symmetrical model of public relations, public relations measurement, and how the structure and environment of organizations shape public relations behavior. The author also do a critic to other author‘s opinion about the excellence theory.

            First of all, the author explain definition about excellence theory. They define excellence as a set of characteristics of a public relations function that were correlated with organizational effectiveness. Organizational effectiveness see as the goals that organization achieved chosen by consultation with stakeholder, goals that served interest both of organization and strategic constituencies. Excellence theory now called as a theory public relation as a strategic management function. Public relation as a strategic management role is managing communication with top managers and with publics to contribute to the strategic decision processes of organizations and also build relationship with the public that likely to affect the behavior of the organization.

            The authors use two approaches, the symbolic interpretative paradigm and strategic management or behavioral paradigm. Symbolic paradigm generally assume that
public relations strives to influence how publics interpret the organization. The behavioral, strategic management, paradigm focuses on the participation of public relations executives in strategic decision-making to help manage the behavior of organizations. Situation theory of publics is the origin of strategic management or behavioral paradigm. This theory explains that people are most likely to seek information that is relevant to decision making situations in their lives. (Grunig & Grunig, 2008). The situational theory developed into a tool to segment stakeholders into publics, to isolate the strategic publics with whom it is most important for organizations to develop relationships in order to be effective, and to plan different strategies for communicating with publics whose communication behaviors range from active to passive (J. Grunig, 1997). The categories of stakeholders are stakeholders are employees, customers, investors, the community, government, members of associations and non-profit organizations, the media, and donors to non-profit organizations.

           J. Grunig brought concept publics, organizational theory and decision-making, models of public relations, evaluation of public relations, and research on employee communication to the project of excellence theory to his research in AT&T. He used qualitative method by interviewing heads of public relation, other public relations practitioners, and CEOs. There are characteristics of excellence public relation function which every function consist of several characteristic: empowerment of the public relation functions, communicator roles, organization of the communication function and its relationship to other management functions, and model of public relations.

            There are concepts and tools related to the strategic management role of public relations development; environmental scanning, publics, scenario building, relationship cultivation strategies, interactions of relationship and reputations, Development of an ethical framework for public relations practitioners to use as they participate in strategic management, empowerment of public relations function, specialized areas of public relations, global public strategy and global strategy.

            For future research of public relations, the authors really hope that public relation not understood as a symbolic, interpretative but can be understood as strategic management function.

Bibliography

Grunig, J. E., & Grunig, L. A. (2008). Excellence 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.