Public relations

Journal of Communication ISSN 0021-9916

Book Reviews

Public relations as relationship management. A relational approach to the study and practice of public relations Eyun-Jung Ki, Jeong-Nam Kim, & John A. Ledingham Routledge, 2015 $175.00 (hard), $59.95 (paper), pp. 274

In Public Relations as Relationship Management, the editors, Ki, Kim, and Ledingham offer a comprehensive overview of the most recent research on relationship in public relations literature. The central arguments of the book are that relationship matters for the achievement of organizational goals and that public relations can provide important and valuable support in relationship management, beyond image/impression management via communications. This edited book is one of the few books that compiles and discusses the main academic knowledge, theories, and models in organization–public relationship. It targets students, public relations scholars, and practitioners who are interested in relationship management. While the book is a second edition of a title published in 2000 by one of the editors (Ledingham) and Bruning, its contents are far from a simple update of the first edition. The first edition of the book was structured into three thematic sections: Section I presented and discussed the development of theory and status of research within the relational approach; Section II presented some of the possible

applications of the relational approach to specific public relations subareas, such as crisis and issue management and employee and global relations; and Section III offered some points of reflection on the implications of the relational approach in public relations. The second edition retains a similar structure with three thematic sections, but it presents an updated review of the evolution of relationship theory based on recent studies (Section I), offers an expansion of organization–public relationship theory (Section II), and discusses the relational approach and its application in light of the important role played by culture, globalization, and new technologies in public relations (Section III). The two editions thus complement each other and should both be read to have a complete understanding of public relations’ body of knowledge on relationship. One of this book’s primary contributions consists in condensing the findings of empirical investigations into specific topics that cover questions of high interest to management, such as reputation, image, organizational identification and loyalty, stakeholder satisfaction, etc. Another significant contribution is the systematic presentation of major factors and variables influencing the development of relationships. The first two chapters review existing literature on public relations and relationship management and offer valuable reflections on the limits of current research by suggesting important venues for future research. The

Journal of Communication 66 (2016) E15–E18 © 2016 International Communication Association

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Book Reviews

Book Reviews

authors do not shy away from making explicit that it is the organization perspective that is discussed for the most part in past scholarly works. Consequently, there is an overpowering concern for providing precise relational constructs, strategies, and measures, as most of the existing studies are about defining and redefining levels, dimensions, antecedents, strategies, and outcomes for mutual and beneficial relations between organizations and their key publics with a number of studies focusing on mediating and moderating variables. Yet, given the complexity of relationship as a human phenomenon at the best scholars are able to isolate and control a limited amount of variables in their studies, thus missing the ability to account for the synergic nature that different aspects can have on relationship formation, maintenance, and termination. Section I concludes with a conceptual discussion by one of the major contributors in relationship research, Ledingham, on the value of a holistic approach in relationship management. Borrowing from management and organizational studies, Ledingham explains how fundamental management style and organizational culture are for building and maintaining relationships with publics. Despite the fact that communication plays a central role in the formation of relationships, communication is barely treated as a subject of its own in this book. Dialogue and two-way symmetrical communications are two of the most used terms to explain how relationships are nourished; however, their definitions appear to be taken for granted. Indeed, the chapters address for the most part the concerns of management, E16

that is, how to prove the added value of public relations activities concerning relationship management to organizational goals. Such focus situates the contribution of this publication at the crossroads between communication and management studies. Section II is perhaps the section where the organizational centric approach is predominant and where a reader can find one of the main contributions of the book. The first three chapters concern the contribution of relationship management for organizational reputation and organizational identification by showing the effects of relationships on reputation and vice versa, and on institutional affiliation, behavioral intent, and evaluations of satisfaction. Furthermore, Yang and Cha’s chapter offers a framework that links organization–public relationships with organizational reputation. The other chapters examine specific cases of relationship management when dealing with activists shareholders, for lobbying and risk management purposes. Section III offers a selection of empirical and conceptual contributions dealing with—what the editors defined—emergent perspectives in public relations. Two chapters present the findings of existing global public relations studies and discuss how value orientations embedded in specific cultures can affect relationship building strategies and perceptions in Chinese and Korean cultures. The third chapter by Dutta and Kumar is the only contribution that takes a nonorganizational perspective by focusing on activists’ groups and their use of public relations to seek relationships with corporations as a form of


Book Reviews

resistance and of being listened to by otherwise disfranchised corporations. This chapter provides a critical review of public relations’ mainstream concern of meeting management and organizational expectations and offers suggestions for future research dealing with relationship as resistance, but a reader may remain somehow disappointed by the lack of specific knowledge on activists’ use of public relations strategies and tactics. The last three chapters concern the use of new technologies, such as social media, for the development and cultivation of new forms of relationships, in university settings, and for community building purposes. Among the strengths of this edited book, one can surely note that the contributions draw insights from a great variety of literature such as interpersonal communication, psychology, marketing, organizational, and cultural studies, to name a few. Yet, there is an overwhelming agreement among the authors of the different contributions that public relations is a management function dealing with the cultivation of relationships with those publics that are considered important for the functioning of an organization, and that relationships are the results of two-way symmetrical communications. By strategically focusing on legitimizing public relations’ relational function for organizational goals, the edited book foregoes the chance to take into account critical views that are paramount for a genuine and comprehensive understanding of a relational approach in public relations. If we, in fact, exclude Dutta and Kumar’s chapter, the conceptualizations, theory, and frameworks of relationship proposed in this book

Book Reviews

primarily rely on a sender perspective, that is, as an activity that is initiated, maintained, and terminated by an organization. Relationships are depicted as positive acts of organization–public interactions, yet, the edited book leaves us with a number of questions such as whether and how relationships can possibly form between an abstract entity such as an organization and its publics (cf. Coombs & Holladay, 2014)? How do we deal with nonlinear, dyadic relationships where organizations are not the hub in the relationship process, but only one of the actors among others (cf. Heath, 2013; Rittenhofer & Valentini, 2015; Valentini, Kruckeberg, & Starck, 2012)? What is the actual role of communication in developing mutual and beneficial relationship processes? And how does communication discursively construct a relationship and provide relational meanings in a relationship process? Despite the questions that the book leaves unanswered, the book is one of the most systematic and updated collections of public relations scholarship dealing with the relational approach from an organizational perspective that has been currently published. Chiara Valentini Aarhus University

[Correction made after online publication February 18, 2016: Author’s affiliation has been updated] References Coombs, T. W., & Holladay, S. (2014). Public relations’ “relationship identity” in research: Enlightenment or illusion.


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Book Reviews

Book Reviews

An alternative approach. Journal of Public Relations Review. doi:10.1016/ Communication Management, 19(1), j.pubrev.2013.12.008. 2–19. Heath, R. (2013). The journey to understand Valentini, C., Kruckeberg, D., & Starck, K. and champion OPR takes many roads, (2012). Public relations and community: some not yet well traveled. Public A persistent covenant. Public Relations Relations Review, 39(5), 426–431. Review, 38(5), 873–879. Rittenhofer, I., & Valentini, C. (2015). A “practice turn” for global public relations:

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