AN EVALUATION OF THE USE OF PUBLIC RELATIONS
BY CORPORATE ORGANIZATIONS IN OWERRI, IMO STATE
CHAPTER
ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1 BACKGROUND TO THE STUDY
Public relations (PR)
is a promotional tool for information, communication and persuasion. It deals
with reputation management. The First World Assembly of Public Relations
Associations in Mexico defined public relations as “the art and social science
of analyzing trends, predicting their consequences, counseling organizational
leaders, and implementing planned programmes of action which will serve both
the organization and the public interest” (Newsom, Turk & Scott, 2000, p.
2).
In a document entitled
“What is Public Relations?” quoted in Tench and Yeomans (2006) the Chartered
Institute of Public Relations, London, defined PR as “the deliberate, planned
and sustained effort to establish and maintain goodwill and mutual
understanding between an organization and its publics” (p. 6).
Defining PR in terms of
its effects on society, Maloney (2000) refers to it as “a category of
persuasive communications done through the mass media or through private
lobbying by groups to advance their material or ideological interest” (p. 65).
Commenting
on the use of PR, Seitel (1987) says that “public relations may be used in the
marketing plan to realize a number of objectives such as publicizing a company and
its products, introducing new or improved products” (p. 242).
Stressing the
importance of PR, Okigbo (1995) states categorically that
“modern advertising is not complete without public relations” (p.222).
Lending support to the
authors quoted above, Nwosu and Nkamnebe (2006) state that:
For theoretical and
practical purposes, the modern advertising practitioner must understand and
apply public relations strategies in various aspects of his job for greater
efficacy in a market or business world in which the consumer or customer (human
beings) are becoming more and more powerful, critical, questioning, demanding
and sophisticated. The public interest, image, goodwill, mutual understanding,
consensus building, relationship building, and subtle or gentle approach
orientation of public relations of today get and keep more customers for their
companies or clients by first winning and keeping their hearts. (p.81) Unfortunately, however, there
has been so
much misconception about public relations.
This misconception arises
from ignorance of what public relations is all about.
This ignorance of the
concept of public relations is rampant, even among corporate executives, to the
extent that some corporate chieftains do not know that PR plays crucial role towards
the attainment of corporate objectives. Reacting to this ugly situation,
Bankole (2008) lamented as follows:
It is disheartening… to
hear corporate executives talk down on public relations people. You hear such
comments like: “what exactly are public relations functions in an
organization?” or “How does public relations job fit into our corporate goal of
maximizing profit?” (p.21).
This ignorance of the
concept of public relations has brought about some undesirable consequences
such as: Some chief executives use their public relations officers as mere
errand boys.
Some organizations
appoint non-professionals to head their public relations departments.
Some corporate
organizations do not incorporate public relations into their marketing
strategies while others do not apply public relations in pursuit of their
corporate objectives.
Despite the crucial
role of public relations in promoting and projecting positive corporate image
for corporate organizations, many corporate organizations do not appropriate
these powers of PR. This study is an attempt to evaluate the extent to which PR
is used by corporate organizations in Imo State.
1.3
OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY
The purpose of this
study is to evaluate the use of public relations by corporate organizations in
Imo State. Specifically, the study seeks to:
Examine the PR
activities of various organizations, Find
out the objectives of such PR activities, Identify the extent to which the organizations
use PR, and Find out the factor
responsible for the lack of public relations awareness among some corporate
executives.
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