in partnership with someone/something: The festival is being supported by the county council in partnership with local businesses
3. Reading
Reading 5.1.
Read the text “Line and Staff Functions” and answer these questions.
1.What is the difference between a line and staff function?
2.What levels of influence do PR departments have?
3.Why is a compulsory-advisory role within an organization a good one for a public relations department to have?
Line and Staff Functions
Traditional management theory divides an organization into line and staff functions. A line manager, such as a vice-president of manufacturing, can delegate authority, set production goals, hire employees, and directly influence the work of others. Staff people, in contrast, have little or no direct authority. Instead, they indirectly influence the work of others through suggestions, recommendations, and advice.
According to accepted management theory, public relations is a staff function. Public relations people are experts in communication: line managers, including the chief executive officer, rely on them to use their skills in preparing and processing data, making recommendations, and executing communication programs to implement the organization’s policies.
Although public relations departments can function only with the approval of top management, there are varying levels of influence that departments may exert.
On the lowest level, the staff function may be only advisory: line management has no obligation to take recommendations or even request them.
When public relations is purely advisory, it is often not effective. A good example is the Alaska oil-spill crisis. Exxon generated a great deal of public, legislative, and media criticism because public relations was relegated to a low level and was, for all practical purposes, nonexistent.
Johnson & Johnson, on the other hand gives public relations staff function higher status. The Tylenol crisis, in which seven persons died after taking capsules containing cyanide, clearly showed that the company based much of its reaction and quick recall of the product on the advice of public relations staff. In this case, public relations was in a compulsory-advisory position.
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Under the compulsory-advisory concept, organization policy requires that line, managers (top management) at least listen to the appropriate staff experts before deciding on a strategy. Although such a procedure does not limit the manager’s decision-making discretion, it ensures that the manager has made use of the specialized talents of the appropriate staff agency.
Another level of advisory relationship within an organization is called concurring authority. For instance, an operating division wishing to publish a brochure cannot do so unless the public relations department approves the copy and layout. If differences arise, the parties must agree before work can proceed. Many firms use this mode to prevent departments and divisions from disseminating materials not in conformity with company standards.
Concurring authority, however, may also limit the freedom of the public relations departments. Some companies have a policy that all employee magazine articles and external news releases must be reviewed by the legal staff before publication. The material cannot be disseminated until legal and public relations personnel have agreed upon what will be said. The situation is even more limiting on public relations when the legal department has command authority to change a news release with or without the consent of public relations. This is one reason that newspaper editors find some news releases so filled with “legalese” as to be almost unreadable.
(Wilcox, Dennis L., et al. Essentials of Public Relations. New York: Longman., 2001. P. 78)
Reading 5.2.
Read the text “Sources of Friction” and answer these questions.
1.What four areas of the organization cause the most potential for friction with public relations? Explain.
2.In your opinion, should public relations or human resources be responsible for employee communications?
3.Public relations people express a fear that they will lose influence and be relegated to purely technical functions if they are controlled by the marketing department. Do you think their fears are justified? Why or why not?
Sources of Friction
Ideally, public relations is part of the managerial subsystem. It is the management of communication between an organization and its publics. However other staff functions are also involved in the communication process with internal and external publics. And, almost invariably, friction occurs. The four areas of possible friction are legal, human resources, advertising, and marketing.
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Legal The legal staff is concerned about the possible effect of any public statement on current or potential litigation. Consequently lawyers often frustrate public relations personnel by taking the attitude that any public statement can potentially be used against the organization in a lawsuit. Conflicts over what to release and when often have a paralyzing effect on decision-making, causing the organization to seem unresponsive to public concerns. This is particularly true in a crisis, when the public demands information immediately.
Human Resources The traditional personnel department has now evolved into the expanded role of “human resources,” and there are often turf battles over who is responsible for employee communications. Public relations administrators counter that satisfactory external communications cannot be achieved unless effective employee relations are conducted simultaneously. Layoffs, for example, affect not only employees but community and investor relations.
Advertising Advertising and public relations departments often collide because they compete for funds to communicate with external audiences. Philosophical differences also arise. Advertising’s approach to communications is, “Will it increase sales?” Public relations asks, “Will it make friends?” These differing orientations frequently cause breakdown in coordination of overall strategy.
Marketing Marketing like advertising, tends to think only of customers or potential buyers as key publics. Public relations, on the other hand, defines “publics” in a broader way – any group that can have an impact on the operations of the organization. These publics include governmental agencies, environmental groups, neighbourhood groups, and a host of other “publics” that marketing would not consider “customers.”
Logic dictates that an organization needs a coordinated and integral approach to communications strategy. The following suggestions may help to achieve this goal:
1.Representatives of departments should serve together on key committees to exchange information on how various programs can complement each other to achieve overall organizational objectives.
2.Heads of departments should be equals in job titles. In this way, the autonomy of one department is not subverted by another.
3.All department heads should report to the same superior, so that all viewpoints can be considered before an appropriate strategy is formulated.
4.Informal, regular contacts with representatives of other departments help dispel mindsets and create understanding and respect for each other’s viewpoint.
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5. Written policies should be established to spell out the responsibilities of each department. Such policies are helpful in settling disputes over which department has authority to communicate with employees or alter a news release.
(Wilcox, Dennis L., et al. Essentials of Public Relations. New York: Longman., 2001. P. 78)
Reading 5.3.
Read the text “Structure of a Counseling Firm” and answer these questions.
1.What is the typical structure of a public relations firm?
2.What is the PR firm’s upper management involved in?
3.What position do recent graduates usually start with? What are their functions”?
Structure of a Counseling Firm
A small public relations firm may consist only of the owner (president) and an assistant (vice-president), supported by a secretary. Larger firms have a more extended hierarchy.
The organization of Ketchum Public Relations / San Francisco is fairly typical. The president is based in the New York office of Ketchum Public Relations, so the executive vicepresident in on-site director in San Francisco. A senior vice-president is associate director of operations. Next in line are several vice-presidents who primarily do account supervision or special projects.
An account supervisor is in charge of one major account or several ones. An account executive, who reports to the supervisor, is in direct contact with the client and handles most of the day-to-day activity. At the bottom of the list is the assistant accountant executive, who does routine maintenance work compiling media lists, gathering information, and writing rough drafts of news releases.
Recent college graduates usually start as assistant account executives. Once they learn the firm’s procedures and show ability, promotion to account executive may occur within six to eighteen months. After two or three years, it is not uncommon for an account executive to become an account supervisor.
Executives at or above the vice-presidential level are usually heavily involved in selling their firm’s services. In order to prosper, a firm must continually seek new business and sell additional services to current clients. Consequently, the upper management of the firm calls on prospective clients, prepares proposals, and makes new business presentations. In this very competitive field, a firm not adept at selling itself frequently fails.
Firms frequently organize account teams, especially to serve a client whose program is multifaceted. One member of the team, for example, may set up a nationwide media tour in which
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