Editor’s essay: Reflecting on OPR research

Ferguson’s (1984) call for a paradigm shift in public relations research, namely to focus on relationships themselves as the unit of analysis rather than the individuals and entities engaged in those relationships, ranks among the most influential pieces of scholarship in our field – so much so that previous editor-in-chief Bey-Ling Sha requested a 2018 reprint in this journal. Ferguson’s (2018) piece is by far the most cited manuscript published in the Journal of Public Relations Research over the past five years, a testament to her idea’s lasting legacy.

Ferguson’s (1984, 2018) work is the foundation stone of the organizational-public relationship paradigm, a bedrock of public relations scholarship for at least the past two decades. Ledingham and colleagues were among the earliest to intensely push this construct forward and the first to codify a general theory of relationship management. Ledingham and Bruning (1998) defined an OPR as “the state which exists between an organization and its key publics in which the actions of either entity impact the economic, social, political and/or cultural well-being of the other entity” (p. 62). Ledingham (2003) would later propose 14 axioms of OPRs, among them that such relationships are transactional; dynamic; goal oriented; governed by expectations of parties involved; driven by those parties needs and wants; and nurtured/fostered by several factors, including communication.

The number of published OPR studies in this journal – as well as related outlets like Public Relations Review, Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly, and Journal of Communication Management – seems to have grown exponentially. Hon and Grunig’s (1999) widely utilized scale for measuring OPR quality has been particularly impactful here, allowing scholars to assess this key construct and study it across various sectors and in relation to numerous antecedent, dependent, moderating, and mediating variables.

In short, OPR has been a game changer for our field … but perhaps not to the degree we often perceive. As Fawkes (2015) argues, though OPR was perhaps a revolutionary conception, our approach to studying OPR in many ways represents an evolution of the existing excellence paradigm. We can certainty appreciate that point, especially considering that:

• In her foundational work, Ferguson (2018) stated that “[J. E.] Grunig’s (1983) notions of directions of communication (one-way vs. two-way) and degree of symmetry (asymmetric vs. symmetric) will be essential to understanding public relationships” (p. 172).

• In building his general theory of relationship management, Ledingham (2003) framed his approach explicitly in the symmetrical worldview, stating that the “symmetrical model advanced by J. E. Grunig and Hunt (1984) shifted the emphasis from manipulation to the notion of benefit for both organization and interacting publics, primarily through communication” (p. 194). Within that context, he grounded relationship management theory as follows: “Effectively managing organizational-public relationships around common interests and shared goals, over time, results in mutual understanding and benefit for interacting organizations and publics” (p. 190, emphasis ours).

• In discussing their OPR measures, Hon and Grunig (1999) repeatedly reference the IABC Excellence study, ultimately concluding that the “most productive relationships in the long run are those that benefit both parties in the relationship [i.e., symmetrical] rather that those designed to benefit the organization only [i.e., asymmetrical]” (p. 11, emphasis original). Indeed, two of the six constructs they proposed – control mutuality (which catalogs balances of power) and communal relationship (which reflects concern for the other party’s welfare) – explicitly speak to symmetrical values.

Now to be clear, we are not claiming that couching OPR within a traditionally post-positivist, strategic management, symmetrically oriented, excellence worldview is somehow inherently wrong. However, we do feel it has been potentially restrictive insofar as it may bound relationship-focused scholarship to that established paradigm, often in ways that are subtle, unnoticed, and unintentional. We also feel that the articles appearing in this issue of JPRR directly push against these and related boundaries, and as a result significantly expand our understanding of OPR, treading on fresh and fertile research ground.

Dong and Morehouse’s lead article in this issue explores relationship theory within a symmetrical worldview (at least in our estimation). However, it seeks to address the limitations of the traditional excellence/symmetrical approach by centering government-public relationship management – and by extension, OPRs more generally – in an ethic of care. More specifically, they answer Cheng’s (2018) call to further justify mutual benefit as cornerstone of relationship management.

Historically, a deontological ethic has been the go-to within the excellence paradigm, and that perspective has therefore extended to OPR studies (Bowen, 2004, 2005; Bowen et al., 2016; J. E. Grunig, 2006; L. A. Grunig et al., 2002; L. A. Grunig & Toth, 2006; Lee & Cheng, 2010). But several scholars have suggested that alternative ethical approaches might be as fruitful – if not more so – in advancing public relations theory (Browning, 2015, 2018; L’Etang, 2003; Plaisance, 2015; Roper, 2005; Stoker & Tusinski, 2006).

Dong and Morehouse’s application of care ethics to OPR research offers a prime example of such growth. In general, Enlightenment era ethics – which include deontology – constitute liberal, Western views of justice that prize autonomy and rationality in decision making (Alexander & Moore, 2021). In the context of OPR, these approaches may be ill-fitted to offering a true relational ethic because they tend to focus either on the individuals comprising the relationship (e.g., deontology), or the norms of the society in which the relationship exists (e.g., contractualism), rather than on the relationship itself.

Relying on care ethics, Dong and Morehouse’s piece broadens our understanding of relationship management by allowing us to focus on the relationship as the unit of analysis, as Ferguson (1984, 2018) originally proposed almost 40 years ago. While care ethics has previously been applied to public relations in diverse areas such as crisis (Fraustino & Kennedy, 2018), corporate social responsibility (Harrison, 2021), and nonprofit communication (Formentin & Bortree, 2018), scholarship in this vein still remains in its relative infancy. To our minds, Dong and Morehouse push us drastically forward, offering a substantial contribution by injecting the principles of care into the cornerstone concept(s) of OPR.

Drawing on seminal works by feminist philosophers such as Carol Gilligan, Nel Noddings, Virginia Held, and Joan Tronto, Dong and Morehouse describe care ethics as inherently relational. Indeed, by shifting the focus away from autonomy, universality, and rationality toward interdependence, context, and a mutual desire for each party to “meet that other as one-caring” (Noddings, 1995, p. 15), they establish a moral significance for the relationship itself, not just for those entities operating within it. Their seven-part model suggests openness, access, empathy, listening, flexibility, and prioritizing publics’ decision quality competency as strategies to maintain or improve relational quality.

To this point, the astute reader will notice that we’ve talked about relationship management only in the context of dyads. And there’s a reason: OPR literature is sorely deficient in studies that focus on multi-party relationships, which likely represent the majority of scenarios practitioners regularly face (Cheng, 2018). Atwell Seate et al.’s piece, the second article in this issue, fills this critical void in the extant OPR literature by delving into multi-party OPRs. In one of the seminal pieces of OPR research, Hon and Grunig (1999) elaborated on the multi-party nature of OPRs:

In public relations, the most obvious example of a strategic relationship occurs when an organization affects a public or a public affects an organization. But, other forms of relationships also occur. Organizations typically face multiple publics with different interests and conflicting goals. (p. 12, emphasis ours)

Nonetheless, the majority of the existing OPR research has examined only dyadic relationships between an organization and a public, often a public of general consumers (e.g., Browning et al., 2019; Yang, 2007). Atwell Seate et al. takes an important step in advancing the OPR research by operationalizing OPRs as a constellation of networked relationships, in this specific case focusing on the multiple, intertwined publics of the U.S. National Weather Service. Methodologically, Atwell Seate et al. also make a significant contribution by employing a multi-sited, rapid ethnography to explore relational tensions in the OPRs and the role of communication in resolving such strains.

It has been nearly four decades since Ferguson (1984) called for a paradigm shift in public relations research. Yet, much of the OPR literature, including our own research (e.g., Browning et al., 2019; Yang, 2007), has been limited in the ways we elaborated on above: It typically relies on self-reported surveys or other forms of quantitative research to examine only one party within a dyadic relationship, often consumers or employees. While this research has contributed to the body of knowledge in public relations theory and practice, we are long overdue in breaking out of our comfort zones to further develop OPR research. The aforementioned articles in the current issue set good examples of how we can do just that.